It was a long and cold winter in Washington, DC, in more ways than one. At the end of 2013, Congress allowed Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) to expire, leaving 1.3 million Americans who had been without work for more than six months suddenly cut off from their lifeline benefits. Unemployment benefits don't provide a lot – about $269 a week on average – but it is enough to put some food on the table, pay the most urgent bills, and hang on by your fingernails until work can be found. Without this support, many families are forced to drain their retirement accounts and sell their belongings. Some face homelessness.

Polls show that more than three-quarters of Americans support an increase in the minimum wage. Approximately 76 percent support raising the minimum wage to at least $9 an hour, and as many as 73 percent support an increase to $10.10, the minimum proposed in the Fair Minimum Wage Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA). That bill would raise the minimum wage over two and a half years and then peg future increases to inflation. Raising the minimum wage enjoys broad bipartisan support: when polled, 58 percent of Republicans expressed support for increasing the minimum wage to $9 per hour.

For the last 30 years, various political leaders have launched efforts to "Reinvent Government." Done in the name of making government more efficient, these initiatives have most often centered on reducing the size of the government workforce, by handing over to the for-profit sector services that have long been provided by government employees. The goal was to save money, but all too often, unintended consequences have included a troubling lack of accountability and deteriorating public services.