New York’s Fight for $15 carries on.
Earlier this month, the State Legislature passed a budget that included a phased-in boost in the state’s minimum wage. Downstate, the wage will increase to $15 an hour by 2021. But in Upstate, the wage will reach $12.50 an hour by 2021, and then will increase to $15 an hour according to an index set by the state’s budget director.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Shareen Gfeller, a manager at the Wendy’s on East Ridge Road and Portland Avenue.
But the plan isn’t sitting well with local union leaders and activists, who marched through downtown last week in protest. The final wage deal was a missed opportunity for reducing poverty in Monroe County by raising the wages of approximately one-third of its workers, all of whom currently make less than $15 an hour, said Bruce Popper, executive vice president of the Rochester-Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation.
Popper said that union members and activists need to keep pressure on elected officials to pass a true $15 minimum wage for the whole state.
Gfeller works full time, has two kids and one more on the way, and says that she often has to decide whether to pay bills, pay rent, or buy groceries or diapers. As a fast food worker, she’ll make at least $15 an hour in a few years, thanks to a 2015 state wage board decision. The increase will help her, she said, but everyone should get a $15 minimum, not just fast food workers.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2016.
OK, grant $15 an hour for everyone; but do you think prices and costs will be raised as well?
I mean, the cost of labor will be higher, so to compensate for that, the consumer will have to pay more for the product or service; so what good is this wage increase if the the wage earner, who is also a consumer, has to pay higher prices for everything?
I know; just keep raising wages and then raise prices to cover those costs and so on. Can someone please explain why that makes any sense?
A higher minimum wage will attract a lot more poor people to NY, because the deal sounds great but when they realize that everything is getting more expensive to live here, they may feel duped and may need welfare assistance. And who pays for that?
I think it’s the middle class worker.who foots the bill, by paying higher taxes.
Çheck the hourly rate of pay for the CEO of Walmart…then tell me if $15 per hour is really a problem.
Take a look at the pay situation in Australia. They’ve got universal health care, reasonable education costs, AND a high minimum wage. They are more expensive, but they’re NOT proportionally more expensive.
That is to say, the increased costs dont outpace the increased wages (there’s a net benefit).