If Gov. Kathy Hochul has her way, New York State’s minimum wage will rise to more than $16.39 between now and 2026 and remain indexed to the rate of inflation or 3%, whichever is less.
If progressive groups and their allies in the legislature have their way, the state’s minimum wage will rise to $21.25 by that year and then be indexed annually to increases in labor productivity.
The difference would mean a lot to Alease Annan, a television producer in Brooklyn who also works the late weeknight shift as a UPS package handler in Maspeth, Queens, to make ends meet. She unloads packages as they arrive in the warehouse for $16.65 an hour. The governor’s approach won’t boost her pay for years; she’d get an immediate increase from the progressive plan.
“Call it a living wage, which I think is true,” 43-year-old Annan. “But it’s always easier to be able to do these things, when you have the money or the salary, to be able to make it easier for you to create those pathways for yourself.”
New York boasted the highest minimum wage in the nation when it raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, reaching that level in New York City in 2019, two years later in the suburbs, and soon across the rest of the state. But the state did not index the rate to inflation, and now other places have much higher pay floors, sparking a debate in the current legislative session on what to do next.
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