Public hunger for $15 wage
ALBANY — More than 16,600 supporters of raising the minimum wage in New York for fastfood workers to $15 an hour provided public comment to the state Department of Labor by Saturday’s deadline, advocates say.
The public comment period kicked in July 22 after a board convened by Gov. Cuomo recommended raising the current $8.75-an-hour state minimum wage for the state’s 182,000 fast-food workers to $15 an hour over several years.
The final decision, which is imminent now that the public comment period has closed, will be made by acting state Labor Commissioner Mario Musolino.
Advocates say that 3,149 handwritten comments were submitted from workers and others from across the state and country while another 13,462 messages were submitted online.
It’s unclear how many opponents of the wage hike submitted comments to the Labor Department, whose spokesman did not return requests for comment.
Among those who submitted comments in support of the wage hike was Rachel Paneth-Pollack, a family medicine resident at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who wrote that “it would help make my patients healthier.”
“In my short career, I have seen many people get hospitalized because they were unable to afford good preventative care, healthy food, or, what I hear most commonly: because they just don’t have time to take care of their health because they are working two and sometimes three jobs to make ends meet,” Paneth-Pollack wrote.
Supporters have also argued that multibillion-dollar fast-food corporations like McDonald’s and Burger King pay their executives exorbitant salaries and can afford to pay more to their workers, many of whom are forced to go on public assistance to make ends meet.
The proposal under consideration would raise the minimum wage just for fast-food workers to $15 in the city by the end of 2018 and statewide by July 2021. It would only impact fast-food chains with at least 30 locations nationally.
The restaurant industry, which has threatened a lawsuit, argues that it is unfair to single out one industry.