While Congress and the White House wrangle over spending on infrastructure and social programs, the most pressing problem for the U.S. remains little acknowledged and unaddressed: Tens of millions of people work full time and can’t afford food, clothes, housing, health care and a proper education for their children.

Their struggle is sowing division, fanning political and social tensions and raising doubts in many Americans’ minds about the merits of capitalism and democracy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A living wage is attainable for everyone who works full time, but it will require business and government leaders to recognize the problem and work together to fix it, which many of them don’t seem eager to do.

Despite the chatter in corporate America about stakeholder capitalism and the importance of workers, about half of the employees of the biggest U.S. companies couldn’t support a family of four.

Huge numbers of Americans go to work every day and don’t earn a living. When I share the numbers in conversation, I’m often met with skepticism and amazement.

You don’t have to dig deep in the data to see that the U.S. economy isn’t working for everyone. In the first quarter, median weekly pay for the 112 million full-time workers was $989, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which amounts to $49,450 over a 50-week work year. For a single person living in, say, Nashville or a comparable city, that’s enough to cover the basics and even have a bit left over for entertainment or savings.

But remember that half of full-time workers — 56 million of them — earn less than the median, which in most cases isn’t enough to support one person in the most affordable places, never mind expensive coastal cities.

The math becomes trickier once children enter the picture. A single parent with one child would need about $10,000 a year more than the median income to get by in Nashville, and about $30,000 more in a pricier city such as Washington. Adding a nonworking spouse makes things harder, requiring about $20,000 a year more in Nashville and $40,000 in Washington.

Sure, government assistance could end up subsidizing labor costs for companies that can already afford to pay workers more, but that’s not new. Highly profitable companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc., McDonald’s Corp. and Home Depot Inc. routinely rely on taxpayers to sustain their workers.

If big, powerful companies insist on misusing government programs, it’s hard to stop them. Ultimately, a free market relies on good faith cooperation between public and private sectors, and nowhere is that more urgently needed than ensuring that all full-time workers earn a living wage.

While no solution is perfect, leaving workers to fend for themselves is not a credible option. Yes, wages have picked up recently, and perhaps they will self-correct. But that’s far from certain, and in the meantime, workers, families and the country’s social fabric are suffering.

Everyone who works full time should be able to afford the basic necessities of daily life. For the sake of individuals and families, companies, the economy and the whole country, business and government need to use their power to make sure every worker earns a living wage.

Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.