Should laws regarding minimum wage (or the forty-hour work week) be revised?

To be completely honest with you I've never in my life as an employee worked for minimum wage.  How can anyone survive and actually live off that?  I have no idea how people do it.  Ive been fortunate enough to be a skilled carpenter and have worked in the building trades for years.  I have friends and family that today, make only minimum wage, and I see the struggles they go through.  We are all struggling in these times of economic crunch.  Jobs are virtually non existent.  If a particular person does however make minimum wage, I feel that they should be compensated for every second there working or clocked in; Time and a half for any second over forty hours only seems fair.  Actually its probably less then fair but employers should be giving  their employees there fair share for the time they put in at a certain job. I seriously think that we should definitely increase our minimum wage to at least the cost of living would $10.00 an hour be more accurate?  That's still bottom dollar, hard to make a living on, but can be managed.  All I can say is PLEASE VOTE  and vote Democratic.