Minimum Wage

Supporters of a higher minimum wage want New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to push the issue in a lame-duck legislative session before Republicans take control of the state Senate next year. Proposals to boost the wage to $10.10 an hour and allow New York City to raise it even higher will face significant opposition next year following big GOP victories in last week's elections...

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wants to see the Federal minimum wage, which hasn't gone up in four years, boosted to $10.10 over the next three years. Future increases would be indexed to the rate of inflation.

A proposed measure to increase the New York State minimum wage has passed in the Assembly, 101-44.

The push for a minimum wage increase continued at the capital on Tuesday as senators of the Independent Democratic Conference as well as members of a caucus of racial minorities declared their support for the boost.

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.