Who really funds the US Treasury?
It’s payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) that provide about 45% of the federal take, and the income taxes of the non-rich provide another 15% of the federal take.  The rich (top 10%) provide 30% of the annual federal receipts via income taxes and corporations finish off the totals by contributing about 10%.

What happened to sharing productivity gains with employees?
Nowadays, these gains are provided to the executives- and the employees are provided little, if any, benefit.

Do we need to change minimum wage?
First of all, that won’t really change how the middle class gets paid.  Oh, it may move the dial up a little, but if we want middle class wages to increase, we need to tax our corporations properly- so they don’t get incentives to move work overseas or to low cost areas.
But, we should assess each company that exceeds $2.5 million in revenue or 50 employees (whichever is lower) for the assistance the US government must provide its employees who are paid less than living wages.  The total amount shelled out for welfare, food stamps, medicare, child benefits, etc. (which only accrue to the poor or working poor) for their employees should be reimbursed to the Federal Treasury.  It will become obvious to the business it either pays better wages or pays back the subsidy that American citizens have been providing it so they enjoyed inflated profits.  That stops- now.
Worldwide corporate taxation.
In the US, companies pay taxes to each state in which they operate.  It’s governed by the multistate tax compact.  Basically, that means the company determines the percentage of payroll (compared to all states), percentage of revenue (compared to all states), and percentage of real estate rented or owned (compared to all states).  This is then averaged to determine what percentage of the state tax rate is due.  (If one operates in only one state, then it’s 100% for each of the three- or 100% of the state rate.)

This is exactly how corporations should be taxed on their worldwide business.  The percentage accrued to the US versus that of the rest of the world- and that blended percentage is that paid for the US tax rate that applies.  This will raise way too much money- so we can then lower the maximum rate from 35% to something closer to 1/2 that number.

My book has way more information than is briefly touched upon here.

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