But even $9 an hour, the target that President Obama named and that New York will hit in three years, isn't enough to live on in New York City. According to a 2010 report prepared by the Women's Center for Education and Career Advancement, the "self-sufficiency standard" -- how much it costs to live without relying on government subsidies -- for a single adult living in the Bronx (the cheapest borough) was $12.56 an hour; for an adult with one child, that number jumps to $23.39 an hour. And it's worth noting that in the three years since that report, the cost of a MetroCard alone has jumped $23 a month. Further, Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at nonpartisan think tank Demos, noted that the median rental apartment price in Brooklyn has gone up some seven percent in the past year alone.

Naquasia LeGrand works at KFC on 4th Avenue in Brooklyn and has been part of the fast-food campaign since before the last strike. She noted that even $10 an hour would not be enough to really live on in the city, but said that the victory nonetheless shows how much the hard work she and the others have put into organizing is paying off.

Republicans in the State Senate blocked a plan to index the minimum wage to inflation, which Traub noted means another fight over the same issue in a few years. But they weren't able to block a wage increase for tipped workers, though just what that raise will be will be determined by a wage board convened by the governor. Kink pointed out that the wage board will provide another opportunity for organizing, as tipped workers within the fast food movement, the growing car wash movement, and airport workers can press for better wages.

Perhaps the worst thing buried in the minimum wage compromise is a massive tax subsidy to employers who hire teenagers. "It's actually a subsidy to displace adult workers who have families who are raising kids so that they can pay teenagers less," Westin said, and Kink pointed out that his coalition fought to block it entirely, then to restrict it to small businesses, but now it will go to companies with billions of dollars in profit like Walmart and McDonald's.

To Westin and LeGrand, the problems with the minimum wage increase show the need for more organizing, for workers not to wait for the legislature to act. Union wins for workers in car washes and grocery stores, Westin noted, are proof that small businesses can handle paying better wages.

"I think that we're beginning to demonstrate the difference between what kinds of wins you can achieve from conventional politics versus the kind of bigger, bolder wins that are possible when there is a real movement," Kink said.

And Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor and academic director at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, pointed out that wins on the legislative front provide momentum to the struggle in the workplace. "To be part of a campaign like this on the rank and file level you have to really believe that you can win."