Yup, raising minimum wage too high won't get more people working.
Going back on the gold standard would be massively deflationary and would cause a massive constriction of the economy.
As to the lawn mowing, won't all the kids want riding mowers to make it easy, even if the lawn is the size of a postage stamp? That seems the case in most places these days.
Seems funny, we are still focusing on Appalachian poor people, wasn't that what LBJ was trying to fix in Great Society? Sure worked, huh? Same as it ever was, and nothing but complaining from West Virginia and those places, like its all someone else's fault.