By growing the income, you mean growing their productivity so they make more money.<p>Rising minimum wage and reducing hours does the exact opposite.  Decreasing a tax burden is a good idea - but decreasing the tax burden on everyone.<p>&#x27;Tax the rich&#x27; while a popular strategy to single out a minority group, is ultimately a useless strategy as there aren&#x27;t enough rich people to tax, and they already disproportionally pay more than anyone else.<p>The UK dabbled in extremely high investment taxes at 98%.  I think this would fall under your &#x27;tax the rich&#x27; proscription.  The unfortunate side effect was that investment was virtually stopped overnight and the country stopped growing GDP for two whole years, making everyone significantly poorer and destroying many industries and companies.<p>Unfortunately I read this type of comment frequently, and they all fall into the trap of the &#x27;daddy model of wealth&#x27; : <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;paulgraham.com&#x2F;gap.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;paulgraham.com&#x2F;gap.html</a><p>But not all is lost, you did suggest that middle class income is key, understanding that productivity is the key to income growth is the key to that.  However, cutting hours and increasing pay are the exact opposite to increasing productivity.