The State of New York and California have both passed legislation that will increase the minimum wage in both states to 15 dollars an hour. Although the minimum wage of both states will not immediately go into effect, the minimum wage will slowly works it's way up annually until reaching 15 dollars an hour. Bringing up the minimum wage will allow people working for at the minimum wage to afford the high cost of living in both states. The decision to bring up the minimum wage was met with divided opinions as Senators and Assembly members from both parties on opposing sides of one another. Ultimately, the pros of raising the minimum wage outweigh the cons astronomically. The median wage at both states will take a few years to go in effect. However the wages will gradually increase until reaching 15 dollars. As the Wall Street Journal infers, Governor Jerry Brown’s plan …show more content…
As a report from the Legislative Analysis infers that the average price of a California home is about $440,000, about two-and-a-half times greater than the national average of $180,000. Similarly, California’s average monthly rent is about $1,240, a whopping 50 percent higher than the rest of the country which averages at 840$ a month (Alamo and Uhler). Additionally, the state of New York has a high cost of living, especially in New York City. For example, a report by the Economic Policy Institute inferred that a two child family in New York City would need at 95,000 dollars annually to live an adequate lifestyle, while that same family would only need 48,000 in Marshall county in Mississippi (Gould et al.) Raising the minimum wage will help alleviate some of the hardships that people must endure when working for the minimum wage in California and New York. Although the wage increase will benefit millions of people, opinions have been increasingly divided over the minimum