>This is not about it being "morally wrong for the secretary in a medical office to be paid less" than the physician owner. It's about the secretary not getting appropriate wages in the first place.

Are you suggesting instituting wage price controls? Are you suggesting physicians, nationwide, are paying below market rates? Isn't it a contradiction to say it's below market rate when the market determined that the wage being paid is fair?

What sectors of business pay below poverty rates?

Has the standard of living been adjusted upwards over the last 20-30 years, with the development of technology, and widely available affordable energy?

>you might want to take a closer look at what poverty is actually like in America.

Teen/single mother pregnancy is the best predictor of poverty. What better example of a bad decision than to have sexual intercourse out of wedlock resulting in pregnancy? It was voluntary, yet it was a decision that can change the rest of her life for the worse. Is single mother pregnancy caused by people with bad morals?