Minimum wage will go up by one dollar

FINGER LAKES--Following the continued push to raise wages in New York to at least $15 per hour, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) announced the next steps in the state's wage increase phase-in. The commissioner issued an order calling for the minimum wage rate in counties outside of New York City, Long Island and Westchester to rise by $1 per hour, from $13.20 to $14.20, following a statutorily required economic analysis conducted by the New York State Division of the Budget (DOB). Currently, the minimum wage rate in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County is $15 per hour and did not change with this ruling. The commissioner's order is subject to public comment before a final decision is made. Comments can be shared by e-mailing: regulations@labor.ny.gov by Dec. 11, 2022. If accepted, the wage increase would take effect on Dec. 31, 2022. An average of 200,000 New Yorkers in upstate counties will benefit from this wage increase according to the department, 44 percent of which are full time workers and of those, nearly 25 percent are supporting children below age 18. New York's minimum wage statute requires that DOB review the state's economy annually to determine whether wage increases should move forward as scheduled. For the minimum wage that will be applicable in 2023, the statute also requires DOB, in coordination with NYSDOL, evaluate various economic factors, such as consumer prices, and determine the rate of minimum wage increases. In its analysis, DOB considered various measures of inflation; statewide average wages; labor productivity; the pace of the state's labor market recovery; labor demand and supply; regional unemployment rates and other trends in the low-wage employment sector; the impact of COVID-19 on the minimum wage workforce; and other factors. Key findings from DOB's minimum wage report include: • Regional unemployment rates outside of New York City are at historic lows. The 3.1 percent rate for this area for the four months from April through July 2022 is the lowest in the history of the data going back to 1976 and is lower than the national 3.5 percent rate for the same month. • Low-wage industries are overrepresented among the state's remaining job losses due to the early impact of the pandemic. Although the minimum wage workers' share is likely to rise as the low-wage sector recovery proceeds, the size of the minimum wage workforce is likely to continue to be constrained by a rise in entry-level wages as firms compete for workers. • New York is experiencing a job gap of 351,000 relative to its pre-pandemic peak. • Like the rest of the nation, the New York labor market is expected to continue to slow in the coming months. The Federal Reserve's shift to aggressively battle inflation will have a disproportional impact in New York. As a result, state employment growth is projected to slow from 4.3 percent in 2022 to 0.8 percent in 2023. State employment is not expected to reach its pre-pandemic level until 2026.