Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez urges federal minimun wage increase at private event in an expensive hipster bar

 

NY Daily News

Nothing says working class hero like $16 avocado toast.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned to her bartender roots Friday, mixing drinks and serving food for an hour at a recently-opened eatery in her district as part of a push for a national wage hike for tipped workers.

But the location for the boozy event — The Queensboro in Jackson Heights — doesn’t exactly cater to Ocasio-Cortez’s working class constituents.

The one-year-old gastro pub charges a whopping $20 for a plate of rigatoni with ragu, $13 for spring pea salad and a princely $16 for avocado toast.

Pricey fare wasn’t on Ocasio-Cortez’s mind Friday, though, as she served up comped cocktails, wine and pizza to bar workers and labor group representatives as part of their “One Fair Wage” campaign.

 “The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13 an hour,” Ocasio-Cortez said in between slinging drinks. “That is unacceptable. Any job that pays $2.13 an hour is not a job — it’s indentured servitude.”

 The low federal minimum is meant to be supplemented with tips bumping up the total hourly wage to at least $7.25. In New York City, the minimum service wage is $10, provided workers receive an additional $5 in tips.

But the 29-year-old congresswoman, who worked as a bartender in Manhattan for four years before her election last year, said labor needs more “dignity” than that. 

No argument here about the necessity to raise the min. wage but to choose this venue to promote awareness about it? This would have more merit if Alexandria served tables in a diner or bottles of Bud at a dive bar instead of a pretentious bar that sells a platter of $16 beer-battered blowfish tails (???)

What makes this even more insincere is that this event and location was kept from the public for a week. As well as the containment of the press (available photos and videos of the congresswoman but apparently no questions asked) making this more of public relations stunt than a policy proposal.

Cuomo looking to lift wages

From Crains:

Without mentioning Bill de Blasio by name, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that raising wages for city workers is part of his "two-pronged strategy" to get to a $15 hourly minimum statewide—and called on the other two citywide elected officials to push the city to lift its own wage floor.

"Reaching out to other businesses, reaching out to other government officials, asking them to come on board, asking Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James, bring the city of New York with us," Cuomo boomed at a rally in midtown. "Join this crusade."

The other part of the governor's approach is to persuade the state legislature to raise the statewide minimum to $15 over the next few years, he said as he announced that State University of New York workers will be the newest members of his $15 hourly minimum-wage club.

The governor has already raised wages for fast-food workers and state employees. The more than 28,000 SUNY workers affected across the state ramp up to the $15 minimum by 2021, or 2018 for those in the city.

De Blasio supports the push for a statewide $15 minimum wage, and in fact was an enthusiastic proponent of an increase before Cuomo was. But the governor has stolen the mayor's thunder, and by apparently calling for city workers to make $15 per hour has turned the tables on de Blasio, who previously established an $11.50-an-hour minimum for city workers. Any mayoral pledge to raise city workers' pay would now look like a response to the governor's call.

Why are we only raising the wage for fast food workers?

From the NY Times:

A proposed increase in the minimum wage in New York State will be substantial, but that’s really not what bothers some economists.

It’s that the raise would apply only to fast-food workers, and only if they work for a chain with at least 30 locations. A wage increase applying to such a narrow segment of the economy is bound to have unintended consequences.

“I have lots of concern with sector- and firm-size-specific minimum wages,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University whose research on the economic effects of minimum wages has led him to support higher ones that apply to all workers, both at the national level and especially in jurisdictions like New York, where average incomes and the cost of living are above average.

Some of the problems with a narrow minimum wage are obvious. They don’t do much to raise incomes for workers who don’t work at fast-food chains. And they impose higher costs on some businesses than others; in this case, much higher, as chain fast-food restaurants will be required to pay approximately $6 an hour more than their homegrown competitors.

Cuomo pushes minimum wage hike

From the Huffington Post:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Sunday that he plans to submit a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour in New York City and $10.50 an hour in the rest of the state.

The proposal is something of a reversal for Cuomo, who less than a year ago was opposed to allowing municipalities across the state to set different minimum wages. Having several different minimum wages throughout the state, Cuomo said last February, would create chaos by forcing communities to compete against one another. The current minimum wage in New York state is $8.75 per hour, a figure that's set to rise to $9 at the end of this year.

Cuomo's position reportedly began to shift this summer when he was courting the support of the progressive Working Families Party and backed a proposal to let different municipalities set different minimum wages. Under that proposal, New York City would have been able to set a minimum wage as high as $13.13 an hour.

While labor groups are praising Cuomo's decision to raise the wage, Bill Lipton, the state director of the Working Families Party, expressed disappointment that Cuomo, who was re-elected to a second four-year term in November, did not go further.

“We applaud Governor Cuomo’s proposed increase in the state minimum wage as an important first step in the right direction,” Lipton said in a statement Sunday. “But $11.50 is almost $2 less than what he endorsed last spring. And the truth is it’s nearly impossible to raise a family in this state on even $12 or $13 an hour.”

Tweeding simply explained!

"These are the people who make sure we get nothing but then turn around and have us to vote for them again."

Minimum wage hike may cause layoffs

From the Observer:

Comptroller Scott Stringer wants the city’s minimum wage to soar more than $5, though he conceded yesterday businesses may struggle with the potential hike.

Mr. Stringer, appearing on NY1′s Inside City Hall, explained the rationale behind a report he released this week calling for a $13.13 city minimum wage, conceding that businesses would need to take time to adjust to the hefty boost.

“There’s no question that if you raise the minimum wage, it will be challenging for businesses to … adapt,” Mr. Stringer told host Errol Louis. “But they will adapt and when they do adapt you end up pumping money in this case potentially billions of dollars into local communities around New York City, though people who get a raise in salary go to local stores, they buy more at the local businesses so you’re really creating a trigger that will help our small businesses.”

Mr. Stringer unveiled a report on Monday that said boosting the minimum wage from $8–it will be $9 statewide by the end of 2015–will generate $115 million a week in new wages, increasing the spending power of New Yorkers. The analysis, however, did not examine how businesses would cope with the sudden hike and whether workers would have to be laid off to meet the new requirements.