New York On the Right Track With Minimum Wage Increase
Today, Democrats in the New York State Assembly will propose a raise in the state minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50. This is smart economic policy, and other states should take notice.
Sheldon Silver, the Assembly Speaker who introduced the proposal, rightly noted that the increase would affect 14 percent of the workforce, or 1.2 million people. “Frankly,” he said earlier this month, “it is absurd to expect anyone – let alone a working family, to afford the cost of living today and be able to invest in their future on a salary of $7.25 an hour, or $15,000 a year.”
It goes without saying that those 14 percent of New York workers who earn minimum wage are barely scraping by. However, with 17 percent more money in their pockets, those workers will be putting that income right back into the economy, buying necessities like gas and groceries and paying their bills. They are the people least likely to pocket those savings, or invest that money out of state or out of the country.
“They have no choice but to spend that money in their local economy,” says Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, “That’s the stimulus you get.” Translation: Raising the minimum wage means giving extra cash to the people most likely to spend it immediately, in their own communities. It’s a win-win.
Assembly Speaker Silver knows this. So does New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also supports the measure. But being politicians, they also must have their eye on another positive affect of raising the minimum wage – rising poll numbers. “When we’ve done public polls, anywhere from 86 to 67 percent say they support an increase in the minimum wage,” said Celinda Lake of the polling firm Lake Research Partners.
New York Senate Republican spokesman Scott Reif must also be aware of the political implications. Instead of opposing the proposal outright, he didn’t take a position. But corporate-interest groups that traditionally support Republicans, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have long opposed minimum wage increases and “cost of living adjustments” that tie wages to inflation.
There’s one more part of this story to keep in mind as this develops: we may not be talking about this issue at all if it weren’t for the brave men and women of the Occupy movement. As the New York Times puts it:
The Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park is no more, but the focus it brought to income inequality is having an impact in Albany and beyond.
They may be getting evicted from their camps across the country, but the 99 Percent still have the momentum as we go into the first policy fights of 2012.
Tags: Michael Bloomberg, minimum wage, New York
