Outsourced to Charles Pierce (boldface mine):

We cannot have a viable self-government as designed by the Founders if daily economic pressures prevent the exercise of political rights, or conspire to exact too great a personal cost to their exercise. We cannot have a political commonwealth if economic inequality inculcates in the general population a feeling that their government is distant, beyond their control, and the property primarily of someone else. There is something of a stirring around these simple facts that has penetrated even the walls of the Vatican, which is a lot of things, but self-governing is not one of them. Small wonder that it has come to the attention of a twice-elected president. He has gone out of his way to out this issue on the table right at the time when a well-financed “centrist” backlash has been building against politicians who are talking openly about how income inequality was deliberately engineered, and about who engineered it and on whose behalf.

But, as we often say around here, faith without works, Mr. President. For example, the egregious Trans-Pacific Partnership is coming down the fast track. You can’t find a better example of something aimed at enriching the people, and empowering the forces, that deliberately have engineered income inequality, or a better example of who engineered it and on whose behalf.

This should also be the primary argument for increasing the minimum wage.