The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, of $14,500 a year (although there are places where it is higher, see http://www.raisetheminimumwage. com/ pages/minimum-wage-state for those). As an entrepreneur, it can look attractive to pay the minimum wage because it gives your firm more financial cushion. But what does paying the minimum wage do for any cushion of the employee? The New York Times has an online interactive budgeting tool to let you see how well you could live on the Federal minimum wage, at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/09/opinion/minimum-wage.html