ALBANY — Raising New York’s minimum hourly wage to $9 could cost as many as 27,800 jobs, a restaurant industry-backed think tank claims.
The new state budget is expected to include an incremental hike in the $7.25-an-hour minimum wage to $9 by 2016.
The Employment Policies Institute’s study shows that every 10 percent jump in the minimum wage reduces jobs for less-educated white men by 2.5 percent and of less-educated black men by more twice that.
The institute says only 8 percent of New York minimum-wage workers are single parents — who get tax credits that make their effective pay about $10.50 an hour — while the average worker making less than $9 an hour is part of a family with a $58,303 yearly income.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver dismissed the numbers as “pure garbage.”