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 the federal minimum wage of $7.25. It's a painful threshold that prices at the pump have reached at nine stations — all in California, according to GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan, an expert on oil and gas prices.