Surviving (or Not) on Minimum Wage

For her book, "The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans," Shulman interviewed workers around the country and heard their stories.

"It was always an awful choice between necessities – when the refrigerator went out and you paid for that, you didn't have enough money to pay the rent, if your car broke down, you don't have enough money to put food on the table. Many go without health care and the jobs don't provide sick leave, so when the kids get sick, they lose wages for that day. It's the same crisis over and over and over again. People living on the edge of total despair."

Some business groups oppose the wage increase, arguing that it hurts small businesses and impedes their ability to hire low-wage workers.

"The increased revenue to support these higher wages is harder for small businesses than for the big-box store down the block," says Marc Freedman, the director of labor law policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Freedman claims that the wage increase has the ironic consequence of stopping employers from hiring at higher wages, a natural effect of market forces, and results in them lowering salaries to the minimum wage level.

And some financial analysts say that it is possible to become a millionaire on the minimum wage – if you start young and you've got decades to spare.

"Socking away a little bit of money – even $20 a week – and investing it in the stock market over 50 years, with a 10 percent historical rate of return for the S&P 500, will bring you a lot of money," says Robert Brokamp, retirement expert at themotleyfool.com.

Brokamp adds that low-income earners can benefit from tax incentives such as the earned income credit, a refundable credit for people who save.

"They will give you money even if you don't owe any money – if you're making minimum wage, you're probably eligible."

Stepney, the grandmother in Baltimore, was skeptical that she could have become a millionaire. "Maybe if I won the lottery -- that's about it."