Gov. Cuomo announced Tuesday that he’s going to unilaterally raise the minimum wage for 10,000 state workers to $15an hour. New York’s minimum wage is now $8.75 and is set to rise to $9 at year’s end. In September, the Cuomo administration approved a proposal from the state’s labor commissioner to raise base pay for fast-food workers to $15 an hour.
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“Across the country, people are saying that if you work full time you should not live in poverty, ” Miner said.
“Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio all said they would not hike the minimum wage to $15, the level wage activists say is needed to survive and support a family”. The increase will take effect first for state workers in NY City, where the cost of living is highest, fully phasing in by the end of 2018.
About 9,000 of the 10,000 workers in the state who will be affected are outside NY City.
Cuomo said he made a decision to implement the increase out of “basic fairness and basic justice” as well as “economic anxiety”. “A lot of people out here are making minimum wage, and I really do think that $15 would really help not only me, but everyone else”.
Malcolm O’Lacker, a certified nursing assistant at the Nursing Home, who is under the $15 an hour wage, agrees with Soto and believes financial struggle within the household is causing children to go awry.
Minimum wage workers with different native languages come together for Fight for 15 movement. But it’s also probably true that he sees this as another way to exert force on the legislature – specifically Republicans in the state Senate – to act on a minimum wage increase when the new session starts.
McDonald’s spokeswoman Lisa McComb said only two McDonald’s workers nationwide have walked off their jobs so far.
Despite the wet weather, about 100 people showed up at city hall demanding an increase of the minimum wage.
“We need a living wage”, said fast food worker Jorel Ware.
Walmart, the nation’s largest employer which has been that target of wage protests in the past, has also boosted employee pay.
“I’m open to discussions”, Flanagan said.
Albany bureau chief: Joseph Spector is Gannett’s Albany Bureau chief and has covered NY politics and government since 2002.
The workers are striking for, “Fight for 15”, as in $15 an hour.
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“Sometimes it’s frustrating because you want to do more for them and you can’t”, Gallardo said with tears in her eyes.
