Elected officials and activists launch new coalition to raise minimum wage

Zohran Mamdani went from little-known Assembly member to decisive winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary on a platform of affordability. Enacting a $30 minimum wage by the year 2030 was one of his many promises that resonated with hundreds of thousands of voters across the city. Now, riding this wave of public interest in making the city affordable for working-class New Yorkers, a group of city and state elected officials came together on Tuesday to launch a new “Living Wage for All Coalition,” focused on raising the minimum wage and eliminating the subminimum wage in New York.

“Thirty dollars is the bare minimum New York could be talking about in terms of what is needed,” Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, a national advocacy organization, said at the launch. 

States and cities across the country have raised their minimum wages in recent months, with planned hikes hitting 15 cities this past July, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Currently, 30 states and the District of Columbia have higher minimum wages than the federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25. New York City’s minimum wage is currently $16.50, and it’s set to increase to $17 in January. 

Members of the newly-formed coalition – including Assembly Members Jessica González-Rojas and Claire Valdez and Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado – said on Tuesday that the city’s wage is still far behind the increases taking shape in other U.S. cities. Los Angeles, for example, recently saw the passage of a new law raising the minimum wage for its tourism workers to $30 per hour in 2028. Boulder County, Colorado is on track to reach a $25 minimum wage by 2030. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyʼs Living Wage Calculator, which many at the launch cited, a living wage for a single person with no children in New York City is currently around $30.

“The real poison pill is economic inequality. That’s the poison pill of democracy, and as economic inequality grows across this country, and certainly right here in New York, where we have the largest wealth inequality gap of any state in the country, our democracy is under siege,” Delgado said. 

Delgado – who is challenging his boss Gov. Kathy Hochul in next year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary – is has centered his campaign platform for governor around promises to lower the cost of living, and he has criticized Hochul for not raising taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy. In 2016, New York became one of the first states to adopt a $15 hourly minimum wage, and in 2023, Hochul and the state Legislature agreed to raise the minimum wage to $16.50 and index it to inflation.

When asked how he could get Albany to raise the minimum wage again, Delgado pointed to the colleagues standing next to him at the launch and said the answer is working with “partners” and “living on the ground, doing this work, day in and day out.” He also said the new coalition will aid in building up a bipartisan coalition to pass legislation on wage increases.   

“I invite electeds – from Republicans in New York, two of whom signed on to our bill, to progressives, to Gov. Hochul herself – to support this campaign for a living wage for all because it does not know any party. It does not know any political spectrum,” Jayaraman said.

González-Rojas, who also spoke at the launch, is the lead Assembly sponsor of the One Fair Wage legislation, a bill that seeks to incrementally increase the cash wage for food service employees receiving tips in New York. Currently, food service industry workers who make tips in New York City, Westchester County, and Long Island receive a minimum of $11/hour, while those in the rest of the state receive a minimum of $10.35/hour. While the tips they receive are thought to fill the gap between this base pay and the minimum wage of $16.50 in the city and $15.50 elsewhere in the state, wage advocates argue that tipping is too unpredictable to fill this gap and amount to a living wage.

Mamdani has proposed incrementally raising the minimum wage in New York City, going from $20 per hour in 2027, to $23.50 in 2028, to $27 in 2029 and finally $30 in 2030. At the beginning of 2031, the wage would continue to increase every year, indexed to either  cost of living increases or productivity increases. Only the state Legislature has the power to increase the minimum wage in New York City (or anywhere else in the state), but Mamdani’s team is confident that they will be able to follow through on the promise to raise the minimum wage if he is elected mayor. 

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also promised to raise the minimum wage as a part of his campaign for mayor, proposing a raise to $20 per hour by 2027. The elected officials and advocates at the launch – most of whom have endorsed Mamdani for mayor – said that Cuomo’s proposed increase was not enough. 

“Many of us are supporting Zohran in this race and are willing to fight for many of the policies that he is advocating for, which is going to take some state-level action,” González-Rojas said.