NYTimes -- New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
The increase would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state's current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour.
?When New York acts, the rest of the states follow,? said Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, citing the state?s passage of the law making same-sex marriage legal. ?We?ve always been different, always been first, always been the most progressive.?
With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour since 2009, labor and religious groups have pressed state and local governments to enact pay raises as their hopes dim for an increase by the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.
La, Seattle, and San Francisco also have increased minimum wages in recent years.
Business groups and other critics slammed the decision as discriminatory because it singles out one industry, and legal challenges are expected.
Economists predicted the increases would ripple out to other restaurants and other industries that pay low wages. This event marks the first time that a state had raised the minimum wage for a particular industry.
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All the burger flippers out there can rejoice. Yay.
Give not a second thought to the fallout of this though. What might that fallout be I wonder?
?It will likely put pressure on employers in other industries to raise wages in order to compete for workers,? Irene Tung, a policy researcher for the National Employment Law Project, said.
Laura Jankowski, who owns three Tropical Smoothie cafes on Long Island, said she had already raised prices to offset the increase in the state minimum wage that took effect last year. Though she was not certain that the new wage rules would apply to her businesses, she feared customers would complain at paying much more than $4.99 for a 24-ounce drink.
Most likely, she said, she would have to make do with fewer workers, all of whom she said were high school or college students working part-time. ?It really is going to come to less people,? Ms. Jankowski said by telephone from her cafe in Port Jefferson Station. ?What I envision is cutting labor, hiring less people, having less people per shift.?
Already on Wednesday afternoon, some retail workers in Manhattan were wondering, what about us? ?We deserve it, too,? said Mary Gomes, 51, who works at a Duane Reade drugstore, where she said she earned $9.20 per hour.
Brittany Thomas, 20, who works at a Lady Foot Locker store, said it would not be fair to raise wages only for fast-food workers given that ?there are a lot of jobs that require more work than serving food.?
If you don't mind the price of your McHappy meal going up a few bucks then you're all good.
Let the dancing begin.
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