Raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation.
$7.25 an hour is not a living wage. Consider that most positions with minimum wage are also positions that refuse to make workers full-time employees: food service, retail, clerical, etc.
Even with full-time hours, minimum wage employment doesn't support a family; it hardly supports an individual's costs of living (food, shelter, bills, debt acrued in bad economic times).
Our economy would benefit if minimum wage were adjusted for previous inflation and fixed to raise with it each year. Higher income means more spending, which in turn boosts the economy and raises people and families out of poverty.
If all businesses are forced to pay more for labor, they can't claim it makes them less competitive. Everybody pays, everybody adjusts.