News

Wage victory leads to $15 an hour for New York restaurant workers

The wage increase will result in a more than 70 percent hike in workers' earnings, from the original $8.75 an hour.

July 22, 2015

After a nearly four-year lobby effort by restaurant workers, a New York panel appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo has approved a big increase in the state's minimum wage — $15 an hour, according to the New York Times.  

"This is one of the really great days of my administration," Cuomo tweeted about the decision, the article said.

The wage increase would represent a 70-percent hike in minimum wage earnings from the current $8.75 an hour.

"Chalk one up for the 99-percenters," Bill Lipton, director of the Working Families Party in New York, told the Times. His organization campaigned for the pay boost.

"There's clearly a new standard for the minimum wage and it's actually a living wage for the first time in many, many decades," he told the Times.

Cities across the country have instituted similar increases in minimum wage, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York City will reach the full $15 by 2018, with the rest of the increase scheduled to take effect by 2021.