Pataki vetoes minimum-wage hike

[Khephra]

BY DIONNE SEARCEY
STAFF WRITER, Staff writer Carrie Mason-Draffen contributed to this story.

July 30, 2004


Saying that hiking the minimum wage would put New York at a "distinct competitive disadvantage," Gov. George Pataki vetoed a measure yesterday that would have raised the hourly rate to $7.15 by 2007.

In his veto message, Pataki said the increase would hurt small businesses and would force employers to cut jobs in New York, sending workers to border states. He said he prefers to wait for the federal government to raise the wage nationwide, and yesterday his budget director, Carole Stone, sent a letter to New York's congressional delegation urging them to do so.

"Simply put, jobs lost in New York as the result of a raise in the minimum wage would be the gain of employers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," Pataki, a Republican, said in his message. The minimum wage is $5.15 in all three states.

His veto prompted outcry from supporters of the bill, chief among them Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, who called it "a heartless and cruel disgrace." New York's minimum wage hasn't been raised in four years. Twelve states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, require workers to be paid more than the federal government's hourly minimum.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stwage30q3912144jul30,0,7782775.story?coll=ny-statenews-headlines

[mac56]

1. Rat bastard.

I'm reminded of Seinfeld's line: "Minimum wage is an employer's way of saying 'We'd pay you less if we could'."

[Terran]

2. Republicans just don't get it.

Higher wages=greater demand for goods and services=MORE jobs, not fewer jobs. It's the same logic as cutting taxes. It actually does work, if done judiciously. And a minumum wage hike is WAY over due, nationwide.

[Mel]

3. New Yorkers need to get rid of Pataki!

Dan Cantor is right it is "a heartless and a cruel disgrace"

The voters ought to make Pataki try to live on $5.15 an hour better yet give him the $7.15 an hour to live on for a few months and see how he likes it!

What the people ought to do in every state is petition for a vote that all political office holders can only make 'minimum wage' then we'd see the 'poverty wage' become a 'Living Wage' real quick!

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

4. What a great idea!

Any governor who vetoes raising the minimum wage should be forced to live for six months at the current minimum.

[clownskull]

5. Great Idea

I support that idea 100%

[JayS]

6. I don't necessarily disagree with him. Speaking as an...

...employer, albeit one without any employees that just make the minimum wage, I would look at shifting whatever labor I could to an outlying area if my competition could do the same.

[2Design]

7. and where do all these 5.15 an hour people live and why not sell

drugs instead....

this is a great way to continue to support people unable to take care of themselves

Just as we are doing to cuba, we are doing to our own people. We have forced sanctions against a living wage.

[masshole]

8. they repugs said the same thing here in Mass

before the minimum wage was changed (currently $6.75/hr).
There has been no noticeable loss in jobs. No fast food restaraunts, convenience stores, or retail stores closed up or downsized because of the change.

[David__77]

9. Minimum wage referendums.

It's wonderful to put this item on the ballot via referendum wherever it's possible. People support it and you can paint the GOPers are evil, heartless bastards (the truth!).

[KamaAina]

10. And this guy is supposed to be a *moderate* repuke?

What would a real right-winger do, bring back debtors' prison?

Soon we'll all be singing the sad refrain: "I admit it! I'm Jean Valjean..."