Raising the minimum wage to a paltry $7-something an hour is ridiculous. A minimum wage which is less than a living wage keeps the middle class in the position of supporting the underpaid so that business-owners can continue to reap obscene profits, & a business which can't sustain itself while paying a living wage is an exploiter, not an employer.

Tying tax-rates for those in the uppermost brackets would automatically lead to decent wages for workers, since the minimum would then determine the highest incomes. For example, all personal income in excess of 3 times the minimum wage would be taxed at an 85% rate, all personal income exceeding 4 times the minimum would be subject to a 95% rate, & all income over 10 times the minimum would be taxed at 99%. Individual income between the minimum & the 3-times level would be taxed on a graduated basis.

Such a system would greatly diminish the greed factor without completely destroying incentives for those who are competitive, while comcomitantly redistributing wealth so that we might have a real democracy instead of a de facto oligarchy masquerading as an "everyone's vote counts" government, & America's unemployed could afford to take jobs currently being given to illegal aliens & third-world workers at slave wages.