Even with this increase, the minimum wage is not what it used to be. This minimum-wage increase (to $5.85 by the end of the summer, and eventually to $7.25 some time in 2009) still won't restore the buying power that minimum-wage workers have lost over the decades.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, the $2.65 minimum wage of 1978 is equivalent to $8.40 today.

-- Ellen Smith

The idea that the minumum wage has for a long time been far less than what a person needs to survive is admitting that we don't give a damn about people or poverty.

The current minimum wage raises people up to just a notch above slavery. They can't get ahead. They're children are pretty much doomed to be poor too, and many of these people turn to crime or grow hostile towards a culture that refuses to acknowledge people who work hard, yet get paid dirt for their labor.

The minumum wage ought to be at least $10 an hour now. It's cruel to expect anyone to live on less.

Yeah but...actually paying your employees a living wage, as opposed to moving your operation to China so you can pay them 10 cents per day, isn't the American way!! The Walton family told us so...What are you suggesting, you godless Communist?