NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that his administration is raising the minimum wage for state workers to $15 per hour.
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Tuesday was also the day minimum wage protests were organized around the country.
The hike will be phased in over a number of years: For about 1000 state workers in NY City, the raise would reach $US15 per hour on December 31, 2018.
State College demonstrators heard speeches from nursing home workers from Centre County and surrounding areas who said their wages were insufficient for sustaining themselves and their families. “New York is the progressive capital of the nation”. “If you earned the minimum wage, it’s about $18,000 a year in NY”. “We are leading by example and creating an economy that is defined by opportunity, not inequality”. “We believe that any minimum wage increase should be implemented over time so that the impact on owners of small and medium-sized businesses – like the ones who own and operate the majority of our restaurants – is manageable”.
At the state level, the recommendation is more gradual: $9.75 by this December 31st; $10.75 by the end of 2016; $11.75 in 2017; $12.75 in 2018; $13.75 in 2019; $14.50 in 2020; and $15.00 by July 1, 2021. “People have to go out, they have to work really hard and they have to get up to that upper stratum”. He says the minimum wage increase will help lift low-wage workers out of poverty.
Donald Trump: “I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is”. For many of them, the prospect of $15 per hour three years down the road is a victory with asterisks. “We need a wage that could take care of our basic necessities”.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was one of the politicians who stood with the protesters in Washington, calling on Congress to “finish the job” by raising the minimum wage to $15. Syracuse was the first city in NY to establish a $15 minimum for employees. Most of the workers, or 9,000 of the 10,000, work outside NY City, Cuomo’s office said.
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According to the Economic Policy Institute, the federal minimum wage in 2014 had only 76 percent of the purchasing power that the 1968 minimum wage had, when the rate peaked. “There are unintended consequences when you make a blanket statement of US$15 an hour”, Mr Mabry said.
