Paycheck progess
  America's worst-off workers are getting something they haven't had in 10 years: a raise.
  The minimum wage rose yesterday to $5.85; it will be $7.25 by the summer of 2009.
  The last time Congress raised the minimum wage, gas prices hovered around $1.33 a gallon, America had never heard of the iPod, much less the iPhone.
  Since then, the cost of living has risen 26 percent.
  The increase will give families an additional $4,400 a year to meet critical needs. That's 15 months of groceries, more than two years of health care, or 20 months of child care.
  Franklin Roosevelt said that "the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little." Santa Feans have known this for years. With today's wage increase, Congress has shown that we know it too.
 U.S. Rep. Tom Udall
 Santa Fe