Economic stimulus like a minimum wage rise, is a short term economic boost. It cannot be used indefinitely, and over time its effect diminishes.
By this I mean, if you increase the wage of worker x from $4 to $6 there would a short term income boost, till worker x puts the acquired increase to economic use or inflation in terms of goods or services makes $6 worth less in what worker x can buy. Also having social-economic mobility increasing (through more higher income jobs available and a low unemployment rate), is required in order to get the full benefits of such an increase. In an extreme case, if you increased the minimum wage to $20 from $6.50, you would need to have a gradual trend of a diminishing size of the labor force in lower income jobs, low unemployment, alongside an increase in the size of the higher income groups like the middle class - as to not have downward pressures on labor costs or inflation issues.
If you shore up banks and businesses with bailouts and such, then for a limited period of time they are economically sound, but if the underlying problems in the management structure and investment decisions remain, then that too is only a short term fix - as many of the banks and other businesses will just collapse again. Certainly there is evidence to suggest nothing has really changed since the recession has happened, and all the problems are pretty much still there behind the scenes - though the property bubble is gone for now.