Comptroller Stringer: Raising The Minimum Wage For Food Service Workers Would Put $1.3 Billion Into The Pockets Of 180,000 Workers

(New York, NY) – A new report released today by New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer found that raising the minimum wage for food service workers in New York City to $15 per-hour would boost wages by $1.3 billion a year and benefit an estimated 180,000 workers, with approximately half of the dollar gain realized by workers in the fast food sector.

The Comptroller’s report shows how a $15 per-hour minimum wage would impact thousands of food service workers in New York City:

• In Queens, 66,000 workers would see a $550 million annual wage increase;
• In Brooklyn, 54,000 workers would see a $361 million annual wage increase;
• In Manhattan, 34,000 workers would see a $217 million annual wage increase; and
• In the Bronx, 22,000 workers would see a $161 million annual wage increase.

“There’s no question – a higher minimum wage is one of the most effective steps that we can take to combat income inequality and move people toward the middle class,” Comptroller Stringer said. “Raising the minimum wage to $15 per-hour for 180,000 food service workers in the City would help families keep a roof over their heads while providing a boost in spending in our local communities. The time is right to put working families in New York City first.”

There are over 7,600 fast food establishments in the five boroughs employing more than 86,000 workers, according to the New York State Department of Labor. Using a separate data set, the Comptroller’s Office estimated the impact of increasing the minimum wage for food service workers and found that roughly 70 percent of New York City food service workers who would benefit would be Hispanic or Black while only nine percent of those workers affected would be students.

New York City currently has the nation’s highest cost of living and, when adjusted for cost-of-living, the City’s minimum wage is the lowest of any major U.S. city. The report is a follow-up to an earlier study detailing the income effects of phasing in a $15 minimum wage for all low-wage workers in New York. In this report, the Comptroller reaffirms the wide-ranging impacts that a raised minimum wage would have on the amount spent on good and services, the impact on income distribution and the effects on rent burdened households.

In addition, the Comptroller’s office found that:

• Data from the Survey of Consumer Expenditures shows that families with $10,000 more in annual income spend $1,100 to $1,800 more on housing, $300 to $600 more on groceries, $200 to $400 more on entertainment, $200 to $300 more on healthcare and $200 to $300 more on food consumed outside of the home.
• A higher minimum wage for all New Yorkers would significantly decrease the number of households earning $10,000 to $29,999 while increasing the number earning $30,000 to $39,999 by almost 69,000.
• If the minimum wage were raised to $15 per-hour by 2019 for all New York City workers, fewer New Yorkers would be severely rent-burdened.

“When Governor Cuomo’s Fast Food Wage Board meets on Monday, the message will be loud and clear: raising the wage for fast food workers is essential for working families in New York City. It’s time for New York to take the lead on increasing economic opportunity by doing what’s right for food service employees,” Stringer said.

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