ALBANY – The state’s minimum wage will increase Sunday to $6.75 an hour from $6, affecting some 360,000 New Yorkers.

Part of a three-year increase approved by the state Legislature over the veto of Governor Pataki, New York’s minimum wage increased last January 1 by $0.85 an hour. It will reach $7.15 an hour on January 1, 2007.

“We don’t get paid enough,” a sandwich maker at Subway in Troy, Jackie Murray, said. “I can’t live on $6 an hour.”

The increase is welcome but not much better, Ms. Murray said. “I live with a roommate and still I don’t have any money left over.”

For tipped workers like restaurant wait staff, the minimum wage will increase January 1 to $4.35 an hour from $3.85, and a year later to $4.60 an hour.

“Our members are saying, ‘Why should I pay them more money when the average tipped employee makes between $23 and $24 an hour?'” the president of the New York Restaurant Association, Rick Sampson, said. For employers, it also means costs like payroll taxes, workers compensation, liability insurance, and unemployment insurance will rise, he said.

When the measure was debated last year, proponents argued that many minimum-wage earners were their households’ major breadwinners, while opponents said those jobs are often filled by teenagers living at home or supplemental earners.

Opponents also argued that the measure would chase some businesses to states like Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage is at the federal level of $5.15 an hour, though lawmakers are debating the issue.

Ms. Murray said she couldn’t get ahead by working hard at her job, and she plans to start studying nursing in January. “The only way out of this is to go to back to school,” she said.

In another change next year, state income tax for those earning between $150,000 and $500,000 will drop to 6.85% from 7.25%, while those who make more than $500,000 will see their taxes decline to 6.85% from 7.7%.