NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer wants the city to set its own minimum wage. Credit: Mel Wright Photo/Manhattan Borough President’s Office
City Comptroller Scott Stringer will call on Albany to allow New York City to set its own minimum wage, saying it should be $11.
The statewide minimum wage is $8, and local governments do not have the power to set their own minimum wages. Stringer said raising the city’s minimum wage to $11 would provide an additional $2 billion in annual income to working families, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The fact is that when it comes to the minimum wage, one size does not fit all. Not when the cost of living is 80 percent higher in New York City than in Buffalo, 70 percent higher than in Rochester or 60 percent higher than here in Albany,” Stringer planned to say Monday at a hearing on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget, according to a draft of his testimony.
The state raised the minimum wage last year from $7.25 to $9 over a three-year period. It became $8 at the end of 2013, and it will be raised to $8.75 by the end of 2014, then $9 by the end of 2015.
Stringer wants his plan for a citywide minimum wage hike to be effective next year.
Other cities in the country, such as San Francisco, have higher minimum wages than their states. Even at $11, New York City’s minimum wage would still be below that of any other major city in the nation after adjusting for the cost of living, Stringer said.
