Increasing the Minimum Wage: Past and Present

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, NY City Central Labor Council President 

Harry Van Ardsdale, Jr., and Mayor Robert F. Wagner

at a Breakfast Meeting of Labor Leaders, January 14, 1965

Steven A. Levine
Coordinator for Educational Programs

Demands to raise state and local minimum wages above the federal level are not new.  In the 1960s, Mayor Robert F. Wagner prioritized increasing the minimum wage from $1.25 to $1.50.  Stymied at the state level by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the Republican dominated Legislature, Wagner signed a law to increase the City’s minimum wage He declared in a 1964 signing speech that “[T]his nation as well as this city is presently engaged in a war to eradicate poverty.  I am of the firm conviction that this law will in a large measure contribute to the diminution of poverty in this city . . . I feel it to be my duty as mayor of all of the people of the City of New York to sign this local law, and I do so willingly.”   Unfortunately, the NY Court of Appeals found that New York City did not have the power to set its own minimum wage, granting that power only to New York State.

           Mayor Bill de Blasio, like Wagner 50 years earlier, cannot raise the city’s minimum wage without the approval of the Legislature and Governor Cuomo.  This is now a possibility since Governor Cuomo agreed to increase the minimum wage in return for the endorsement of the Working Families Party.  If Cuomo follows through on this agreement, New York State will increase its minimum wage from $8 an hour (75 cents over the federal minimum) to $10.10 an hour indexed to inflation, and New York City and other localities will be able to raise their minimum wages 30% over the state minimum. The issue of leadership has also not changed in the 50 years since Wagner chastised leaders in Albany. “New York used to set the pace for the rest of the nation and the federal government as well.  Today our state, at best, is a reluctant follower.”  Let us hope in 2014 that New York will stop following and take the lead on increasing the minimum wage.

Fiorello La Guardia Takes a Sledge Hammer to Slot Machines: Let's Go to the VIDEO!

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

When Fiorello La Guardia became mayor of NYC in 1934, organized crime and gambling racketeers were his particular bugbears and he went on campaigns to wipe them out. During Prohibition in the 1920s, organized crime had spread from liquor to gambling, narcotics, and the “service of outlawed desires.” One of La Guardia’s earliest public acts as mayor, shown on the following video, was to swing his hammer to smash slot machines and ceremoniously dump them in the Long Island Sound on October 13, 1934.

In the 79 years since Fiorello smashed and dumped those slot machines, a sea change in government’s relationship with gambling has occurred as racetracks, like Aqueduct and Yonkers, have become “racinos” filled with the slot machines La Guardia loathed because he believed they took money from families that should go to feed their children.  New York State voters will also be voting on November 5 on whether to approve a constitutional amendment, backed by an alliance of gambling interests, Indian tribes, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, to allow casinos to open in the Catskills, the Southern Tier and the Albany area.   The New York Times reported yesterday that the gambling industry has spent “more than $59 million on lobbying and political contributions in New York” since 2005.  We know that they are betting a big return on their investment.  I am sure if La Guardia were here today he would be shouting to the rooftops against it.   What do you think?