Proposed New York state minimum wage legislation would boost wages for nearly 2.9 million workers: Minimum wages would range by region from $20 to $21.25 per hour by 2026
Key takeaways:
- Proposed Raise Up New York legislation, sponsored by State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Latoya Joyner, would raise the minimum wage to $21.25 an hour in New York City and suburban Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk counties by 2026. It would also raise upstate New York’s minimum wage to $20 an hour by 2026.
- Starting in 2027, upstate New York would catch up to the statewide wage, and both would be adjusted each year to keep up with rising consumer prices and worker productivity.
- We find that nearly 2.9 million workers—32% of the state’s workforce—would receive raises averaging $3,307 a year.
- These minimum wage increases would be a vital support for low-wage workers in one of the most expensive states in the nation and arrive at a time when the purchasing power of workers’ wages has been eroded rapidly by recent price increases.
Updated minimum wage legislation in the New York State Senate and Assembly (S3062D/A7503C) would secure much-needed wage increases for almost 2.9 million workers throughout the state. The proposed Raise Up New York legislation—which would index annual statewide increases to inflation and labor productivity—would help protect workers’ economic security as prices rise, and prevent inequality from widening as the economy grows.
A fair way of calculating the minimum wage
Currently, New York has distinct minimum wage schedules for three different regions in the state: New York City, the suburban counties of Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk, and the remainder of upstate New York. As shown in Table 1, New York City’s minimum wage is $15 per hour, where it has stood since 2018. Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk counties’ minimum wage reached $15 per hour at the end of 2021, while the minimum wage for the rest of the state is currently $13.20 with scheduled annual increases that will track nominal labor productivity (real productivity plus inflation) until it eventually reaches $15.00 per hour.
The proposed Raise Up New York legislation would increase the minimum wage for New York City and Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk counties to $21.25 through 2026, and then increase the minimum wage annually by nominal labor productivity. The tipped minimum wage would also increase while remaining two-thirds of the regular minimum wage as stipulated in New York law.1 The minimum wage for the rest of the state would reach $20.00 an hour in 2026 before catching up to NYC and the suburban counties in 2027.2 The inflation and labor productivity adjustments would follow the same formula that New York has already been using for state minimum wage increases in recent years.
Beyond the numbers: What teaching shortages look like in practice
In a recent report, we reviewed the size and scope of the national teacher shortage using data from a wide range of public and private sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, the RAND Corporation, and others. The available data consistently point to a large and growing problem of teacher vacancies that looks unlikely to be filled without substantial efforts to increase job quality for teachers.
But in pulling together our report, we realized that the statistics we presented don’t fully capture what shortages actually look like—in practice—for school districts, teachers, and students. To convey at least a part of that missing texture, we’ve pulled together some recent journalistic and more granular accounts of how state and local school education officials have responded to the long-term rise in teacher vacancies. Unfortunately, almost all of these have proved to be less than ideal for teachers and students.
EPI’s top charts of 2022: EPI’s most popular charts tell the story of how pandemic setbacks in income inequality were mitigated by pandemic relief
Rising CEO pay, a pandemic further undermining low and middle-income workers, and the growing gap between worker productivity and their pay continued to impede income equality.
Through it all, however, government pandemic stimulus programs gave a lifeline to many of those struggling to make ends meet, helping keep millions out of poverty.
All these important topics were among the Economic Policy Institute’s top charts this year.
Here’s a rundown on what saw the most engagement among EPI’s readers:
Inflation is easing: Fed should slow rate hikes
Inflation numbers out Tuesday are encouraging, providing more evidence that any movement to continue raising interest rates at breakneck speed and potentially slow the economy needs to be squashed. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)—released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics—rose 0.1% in November, and the all-items index increased 7.1% year-over-year. EPI research director Josh Bivens breaks down what the data tell us about rising prices.
“Inflation can normalize without taking a hammer to the head of the economy,” stresses EPI Research Director Josh Bivens, about the report and any steps by the Federal Reserve to push for steep interest rate hikes at its meeting this week.
“It was a very good report,” he explained. “The remaining inflation in this report was essentially food and shelter.” While rising food prices harm consumers, there’s no policy lever that the Fed has to usefully target these. These price increases are related, he added, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and global commodity markets more generally, not to any overheating of the U.S. economy.
“On shelter,” he continued, “the data strongly indicate that large rental inflation declines are on the way in 2023—they’ve already shown up in industry data, and these very reliably show up 6-12 months later.”
