A state wage board has recommended that the minimum wage for some fast-food workers increase to $15 an hour, eventually.
The board, which was convened by Governor Andrew Cuomo, approved a package of resolutions this afternoon calling for the wage increase. The state labor department commissioner will ultimately decide whether to order a higher minimum wage for the fast food industry.
Under the recommendation, the wage increase would be phased in over several years. In New York City, the wage would increase yearly until it hits $15 in 2018. In the rest of the state, the wage would increase to $9.75 at the end of this year, and then increase by about $1 a year until it maxes out at $15 an hour on July 1, 2021. (The state’s minimum wage is $8.75 an hour.)
The board also recommended that the increase apply to fast-food restaurants with over 30 locations across the country. That total would include corporate-owned stores as well as franchises.
Board member Kevin Ryan, founder of online retailer Gilt, said that businesses would face a significant expense increase if the state requires a higher wage. The board recommended phasing the increase in for that reason, he said.
Fast-food workers and their allies across the state and country have pushed for higher wages through the Fight for $15 campaign. They’ve argued that large fast-food chains are making substantial profits but pay workers so little that full-time employees struggle to support themselves and their families.
“When an industry will not correct itself, the government has to step in,” said board member Mike Fishman, secretary-treasurer of Service Employees International Union.
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2015.
Do you realize the number of certified professions with ongoing certification responsibility, which are required by NYS, that will make less than the “fast food worker”? The person that salts the fries, you know those bad, bad fries, will make more than the certified medical person who respond to the person who has a heart attack as a result of eating those bad fries.
It warps the pay scale and it has been IMPOSED or ORDERED by emperor Cuomo.
I do not deny anyone a fair wage for a fair days work. Let them be represented by a union if you or they feel that they need that support/guidance. Let the process work. Do not, however, allow one single person who is a politician with a proven lack of business sense, common sense and a personal agenda to further that political career, dictate his single will on a single segment or “skill” of the work place.
The results of this DICTATED wage scale adjustment will have far reaching consequences. That includes the over reach of a governor, which will not stop with this issue. It will embolden him to RULE another day.
We have been rolling over on wages for too many years, letting the one percent dictate what we deserve. I heard a mother angrily complain at a party recently that her daughter, an EMT, will earn less than a McDonald’s worker if the wage increase goes through. If I were that mother, I would be angry at how little my daughter is paid, not how much a burger flipper earns. Unless we all complain, loudly, that wages have not been keeping up with costs, while companies like Walmart depend on food stamps to keep employees fed, then we will continue to fight with each other over the few scraps available.
Provide me with the definition of “entry level job”. Then when you have established just what an entry level job is, list those jobs. You will find that none of them are profession or career level jobs. When then, the professional/career level jobs pay less then the entry level jobs, Houston we have a problem. And that doesn’t mean that the professional/career jobs are not worth more, it just simply means that the entry level job is not worth as much.
The answer to getting beyond an entry level job is EDUCATION. At a glance, finish high school, get into a certificate program and learn a trade. Make yourself marketable. That doesn’t necessarily require a college education. It does require you to learn something beyond the “off and on” switch.
(I have extensively written on this education subject. We need to provide a relevant high school education, which means that you do something besides boring kids academically to the point of dropping out of high school. Over 60% of the urban youth drop out to the “entry level” job segment. That is poverty. You have to make the education process a “wow, that is cool” program. Show them the professions and careers available and then show them the correlation to the academics that will give them the opportunity to gain such a profession/career. Butts in seats, graduate with a clear pathway to the profession/career that you were exposed to and found an interest in. That can be a certificate, community college or a four years program. But please note, IF YOU DON”T MAKE YOURSELF MARKATABLE YOU WILL END UP IN THE ENTRY LEVEL CATAGORY. That’s not a Walmart or McDonalds problem, nor is it their responsibility to make sure you educate yourself. It is your responsibility.)
Is the RCSD doing all it can, are they being creative, it there any ingenuity in the education process,…nope. Its the same old academic method, expecting different results. (the definition of insanity) When you suggest, as always asked, for some input into making the urban education a better experience for our youth, you don’t even get the courtesy of a reply. (and that’s a fact)
To sum it up, DON’T EXPECT A PROFESSIONAL/CAREER WAGE FOR AN ENTRY LEVEL JOB. It makes no economic sense, it doesn’t make sense at all. Education is the way to get beyond the entry level segment of life. Legislating that for a select entry level population is not a fair process.
