The original intent of minimum wage was to ensure that an individual would be paid fairly for his/her work and be able to afford the basic cost of living regardless of education, training, etc. Unfortunately, minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living and no longer provides employees a fair pay.
Many argue that raising minimum wage to a "living wage" would burden business owners and cause job opportunities to plummet. This may be true for small businesses and I suggest incentives to help them with this change, but big corporations make 300 times more than their average employee and can easily afford to pay them a better wage.
Requiring a living wage would also alleviate the strain on government programs that have to pick up the slack for low wages. Demand fair pay.