After devising a way to raise wages for fast-food workers, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is preparing to announce his support for a $15 minimum wage for all workers in New York State.þþMr. Cuomo, who earlier this year said that a $13 minimum wage was a “nonstarter” in Albany, is scheduled on Thursday afternoon to call for an across-the-board increase in the wage to $15, according to people who had been briefed on the plan but declined to be identified speaking ahead of the announcement. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will join the governor, who is also a Democrat, for the announcement at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, these people said.þþA spokesman for the governor declined to comment on Wednesday.þþFast-food workers and supporters gathered on Wednesday in Manhattan to watch a live video of the wage board’s decision. The governor hailed it as an example of New York’s progressiveness.New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food WorkersJULY 22, 2015þThe push for an increase in the state’s minimum wage, now $8.75 an hour, has met resistance from Republican lawmakers in Albany. After they rebuffed an effort to raise it in the last session, Mr. Cuomo convened a panel, known as a wage board, to study the question of whether fast-food chains were paying fair wages.þþThe panel, whose three members were chosen by Mr. Cuomo, concluded that the minimum wage for workers employed by those chains should be raised in stages to $15 an hour. The increase would happen faster for workers in New York City than in the rest of the state, under the plan which still must be approved by the acting commissioner of the State Labor Department.þþBusiness groups have criticized the governor’s approach, arguing that the steep increase will spur employers to lay off workers or reduce their hours. In Albany on Thursday, Republicans in the State Senate plan to hear complaints from business owners and others about the wage board process.þþMayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has been calling for a $15 minimum wage in the city and $13 in the rest of the state. But in February, Mr. Cuomo’s office released a statement that described any hope of getting the Legislature in Albany to approve that idea as “a nonstarter.”þþSince then, some other cities, including Los Angeles, have decided to raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour, in stages. Some prominent officials, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, have endorsed an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15, from its current level of $7.25.þþPresident Obama has called for increasing the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour. Mr. Biden was expected to lend support to Mr. Cuomo’s call for a statewide increase to $15.þ
Source: NY Times
