In these locations, a gallon of gas costs more than the federal minimum wage

Motorists across the U.S. are grappling with gasoline prices that are reaching new records almost daily. But the pain isn't evenly distributed across the nation. Take the handful of locations where a gallon of regular fuel now costs as much as or more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. It's a painful threshold that prices at the pump have reached at seven stations, all in California, according to GasBuddy. Granted, the minimum wage in California is far above the federal minimum — with workers in the state earning at least $14 an hour. But paying $7.25 a gallon or more still takes a chunk out of the typical paycheck. On average, California drivers are paying more for gas than drivers in any other state — an average of $6.21 a gallon as of June 2, compared with the national average of $4.71 a gallon, according to AAA. That is partly due to higher taxes in the state to pay for infrastructure and other costs, but there's also something that economist Severin Borenstein of the University of California, Berkeley, calls a "mystery gasoline surcharge" — a price gap that can't entirely be explained by fees or other factors.