Business Owners Seek Compromise on Minimum Wage Increase
Raising the minimum wage, a divisive partisan issue in 2012, now seems ripe for compromise.
Recent comments by some business groups and the leading Republican in the state senate indicate several opportunities to compromise on the $8.75 per hour minimum wage proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in this year's state budget.
The current minimum wage is $7.25.
Several other states have training wages, which apply to youthful workers in the first months of their employment. New York does not allow for a generalized training wage, but softens some wage regulations in registered apprenticeship programs.
Some business groups have pushed the governor to phase in his proposed increase over time. Other groups say a minimum wage hike will increase consumer demand, and help their bottom lines over time.
Many business groups, seeing inevitability in an action that has the support of more than 80 percent of voters, according to some polls, have focused on imposing so-called "softeners" rather than opposing an increase outright.