The minimum wage in NYC increased to $17 an hour in January, but local politicians and workers said Tuesday it’s not nearly enough to combat inflation and the high cost of living in the Big Apple.
John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
The minimum wage in NYC increased to $17 an hour in January, but local politicians and workers said Tuesday it’s not nearly enough to combat inflation and the high cost of living in the Big Apple.
Several progressive NYC Council Members, labor leaders, and community activists gathered outside City Hall on Tuesday, demanding an unprecedented wage increase to $30 per hour by 2030 — something the lawmakers said is achievable through legislation.
Brooklyn City Council Member Sandy Nurse said her new bill, known as “30 for Our City,” will help fix the city’s affordability crisis.
“The math ain’t mathing,” she said. “The wages aren’t adding up. The wages are too low, and the cost of living is too high.”
Over a million workers in NYC who earn the minimum wage would benefit from the increase.
“$17 per hour is not a livable wage. It is a crisis,” Nurse said, highlighting the daily choices many New Yorkers have to make between food, transportation or rent. “This is not a dignified life.”
Why they say minimum wage ‘math ain’t mathing’
NYC is behind other major American cities with higher minimum wages, including Flagstaff, AZ, where workers earn at least $18.35 per hour, and Denver, which has a $19.29 minimum wage.
Nurse and other advocates at the rally said that low wages are, at least in part, prompting New Yorkers to leave the Big Apple for less expensive places to live and work.
Costs that are partially or fully unique to New York include high rents averaging $3,500 a month, multiple utility increases and an 8.875% sales tax.
Manhattan Council Member Harvey Epstein, chair of the council’s committee on consumer and worker protection, spotlighted the ongoing exodus of New Yorkers from the city limits.
“We live in this city, and we fight for economic justice for everyone,” he said. “Then you turn around and think, ‘How can anyone afford to stay here?’ We want you to live here. We want people to work here. This is where people raise their families.”
Epstein, who supports the 30 for Our City bill, added that his own children cannot afford to live and work in NYC.
“That is not the New York we believe in,” he said. “If we want to fight for a New York that’s for everyone, we have to start talking about wages. We have to talk about how we raise the minimum wage for everyone. And that’s what this bill is doing.”
Labor and union leaders attended the rally, holding signs calling for a minimum wage increase.
Organizations at the rally included ALIGN, which is a coalition of labor and community groups, and representatives from Teamsters 804 and Amazon Labor Union on Staten Island.
Joelle Jean, who works at an Amazon facility in NYC, said she had trouble finding an apartment in 2023 because her income was too low. She said some of her co-workers have even had to live in shelters, with multiple roommates and in their parents’ basements.
“We make our employees billions, but they still can not pay us. We are the reason they can brag that they are successful,” she said. “New York is a beautiful city, but it is an expensive one. We need to be able to live in dignity. We need that $30. We matter.”
Can a minimum wage be too high?
Gov. Kathy Hochul raised most of the state’s minimum wage to $16 and $17 in NYC on Jan. 1. Despite her characterization of a 2023 agreement with the state Legislature to boost wages statewide as “historic,” some studies have shown that a minimum wage that increases too much can backfire economically.
A 2024 Congressional Budget Office analysis examined the effects of policies to raise the federal minimum wage to $17. (It is currently $7.50/hour)
In summary, the research found that increasing the federal minimum wage would raise the earnings and family income of most low-wage workers and thus lift some families out of poverty — but doing so could cause other low-wage workers to become jobless, and their family income would fall.
Data from the study is available at cob.gov.
Mamdani’s push for a minimum wage increase
Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushed for a $30 minimum wage along the campaign trail, prompting concern from small business owners. amNewYork reached out to the Mayor’s office for comment, and is awaiting a response.
In the meantime, the council’s proposal is not approved and would need the mayor’s signature to be put into law.
