By Juan Soto
Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order Tuesday expanding the city’s living wage law to thousands of workers and raising the hourly wage from $11.90 to $13.13.
The executive order covers employees of commercial tenants located in building projects that receive more than $1 million from city subsidies.
According to the mayor’s office, the expansion of the 2012 living wage law will benefit 18,000 workers over the next five years, compared to just 1,200 under the current legislation. About 4,000 of those workers are employed at retail stores and fast-food restaurants, businesses that traditionally pay around $8 an hour, close to the state’s minimum wage.
For these workers, the changes mean an increase of about $10,000 a year.
“We are raising the floor for working families struggling to get by,” de Blasio said. “Thousand of breadwinners working at projects that will be supported by taxpayers will earn higher wages and be more likely to receive the kind of benefits critical to supporting a family.”
The current living wage law was passed in 2012, but it excluded employees at retail stores located in the city’s subsidized buildings.
“With this executive order, New Yorkers will be one step closer to earning a livable wage,” U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) said.
The living wage law was criticized because it did not affect companies which are tenants in city-subsidized developments. It also excluded the future development at Hudson Yards.
But with de Blasio’s signature on the executive order, thousands of jobs to be added at Hudson Yards will also be under the new regulations.
The news was welcomed at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
“This will help improve the lives of many retail workers,” said the union’s president, Stuart Appelbaum.
“Expanding living wage is a great beginning in the fight against the disparities that are plaguing our city,” said Ketny Jean-Francois, of Community Voices heard, a nonprofit organization which helps low-income New Yorkers.
Even U.S Secretary of Labor, Thomas Perez, praised the new measure.
“I applaud Mayor de Blasio for rasing wages to thousands of New Yorkers who are working hard every day to make ends meet,” Perez said.
At this point 13 states have raised the minimum wage in the United States.
The expansion of the living wage sets up a fight in Albany, where the mayor intends to win support to set a citywide minimum wage of $13.13 an hourly wage. By 2019, the amount will increase to $15.22.
“From today’s executive order to the expansion of paid sick leave to our overhaul of workforce development, we are working to lift up working people and confront inequality,” the mayor said.
Reach reporter Juan Soto by e-mail at jsoto@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
