The New York state legislature is considering a bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $8.50 an hour. The current minimum wage in New York is $7.25 per hour, which, at a standard 2000 hours per year, works out to a pre-tax income of $14,500.

Today's minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, adjusted for inflation is lower than it was in 1968.

The Way We Live Now: Cursing the minimum wage laws. Curse you, minimum wage! Were it not for your harsh dictates, maybe we'd still have that part-time poverty-maintaining job down at the canning plant. Now all we have is Cash4Gold.