In 2016, Andrew Cuomo, New York Governor and Democratic Party member, signed a bill which hiked the minimum wage of workers in the state of New York to $15 per hour by the month of December in 2019.
Accordion to Cuomo, the legislation was signed in order to make the lives of the business owners and workers much better. But soon, the residents of New York could feel how the bill had started to hurt the economy in the state.
After the bill was passed, the National Interest, a magazine, reported that large percentages of New York restaurants have either removed employees, reduced working hours or even increased the price of food items.
All of these changes have taken place in just one month following the passing of the bill. The Wall Street Journal states that the minimum wage is increasing from $9 an hour to $15 by the end of 2019.
Susannah Koteen, who owns a restaurant in Harlem, says that with this bill in place, restaurants will not able to have employees work for more than 40 hours a week.
Moreover, they can only reduce the number of employees to such an amount so as to not affect the service in a bad way.
New York City Hospitality Alliance executive director, Andrew Reggie, says that restaurants have stopped overtime work, and reduced work hours in general. Prices of items can not be increased indefinitely as people will not pay so much for regular dishes.
Sarah McNally, who owns a bookshop, said that there is zero benefits and profits have drastically reduced for retail stores across the state.
Even the president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Grech says that the business in the state are shutting down due to this bill.
Owner of Metro Optics Eyewear, John Bonizio, was not against the passing of the bill as it would increase the salary of employees. But he is definitely against the fact that this bill is severely affecting small business.
According to surveys, 74% of people were against the wage hike with most of them wanting the concept of minimum wage to be removed altogether.
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