Raise the minimum wage.

Same to you :) "OK, this is a [fair] point, but in a free market system prices from other competitors are linked so other farmers would raise prices as well so that, as you pointed out below, the corporations (or anyone who buys farm food) don't fire the farmers they employ and turn to them because they have lower prices. They don't want [people] to see their prices, then ask them for a large amount of farm food where they cannot make a profit. So just because the farmer who supplies McDonalds doesn't supply other places. Doesn't mean the other farmers won't raise their prices as well. " I don't quite understand what you're trying to say here? I don't think it quite turned out as coherent as was intended. From what I understood (and forgive me if my interpretation is wrong), you are putting way too much of an emphasis on the power and motivation of the farmer. The fact of the matter is the farmer probably won't feel a raise is necessary enough to demand for one, and even if he did, there are tens of thousands of farmers in America--too many to assimilate and motivate into one huge wage strike. If a farmer really needed money that desperately, he could get an agricultural subsidy. "Also, Pro has not responded to my point that the $1.5 million surplus wont help. " It was a $1.5 BILLION surplus, but I didn't respond because it didn't make much sense. What do you think that money goes to if not towards enriching the franchises? "This is a good point, but it is a harsh generalization. It is rather pessimistic and requires the assumption that all corporations are greedy and power-hungry, plowing through everyone in their path without a care in the world. " Corporations are inherently greedy and power-hungry, seeing as they have no choice but to be. Their ultimate goal is to receive a profit and they will do this however possible; that's just the essence of capitalism. "Yes, but still, if those people were calculated in, it would still not come even near as close to the number you originally gave. That should prove that minimum wage does not significantly affect poverty, so this point by Pro is irrelevant. " Do you know what a private sector job is? Private sector jobs make up around 80% of all jobs (1), so if you factor in those people it would give quite a change, actually. "OK, sure Center for Economic and Policy Research sounds like an official or at least professional organization, but it's not. While run out of D. C. it's a non-profit left-leaning. .. group. Since the left wants increased minimum wage it would make since they would report things that would favor it. " I'm not sure what your point was in this. Is it suddenly not okay for those who want an increased minimum wage to research facts to support it? "As stated earlier: if the minimum wage increases, so does every other hourly wage. The proof to back it up is simple economics. " If you think "simple economics" is going to back up that assertion, I would love to hear that theory. "So to assert that we need a $14/hr increase in the minimum wage, is saying that every single one of these 75 million people deserve a $14/hr raise. " I never said we should have a $22 minimum wage. What gave you that impression? "But, as stated above, minimum wage does not have much of an influence in this wealth 'inequality'. " I don't follow? I'm pretty sure having a low-paying job or being unemployed are what cause poverty and subsequently wealth inequality. The minimum wage being so low has a profound impact on the inequality of the distribution of wealth. "Not all minimum wage jobs are 8 hours work days. " Maybe not all minimum wage jobs, but 90% of workers say they work 40 hours a week or more (2). That's an eight hour work day. "The system we have now where we pay taxes and the government uses that to help the poor was not the original intent of the founding fathers. Time for a history lesson. America started with the Articles of Confederation. The AOC set up a system where everyone shared [everything] and no one owned property. The women had to wash everyone's clothes and the men had to do similar jobs for everyone. This system utterly failed. People were refusing to work and the system was crumbling. This sounds a lot like welfare. People giving up their "property" to help other people. But, like welfare, this system was failing. So the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, which set up the idea of personal property. Within a year they had so much money and food they threw a big party called Thanksgiving. The Constitution allowed for taxes to run the government, but that was it. It wasn't until the 1800s for the government to start giving out money. We need to stick to the original principles instead of chasing the wind and [accommodating] for everything. " What? First of all, the Articles of Confederation were never meant to be a permanent solution (3). It was proposed and supported by most of the delegates, including Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, to be a brief government for the American colonies after having declared independence from the British Empire. Its purpose was to unify the states, stabilize the country, and provide a small central government to sort of organize affairs. The problem with it wasn't whatever you described, it was the fact that Congress had no power, no ability to tax, trade, or regulate anything. The text of the Articles can be found at . http://www.let.rug.nl... if you want to read them for yourself. As for the Thanksgiving thing, pretty sure that was established in the 1860s by Abraham Lincoln. And funny how the government started giving out money around the time slavery ended. Sources: (1) . http://mercatus.org... (2) . http://www.washingtonpost.com... (3) . https://history.state.gov...