Minimum Wage for Small Businesses in NYC Going Up to $15 an Hour

New York – The minimum wage for businesses with fewer than ten employees will go up to $15 an hour on Wednesday, continuing a program that has forced businesses to cut hours and lay off workers.

The state passed a law in 2016 to gradually phase in a $15 wage at different rates for New York City, the suburbs and upstate. The law also gave small New York City employers with 10 or fewer employees an extra year to make it to $15.
Larger businesses rose to $15 last year but smaller companies went up to $13.50. For Long Island and Westchester, the wage was hiked by one dollar to $13, and the rest of the state it rose 70 cents to $11.80.
The new minimum wage rate for fast food workers is increasing one dollar to $13.75.

New York City is among the first in the nation to have it minimum wage so high. Washington, D.C.’s wage will jump to $14 in July, California’s will jump to $15 in 2022, while Massachusetts will reach $15 by 2023, and New Jersey by 2024.
The minimum wage in Seattle, meanwhile, will soon hit $16.39.

Recent survey show that over 75 percent of restaurants have had to reduce employee hours while over a third eliminated jobs to pay for the minimum wage mandate, according to the New York City Hospitality Alliance.
E.J. McMahon, of the Empire Center, said that hard data doesn’t yet show anything conclusive but “you hear a lot of negative anecdotes” from companies forced to deal with paying workers more money than the market demands.