What’s at stake for state and local governments in the year-end government funding negotiations
As the clock ticks toward the end of the 117th Congress, legislators on Capitol Hill are reportedly still locked in negotiations on how to fund the government for 2023. Congress faces the deadline this week—December 16—to pass a plan for government funding, when the short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government will expire.
The federal appropriations fight has serious stakes for state and local governments. Democrats in Congress, in particular, are pushing to not merely pass another short-term CR to keep the funding as is, but to pass a comprehensive spending bill, or omnibus, that fully appropriates funding that meets the realities of the moment. The outcome of these negotiations will, as always, have real consequences for working people and our economic stability overall.
The appropriations debate has especially high economic stakes because of long-standing inaction on Capitol Hill to address the debt limit. The new House Republican majority in the 118th Congress has already signaled their willingness to once again use the debt ceiling to force harmful spending cuts.
Top five EPI blog posts of 2022: Inflation and minimum wage increases among the most-read posts
Inflation concerns were top of mind for workers and their families across the country, but misinformation on the cause of rising prices was rampant. To figure out what was really going on, many readers turned to the Economic Policy Institute for research-based answers.
The majority of EPI’s top blog posts this year dealt with inflation, including how corporate profits, not workers’ wages, were contributing to bigger price tags.
But the top post in 2022 was on minimum wage increases in 21 states, a welcome pay hike for workers struggling to make ends meet.
Here is a rundown of the top five posts:
Illinois Workers’ Rights Amendment sets new bar for state worker power policy: Other state legislatures should seize the moment to advance worker, racial, and gender justice in 2023
On election day, Illinois voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing all workers organizing and collective bargaining rights, setting a new high bar for state labor policy at a moment when policymakers should prioritize empowering workers to address historic levels of income inequality and unequal power in our economy.
The Illinois Workers’ Rights Amendment adds language to the state constitution affirming that “employees shall have the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.” The new clause also specifies that “no law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”
The amendment’s expansive language creates a legal backstop against two persistent lines of state legislative attack on U.S. workers’ basic rights to unionize: 1) threats to repeal or erode public-sector workers’ collective bargaining rights, and 2) threats to constrain private-sector workers’ collective bargaining rights with so-called “right-to-work” (RTW) restrictions that prohibit unions and employers from negotiating union security agreements into union contracts. Just as importantly, the Illinois Workers’ Rights Amendment opens up promising new pathways for additional groups of long-excluded workers to unionize and pursue collective bargaining with their employers.
Heading into 2023, state legislators in the Midwest and across the country should follow Illinois’ example by restoring workers’ rights after a decade under threat from extreme anti-union state legislation that has already suppressed wages and eroded job quality in many states. Long-overdue action to remove existing restrictions and affirmatively extend union rights to all workers is a first, essential policy step states can take to reverse growing inequality and end long-standing racist and sexist occupational exclusions in existing labor law.
November jobs report a tale of two conflicting surveys: Payroll survey shows steady job growth, but household survey shows a continued decline in employment
Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, and it was a tale of two conflicting employment surveys. The payroll survey—a survey of employers—showed 263,000 jobs added in November, but the household survey showed a decline in employment.
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey: Job openings declined in October
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for October. Read the full Twitter thread here.
While churn remains high, total separations held steady in October as hires softened slightly. Layoffs increased slightly as quits decreased a bit. On the whole, these labor market metrics exhibited very small changes from September. pic.twitter.com/XDZo45f8Sq
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 30, 2022
Although the quits rate remains above historic benchmarks, it’s been coming down for months. Hiring continues to outpace quits in every major sector as workers seek and find new jobs. pic.twitter.com/WLAPd8bC0v
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 30, 2022
Voters turned out for economic justice: A review of key ballot measures from the 2022 midterm elections
In this year’s midterm elections, voters showed a strong level of support for progressive ballot measures across the country. These victories were tempered by the defeat of worthwhile ballot measures in some states and the uncertainty of progress under a divided Congress. Nonetheless, voters across the country approved minimum wage increases, protected access to abortion, supported cannabis legalization, and approved measures to increase housing affordability and promote good union jobs.
Though much work remains to be done to enact a progressive economic agenda, this midterm election showed clear signs of support for a policy agenda that prioritizes economic, racial, and gender justice for working families.
Minimum wage
Nebraska: Voters approved Initiative 433, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026.
Nevada: Voters approved Question 2, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 in July 2024. The measure also removed a provision that allows employers to pay workers $1 less if they offer health insurance.