Last month, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed a bill that would raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 by 2024. Through annual $1 increments, all businesses will be required to pay their employees more.

New York state also has a similar plan. Divided into regions, New York City, Long Island and Westchester County will reach a $15 minimum wage, while the rest of the state will reach $12.50 by 2021. But, the $15 minimum wage is bad for upstate New York.

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“The most obvious risk is downward pressure on labor demand by businesses. That is, employers may curb hiring and possibly substitute automated processes in response to a statutorily imposed wage floor,” said Aron Tobias, a Syracuse University economics assistant professor.

According to PolitiFact, a $15 minimum wage in small cities and rural areas such as upstate New York, would have negative effects on the community and could push people out of work.

In larger cities such as New York City and Seattle, where the minimum wage has already reached $15, cities are feeling negative effects.

According to a survey by New York City Hospitality Alliance, 47 percent of full-service restaurants expect to cut jobs this year because they cannot afford to pay the wages. The minimum wage was intended to help workers, but, instead, workers end up taking less home due to fewer hours.

Tobias said, “These are just a couple of questions that policy-makers ought to keep in mind in the process of deliberating new minimum-wage policies, warranting a thoughtful, incremental, evidence-based approach.”

If New York City is seeing negative effects from a $15 minimum wage, there’s no way upstate New York could handle it.

Patrick Penfield is a sophomore accounting major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at fpen2021@syr.edu.

Published on March 19, 2019 at 11:35 pm