Today, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) released a new analysis assessing the impact on poverty of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s proposed minimum wage increase (A.9148). The bill would raise New York’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 per hour and index the wage to rise with inflation in subsequent years.
According to EPI’s analysis of Census Bureau data, if the state minimum wage were increased to $8.50 per hour, the average family income of an affected employee would be $53,788 per year. Over 60 percent of the beneficiaries of the proposed wage hike are either living at home with family (e.g. a parent or relative) or have a spouse that also works. Only 8.5 percent are single parents with children.
Nearly 30 percent of the beneficiaries of a proposed wage increase to $8.50/hour are young people age 21 and under.
The full analysis is available here.