Albany, NY – A raise in the minimum wage will be a major focus of the 23rd annual People’s State of the State rally this week.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Mark Dunlea of the Hunger Action Network says he’s hoping that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address on Wednesday will call for raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Dunlea says the Assembly’s minimum wage proposal isn’t enough.
The People’s State of the State rally is scheduled for Tuesday at noon at the Capitol.
Besides raising the minimum wage, key issues for 2013 will include increasing funding for emergency food, ending childhood hunger, fair taxes and campaign finance reform.
After the event, the group will deliver a People’s Litmus Test for the upcoming session to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
The minimum wage helps the few – if any – and hurts the many.
where are the advocates for the middle class who have not gotten raises in years and have to work overtime without getting paid time and a half?
A $10/hr minimum wage translates into roughly $21,000/year pre-tax income and about $18,400 after taxes annually. Its hard to even survive in NYC on less than $80,000-$100,000 year so I cannot imagine anyone objecting to such a minimum wage. At a time when NYC’s big law firms just announced that the starting scale for FIRST YEAR associates next year will be $172,000/year plus about an $18,000 bonus, a $10/hr minimum wage seems the least we can pay to those who clean our offices, care for our elderly parents in nursing homes or serve us food and wash the dishes in our restaurants.
It 217;s as #8 said above.
No one  220;wants to 221;  220;hire themselves out 221; for substandard wages of $5/hour or less. Especially in New York, one would only take such a position if their backs were against the wall, if the option was between slave wages and unemployment (as was said above).
What minimum wage laws is place a limit on how much an employer can take advantage of someone else 217;s circumstances. Obviously every business wants to increase profits (and if you 217;re publicly held, you HAVE to do so). What business wouldn 217;t look to spend $1K/month on janitorial staffing ($250/wk, i.e., $6.25/hour, less than minimum wage) instead of the $1300 at minimum wage? What minimum wage laws do is say,  220;no, Mr. Employer, you can not exploit this desperate worker as much as you see fit  212; EVEN IF, in their destitute state, they 217;d be willing to dig ditches for $1/hour. No, you must give them what they deserve as a worker  211; NO LESS than $7.25/hour. 221;
It 217;s the basics of a fair society. No one should have to toil all week for $10.
This is such a bad idea. While there are very few jobs that actually pay the minimum wage, legislating a rise in the minimum wage will throw more people into unemployment, leave little opportunity for handicapped people to be proud workers, and kill summer jobs for teenagers. It will also make employers more likely to hire illegals.
What it mostly will do is raise other things that are based on the minimum wage. That means higher welfare payments and the like. The government is broke already with 47% of the population on the dole. Dumb moves like this will just accelerate the time until the government collapses.
With everything going up, so should minimum wage & it actually pains me to see yiden who are more wealthy refuting the increase.
? Ever any discussions about economic/ societal/ moral pros & cons to setting a “MAXIMUM wage,” or rather – salary plus expenses & benefits, for those at the light-years-beyond-a-living-wage end of the employment spectrum?