New York City employees at small businesses with 10 or fewer workers will usher in 2020 with a bump in pay thanks to the expansion of minimum wage increases slated to go into effect later this month.
On Dec. 31, all employees across the five boroughs will begin earning $15 an hour, regardless of how many other workers are at their place of employment.
“New York is leading the fight for economic justice, proudly setting a national example by raising the minimum wage to $15,” Gov. Cuomo said of the wage hike in a press release.
Officials said in a press release that the current outlook for continued growth in employment and wages at a moderate pace allows the minimum wage to gradually rise to $15 per hour across the state.
The minimum wage rose to $15 for companies with 11 or more employees in New York City on December 31, 2018. In 2019, companies with ten or fewer employees will raise the minimum wage to $15.
Outside of New York City, in Westchester and Long Island, it will rise to $13 per hour, and the rest of the state will increase their minimum wage to $11.80.
The number of minimum wage workers is projected to grow to 1.5 million in 2020, according to a press release, making up about 16.4 percent of the workforce. The statistics show that over 1 million state workers will have benefited from the wage increases since 2013.
Gov. Cuomo added, “Nearly three years after we set New York on a path to achieve a $15 minimum wage, we are seeing the benefits: record low unemployment rates, fewer people living in poverty, less people working multiple part-time jobs and more families given the opportunity to live a decent life. In New York, we believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, and we won’t stop fighting until every hardworking New Yorker is paid the fair wages they deserve.”
According to the Division of the Budget’s Minimum Wage Report, the first ten months of 2019, the unemployment state has averaged 4 percent. Division of the Budget’s Minimum Wage Report also reported that if the trend continues for the rest of the year, 2019 will be the lowest on record since the 1970s.
