You can't force the minimum wage up any more than you can push on a piece of string. While you can certainly change legislation to make the minimum wage a set value, there will be offsetting measures felt elsewhere, usually an increase in unemployment and a general drop in living standards for all. You can't force someone to employ you anymore than you can force someone to be your friend.

Once houses have finished correcting lots of people will be able to afford them. Housing affordability is headed towards the best it's ever been.

I agree that things are bad, but going down the road of trying to force a solution by means of restrictions, price controls and regulations will only make the problem worse.

As I've posted in the past, places like Detroit should be cordoned off and turned into special economic zones like Hong Kong is to China. There should be a very low tax rate, no trade restrictions with other countries, and many other regulations, taxes and boondoggles dropped. There should be no (or very low, say 3%, for Military use) federal taxes and in turn they should receive no handouts or participate in any programs from the Federal government.

Do that I can guarantee that in 10 years the place will be booming, employment will be high and things will be moving in the right direction. With somewhere like Detroit, it's time people started thinking outside the box and experimenting with some rollback of the last 100 years of policy.