The problem of income inequality in the United States is really three different problems. One is the concentration of income and wealth at the very top—the notorious 1 percent making more than about $250,000 a year. A second problem is the stagnating incomes of the middle class, in particular the lower–middle class: those with family income of about $32,000 to $50,000 a year. The third problem is poverty: the 15 percent of Americans—or about 46 million people—earning less than the poverty line of about $23,500 a year, which is the government’s estimate of the minimum amount needed to feed, clothe, and house a family of four.

In terms of importance, it seems to me, the problem of poverty comes first. When people actually don’t have enough to eat, you’ve got an emergency on your hands. Next comes the middle class, where no one is starving, but the American promise of steady improvement (the expectation that your children will live better than you did) is being betrayed.

Not trivial but least important is the problem of the rich getting richer. Many would say that’s hardly a problem. That it’s an achievement. And in some cases that’s true: Some people get rich in ways that add more to general prosperity than they take out. But others climb into the 1 percent in ways that don’t add to general prosperity. And if they don’t add enough to general prosperity to cover the amount they take away from it, then their share is coming out of everybody else’s.

Solving the problems of the poor and middle class will require a substantial contribution from the affluent—not just the top 1 percent, or even the top 10 percent, but the top 15 or 20 percent. But there’s no need to be vindictive about it. Affluent people should fork out a bit because they’ve been lucky, not because they’ve been evil. It only takes $50,000 a year or so to put you in the top half of income distribution in this country, so the upper–middle class can expect any serious readjustment of income distribution to cost them initially rather than benefit them.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. (In some states, and the District of Columbia, it’s a bit higher.) For a 40-hour week, 50 weeks a year, that’s $14,500, which is just over three-fifths of the minimum amount the government says you need to survive.