To: Governor Andrew Cuomo
Governor Cuomo: Raise the Minimum Wage!
Gov Cuomo: It's time to raise the minimum wage in New York. Please press Albany to pass a minimum wage raise now.
Why is this important?
New York’s minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour. For full time work, that adds up to just $15,000 a year. It's the bare federal minimum. The same as the minimum wage in Idaho and Kansas.
It's hard to imagine anyone surviving on $15,000 for full time work, whether you're in in Brookhaven or Buffalo. New York City has the highest cost of living in America. But hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers do it every day. And with rising prices, that $15,000 buys less and less every year.
Nobody who works full time should be forced to live in poverty. As corporate profits and CEO pay soar, workers should get paid a decent wage too.
President Obama used his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour and tie it to inflation. New Yorkers can't afford to wait for John Boehner and the House Republicans to get out of the way to raise the minimum wage.
Thankfully, we don't have to. New York can raise the minimum wage on it's own, to at least $9 an hour and tie the new rate to inflation, so workers won't continue to fall behind as prices go up.
Governor Cuomo should lead, and push Albany to raise the minimum wage.
It's hard to imagine anyone surviving on $15,000 for full time work, whether you're in in Brookhaven or Buffalo. New York City has the highest cost of living in America. But hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers do it every day. And with rising prices, that $15,000 buys less and less every year.
Nobody who works full time should be forced to live in poverty. As corporate profits and CEO pay soar, workers should get paid a decent wage too.
President Obama used his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour and tie it to inflation. New Yorkers can't afford to wait for John Boehner and the House Republicans to get out of the way to raise the minimum wage.
Thankfully, we don't have to. New York can raise the minimum wage on it's own, to at least $9 an hour and tie the new rate to inflation, so workers won't continue to fall behind as prices go up.
Governor Cuomo should lead, and push Albany to raise the minimum wage.