Minimum Wage

I remember when President Obama was running for election his first time that he promised to raise the minimum wage to $9.50.   And, of course, like most of his promises, it didn't happen.    Now, in his second term, he's lowered his request to just $9.00.
First of all, shouldn't the minimum wage be a States Right ?   Where does the government have the power to control wages ?   The real reason that this has become an issue isn't to help the poor, it's another way to buy votes from the ill informed.
Some states are "Right to Work" states; which means that everyone has the right to work for whatever wage they agree upon.
As an example, I know of several servers in restaurants in Texas whose wage is $2.13 an hour (state regulated).   They rely on tips and the best of them makes over $15 an hour with their tips.
By raising the minimum wage, you increase the price of labor which has to be passed down in increased prices to the consumer; or hire less people to do more work.   The intent is to "help" minimum wage earners ability to live better.   If their income increases and their cost of living then increases...they've gained nothing and everyone else loses.   Why stop at $9.00 per hour ?   Why not make it $20.00 per hour ?
The lazy and incompetent will remain that way while those that perform well will continue likewise.   I remember when I had a job with a guaranteed hourly rate.   Coming from a good work ethic, I went about my job doing the best that I could,   Very shortly, I was told to "slow down"  as I was making everyone else look bad, and if we worked more slowly, we could get overtime to finish our assignment.
The place where I saw the hard workers making more than the "slackers" was amongst people that work on commission, where they got paid according to their productivity.   This separates those that you'd have work for you from those that you'd fire.   Whole industries are based on this payment model (the insurance industry as an example).
Of course collective bargaining (unions) has its merits so that everyone doing the same job receives the same wage.  Unions are very controversial these days so I'll bypass the arguments for or against at this time.
We might fare better if the minimum wage was dropped to $3.00......not gonna happen.   Until Washington gets out of our lives and controlling our freedom of making a living, we will continue to have less of a chance to climb out of poverty or better ourselves.   The minimum wage argument is strictly another scheme in destroying the middle class.   The wealthy will always be wealthy and figure out more ways ti increase and keep their wealth, while the poor will always remain poor (with a very few exceptions) and the middle class will bear the brunt of both.