Our Views: County leads way with Living Wage

The Island Now

We applaud the news that as of Aug. 1 all county workers and all employees of businesses that have contracts of $25,000 or more with Nassau County must be paid a slightly higher Living Wage.

The new Living Wage, announced last Friday by Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, is $15.50 an hour, an increase of 29 cents from last year, or $13.58 with health benefits, an increase of 23 cents from the previous year. 

The county’s Living Wage is considerably higher than New York State’s minimum wage, which was increased to $8 an hour on Dec. 31, 2013 and will increase to $8.75 on Dec. 31, 2014 and $9 on Dec. 31, 2015.

 The state’s minimum wage is, quite frankly, pathetic. 

It is not enough to get by in the poorest podunk in America and it is far less than is necessary to provide even the minimal needs for an individual let alone a family living in Nassau County.

 We urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature to follow the example set by Nassau County. They need to turn a deaf ear to those who say that small businesses can’t afford to pay their workers more than $8 or $9 an hour. 

If these companies can’t afford to pay their workers a fair wage, then they should close.

 No worker will get wealthy on the $15.50 an hour Living Wage set by the county. And, we are certain, none of the companies contracting with the county will go out of business because of the 29-cent increase.

 The paranoid far right calls this “creeping socialism.” That’s not how we see it. 

The government has the right to balance the goals of a free-market economy with the moral obligation to ensure that all workers are treated fairly. The Living Wage is a move in that direction.

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