Waging War on Wages

In my mind, Smith would be in favor of the U.S. Minimum Wage Laws.  He talks a lot in this section about workforce and revenue of a nation resting on everyone's shoulders.  Everyone should be held accountable for working towards bettering a nation and paying for that betterment (even though this is all unequally shared among the people of that nation).  Specifically in the last little bit of his Wealth of Nations, he discusses how there should be a certain percentage of money taken away from everyone's pay to go towards the government.  This is all good, until we look at the actual salaries of the individuals.  Suppose we take ten percent out of everyone's paychecks for taxing and whatnot.  A person making less than seven dollars an hour can barely pay for food, housing and clothing after taxes are deducted.  Whereas, a person making over twenty dollars an hour will experience no problems in these areas.  If we did not have a minimum wage, people could continually be exploited for their hard work and labor AND continue to be taxed.  Unlike other thinkers of his time, Smith takes a happier approach to human nature and government.  Government is there to protect us with as little involvement as possible, but still SOME involvement.  Our taxes go towards our betterment, but why pay taxes to a government that is not going to establish laws to protect your income and "better us" in the first place?