The state’s joint legislative fiscal committees will hold a hearing Wednesday on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget concerning workforce issues.
Part of the testimony will focus on her proposal to link New York’s minimum wage to the inflation rate — a plan that advocates say falls short.
It would permanently index the minimum wage to the yearly rate of inflation and begin with a minimum wage of $15 an hour, which is the rate in New York City and for fast-food workers statewide.
Advocates, including many of the state’s major labor unions and anti-poverty groups, say that starting wage is “seriously inadequate” to meet the needs of workers who are struggling to pay for necessities and who are “crushed by skyrocketing prices.”
Paul Sonn of the National Employment Law Project said the minimum wage should first be gradually increased to $21.25 an hour between now and 2027.
“That’s the level that the $15 wage would have reached by then if it had kept up with inflation and worker productivity growth,” Sonn said.
Sonn said under Hochul’s proposal, the $15 minimum wage, indexed to inflation, would rise by just 40 cents an hour. Add that up, and you have barely enough to buy a sandwich in New York, he said.
“And it’s far too little to make a dent in the spiraling costs that families are facing,” Sonn said.
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