I have a much better idea. Rather than simply paying low skilled workers more out of munificence or noblesse oblige.
That is to lower the cost of regulatory compliance for business by slashing the morass of burdensome regulation, and by cutting taxes on business, and by reducing energy costs for the entire economy by slashing burdensome regulation against drilling and fracking. At the same time we can raise tariffs steadily on chronic cheats like China. We can also secure the border and stop the flood of cheap labor from constantly pouring in.
With reduced business costs, businesses can then afford to pay American level wages to American workers as they bring a lot of production back home. This in turn lifts a lot of people out of poverty and helps put working class people struggling to pay their bills firmly in the middle class. It also reduces the deaths of despair such as drug overdoses and suicides caused by hopelessness among people formerly in the working/middle class. It also enhances national security by bolstering our manufacturing capability and restoring our energy independence.
Y’know......the Trump plan. That’s what works. Do that.
BINGO!
But that would involve actual work without increasing government power, and the political class would rather dangle the $15/hour shiny object instead.
Exactly! Get government out of the mix. The founders would be sickened at what people put with government-intrusion-wise.