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  • Description

This report outlines the public cost of New York's Minimum wage. Over the next several years New York State will raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 per hour; Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now pushing for legislation to extend this to New York workers in all industries. The governor also recently committed to pay all state government workers $15 an hour. The Labor Center's report on the public cost of jobs paying less than $15 per hour in New York echoes the findings of earlier Labor Center research examining the fiscal impacts of low-wage work in the fast-food and retail sectors, including bank tellers and Wal-Mart employees, and in individual states. Report highlights for the study include:

  • Of all New York workers paid less than $15 an hour, 52 percent received public assistance or had a family member enrolled in a safety net program.
  • Of all New York workers, 32 percent earned less than $15 an hour.
  • Eighteen percent of workers in New York earned less than $15 an hour and had at least one family member, including themselves, receiving public assistance such as food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, or cash assistance programs.
  • Approximately 26 percent of state and local assistance funds in New York went to help low-wage workers.

  • Copyright
  • Copyright 2016 UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
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