PS Be glad to send anyone a copy of an educational enhancement that would go a long way toward relevant education.
Dutch: It’s not about entry-level versus professional. It’s about a wage scale that has stagnated for many years. A wage scale that was based on a time when entry-level workers WERE mostly students. But our economy has changed significantly and plenty of entry-level workers are adults who have lost better paying jobs since the mid-2000s. CEOs’ wages have certainly increased by leaps and bounds in that time. Of course, professionals should be paid what they are worth. And entry-level workers need to be paid what they are worth. A $15 an hour base wage is only a fair wage.
Concerns; our economy has not just changed, it has been decimated. That comes from the Washington region. “law makers” (lawyers) who are clever enough to become millionaires in the position of “serving” their constituents. Leaderless leadership. But that requires more than just a paragraph.
As for as the CEO’s salary is concerned, I have seen CEO’s that are worth every penny and conversely CEO’s that were useless and a drain on the company financially and psychologically, yet still get/got bonuses. (past Eastman Kodak CEO comes to mind)
If you feel that entry level for the “fast food” worker is justified, to be fair, all entry level jobs need to be elevated to the magic $15.00 per hour. How do you now separate the entry from the professional? A board who would judge you to be worthy of the “upgrade” in work status?
EDUCATION is the sure way out. Whether you learn how to drive a nail, wire a house, tool and die, welder, medical professions and on and on. Make yourself marketable. That opportunity still exists in America. Oorah!
Kathryn, EMTs and Paramedics don’t have the luxury of walking out of their jobs. They strike, people die. Fast food workers can walk out, and all that happens is fatty can’t get his hamburger.
As I said on Alex White’s facebook post, why only fast food workers? Retail employees don’t have problems living on minimum wage? They don’t need government assistance? What about janitors, warehouse workers, hotel workers, grocery workers, etc? If you’re going to raise the minimum wage, do it across the board. Don’t give it to one segment of one sector of the workforce.
Eric, if retail workers want to work together for a better wage, then let them have at it. That’s what the fast food workers did. If the state had agreed on the $10 across-the-board minimum wage, this wouldn’t have likely happened. Meanwhile, if good EMTs find jobs that pay better, their employers will up their rates to make it more attractive to stay. I was, quite frankly, shocked to hear how little they are paid.
Look at the flip side of this. This $15 per hour wage is not going to people working 40 hours per week. Many are working just a few hours per day.
And also look at recent NY Attorney General cases against Papa Johns and Dominos. These franchises seem to be doing everything possible to not pay the wages currently due to their hard working employees.
They won’t be working long hours though. Make too much and you loose the benefits that come with entry level jobs. I have experienced that in person. An employee who was a hard worker received a considerable increase in pay. She approached management and asked if the increase could be reduced because it would cause her to loose some of the benefits. The financial loss would have been significant. It would actually have set her back. The system is broken and the $15.00 per hour issue is smoke screen. Entry level jobs will not provide a living wage, no way out of the poverty, just a continuation of control by the government and more union dues for the few provided by the many.
For some unknown reason, a group of fast-food workers have banned together to bite the hand that feeds them. The value of one’s work should determine one’s pay. It’s arrogant to ask for a raise based on one’s needs.
When every fast-food place and every coffee shop is shit down due to a worker’s strike, people will realize the value of those jobs.
I rarely stop at a fast food restaurant, if you can call it that. Don’t even begin to tell me that the fast food worker is a necessity, it is not. I do have a healthy respect for those who choose to work there, or work period.
The market should dictate the value of a job, if one doesn’t like the pay scale make yourself marketable with another skill. There are many certificate programs that will provide you with the skill to gain a job, profession and or career. MCC comes to mind with it’s many options. If you dictate the wage scale for one segment of the work force, why not another and another. Before you know it you’ll have socialism and then you can graduate to communism. Or,….you can have it all now and move to North Korea. They are all making the same and they don’t have a fast food industry. As a matter of fact they are a bit short on food.