New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for the legislature to adopt a statewide $15 an hour minimum wage Thursday, arguing it would boost both workers and the New York economy. He was backed in his effort by Vice President Joe Biden, who applauded him for setting an example for other governors.
The governor had earlier resisted calls to raise the state minimum wage to $15, up from its current rate of $8.75 an hour. He said as recently as February that the idea was a “non-starter” due to opposition in the state legislature. In July, he moved away from that, backing a $15 minimum wage for state fast-food industry workers. At Thursday’s event he went further.
“If fast food workers deserve $15 an hour, so do construction workers,” and all other professions, Cuomo said. “Every man and woman deserves $15 as a minimum wage and we’re not going to stop until we get it done.”
He added that the state would prove the naysayers wrong. “We have heard and rejected the arguments that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. We believe this will boost the state economy,” he said.
Cuomo did say that the increase should be phased in over a period of years, in order to give businesses time to adjust.
Biden applauded the effort, telling Cuomo that by raising the minimum he was not only helping people in his state but was “leading the way” for other governors on the minimum wage issue. “The single most important thing you can do to counter this [economy’s wage] inequity is what the governor did today.”
The vice president stopped short of endorsing a national $15 minimum wage though, instead reiterating the White House’s support for increasing the federal minimum, currently $7.25 an hour, to $12.
Biden is mulling a presidential bid and is seeking to burnish his credential with Democratic constituencies like organized labor, which has pushed hard for the $15 minimum wage. Unions favor high minimum wages because they make it less economical for businesses to use lower-wage nonunion labor.
The vice president did it in his own peculiar way, at one point praising Cuomo by saying, “When I’m in a foxhole, I want someone next to me who knows how to pronounce ‘union.'”
Biden and Cuomo were joined onstage by Mary Kay Henry, president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union, one of the main bankrollers of the $15 minimum wage effort. The union spent $24 million in 2014 alone supporting pro-minimum wage groups and publicity campaigns, according to its Labor Department filings.
Cuomo’s first words at the Thursday event, held at New York’s Jacob Javits Center, were, “Is labor in the house today?” which got a roar from the heavily union crowd. “We would not be here today without Mary Kay Henry and the SEIU and their leadership,” Cuomo said.
Activists groups led by SEIU and other organized labor began the $15 push about two years ago with the intention of pressuring fast-food chains to raise their wages to that level. That effort bore little fruit, but local politicians in liberal-leaning areas joined the effort. Within the last year and a half, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles city and county have adopted proposals to raise their minimum wages to $15.
