Democratic New York City mayoral candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that, if elected, he would seek to raise the city’s minimum wage to $20 an hour by 2027.
“The businesspeople are going to say, ‘Oh, no, you can’t raise the minimum wage, because that’s going to slow the economy,” Cuomo said at a campaign rally, addressing prospective critics of such a plan.
“Baloney – not to use another word.
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Former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged to raise New York City’s minimum wage to $20 an hour if elected mayor. (Handout)
“Their pundits are going say, ‘Oh, it’s going be too hard to get it passed politically. The politicians are going to be afraid to get it passed,” the former governor added. “Well, I tell you this, they’re wrong. And you know how we know they’re wrong? Because we did it before, and we’re going to do it again.
“We raised it to $15, the highest minimum wage in the United States,” he noted, likely touting a law he signed during his second term as governor. “And what happened when we did it? The economy went up, not down. We protected small businesses with a tax credit.
New York raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, then the highest in the U.S., when Cuomo was governor. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
“And if you had indexed that $15, you know what it would be today?” Cuomo posited. “Twenty dollars — that is the fair wage, and that’s what we want. And that’s what we’re going to get back.”
A public relations firm linked to the Cuomo campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Cuomo slammed “businesspeople” and political naysayers in his pitch Wednesday. (Reuters/David ‘Dee’ Delgado)
The city’s minimum wage was raised twice in the past two years. In 2024, it was raised to $16 an hour from the $15 previously set in 2018, during Cuomo’s governorship. This year, there was another 50-cent increase to the current $16.50 an hour.
Cuomo leads a crowded Democratic primary field in his bid to become the Big Apple’s mayor, and he is most closely trailed by state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist.
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The primary will be held June 24.