Rebecca Cornick cheerfully chopped 120 heads of lettuce, wiped tables and rang up some Baconators, fries and chicken club sandwiches. For most of her customers, it was just another afternoon at a Wendy’s restaurant in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Not for Ms. Cornick. She was celebrating.þþIt was Thursday, one day after a state panel recommended that the minimum wage for fast-food workers be raised to $15 an hour, and Ms. Cornick was savoring congratulations from some regulars and the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would have more money to pay her bills.þþBut her jubilation dimmed after her shift, as soon as she stepped onto the street. On her stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, the low-wage workers outside the fast-food industry will remain untouched by the pay increase. That includes her 24-year-old granddaughter, who earns minimum wage — $8.75 an hour — at a day care center two blocks from Wendy’s.þþ“It’s heartbreaking,” Ms. Cornick, 61, said. “So many people are desperate.”þþAdvocates for workers across the country cheered last week when New York became the first state to recommend a $15-an-hour minimum wage specifically for fast-food workers. But in New York City, the decision has created a stark new divide between low-wage workers who will receive the boost in their paychecks and those who will not.þþAbout 50,000 fast-food workers in New York City are expected to benefit from the wage increase, according to James Parrott, the chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group. But about 1.25 million workers who earn less than $15 an hour do not work for fast-food chains and will not benefit, he said. In opposing the raise, fast-food companies also point to that gap, arguing that they will be unfairly required to increase wages while other businesses will not.þþNear the bustling corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Linden Boulevard, that chasm is impossible to ignore.þþEmployees at the Checkers, the Denny’s, the Wendy’s and the Popeyes — fast-food chains with 30 or more restaurants nationally — will see their minimum wage increase to $10.50 in December, to $12 in 2016 and, gradually, to $15 in 2018, according to the panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor.þþBut minimum-wage employees at the Home Furnishings Depot, at the mom-and-pop Jamaican eatery and at the gas stations and the bodegas will see their wages go up to $9 an hour in December, as a result of a previous accord, and remain there, unless the political stalemate in Albany over increasing the minimum wage statewide is broken.þþEve George, 29, isn’t holding her breath. She works at the Home Furnishings Depot, just a block from Wendy’s, and has been earning minimum wage for four years.þþ“As much as I would like it,” Ms. George said of a statewide increase, “I don’t think it’s happening for the rest of us.”þþAdvocates for low-wage workers are more optimistic, saying they believe the new mandate will spur pay raises in other sectors. Stephanie Luce, a professor of labor studies at the City University of New York, said the decision might lead “to pressure for the state to raise the minimum wage statewide” and inspire employees in other industries to rally for better pay.þþAnd for those who are getting the raise, Ms. Luce said, “the increased wages are definitely going to have a big impact in terms of people’s quality of life.”þþMs. Cornick was already imagining what it would be like to pay her rent on time, to have enough food in the refrigerator, to put money aside to buy life insurance.þþ“I’m giddy with happiness,” said Ms. Cornick, who has worked for Wendy’s for nine years and now earns $9 an hour.þþBut her celebration was tempered by worry for her granddaughter, Taniqua Hayes. The two share an apartment. But now the grandmother is moving forward, while the granddaughter feels left behind.þþMs. Hayes said she was thrilled for her grandmother, who participated in several fast-food protests and strikes.þþBut she feared that she would never get ahead on $8.75 an hour. “I was a little disappointed,” Ms. Hayes said of how she felt when her grandmother explained that the $15-an-hour mandate would apply only to fast-food workers.þþNow, for the first time, Ms. Hayes and her colleagues at the day care center have begun looking wistfully at the big chain restaurants down the street. Maybe flipping burgers might get them closer to their dreams.þþ“A job is a job, right?” Ms. Hayes said. “As long as it pays good money.”þ
Source: NY Times
