Remember, the minimum wage in New York is set to rise in all areas of the state on Jan. 1.
In most areas of the state, including Upstate New York, the wage will increase to $15 an hour, according to the state Labor Department.
That’s an increase of 5.6% over the current minimum wage of $14.20 an hour in Upstate New York. The hike will translate into an extra $32 a week for a full-time worker in a minimum wage job.
The wage will increase to $16 an hour in New York City and Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The increase in 2024 will be followed by hikes of 50 cents an hour in 2025 and 2026. Those increases will bring the minimum wage to $17 in the New York City area and $16 an hour in Upstate New York, up about 12.7% from the current level in the region.
The hikes will yield an extra $72 a week over the current amount for full-time minimum wage workers in Upstate New York.
After the set hikes, the state will tie future increases in the minimum wage to inflation. Going forward, New York plans to raise the minimum wage by a three-year moving average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers in the Northeast region.
The coming increases and planned indexing of the wage to inflation are the result of policy changes passed earlier this year as part of the state budget process.
The minimum wage in New York has increased substantially in the last 10 years.
A decade ago it was $7.25 an hour. Once the latest set of increases are in place, the wage will have increased over 120% from that level in Upstate New York.