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IT COULDN'T be more obvious--no human being should be forced to live on $5.15 an hour. In December, even New York state legislators had to agree. Under pressure from a public campaign around the issue, lawmakers voted to raise the state minimum wage for the first time in five years, from $5.15 an hour--the current federal minimum--to $7.15 by 2007. The vote reflects the recognition--even among Republicans, who control New York's state Senate and whose votes helped override a veto by Gov. George Pataki--that the $5.15-an-hour minimum is nowhere near enough to live on. Since 1999, 14 other states and the District of Columbia have voted to raise their minimum wages above the federal level. In Florida this past November, a referendum increasing the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour passed by a wide margin. Despite well-funded opposition to the state measure by Gov. Jeb Bush and his buddies in local business, more than 71 percent of Floridians voted for the increase. In Nevada, 68 percent of voters supported an increase. In addition, there are 123 cities and counties with living-wage laws requiring higher minimum wages in jobs dependent on public funds--including work on government contracts or at companies benefiting from corporate welfare. [more]