Monday, April 4, 2016

TWO STATES GOING TO $15 MINIMUM WAGE
“Last Monday [March 28, 2016], Gov. Jerry Brown of California announced a deal with state lawmakers to raise California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 — a move expected to lift pay for five million workers. And late Thursday [March 31, 2016] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York reached a deal with legislative leaders to adopt a $15 minimum wage in New York City in 2018 and in its suburbs in 2021, with a $12.50 minimum in upstate New York.
“ ‘Once California and New York go, it is likely that more states will follow,’ said Paul K. Sonn, general counsel of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers.”

Steven Greenhouse, “How the $15 Minimum Wage Went from Laughable to Viable,” The New York Times, April 1, 2016. Steven Greenhouse, a visiting researcher at the Russell Sage Foundation, is a former labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times and the author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.