On behalf of the Members of the Assembly Majority, I am pleased to report that this afternoon we intend to take up and to pass our minimum wage legislation on the floor of the House.

Our bill, Assembly 38A, would raise the wage to nine dollars an hour, in keeping with President Obama's proposal, and it would index the wage to the rate of inflation.

If enacted, our proposal would directly benefit more than 925,000 working New Yorkers while stimulating local economies as these families spend their additional income close to home in neighborhood businesses.

Joining me once again to discuss our legislation are:

• The co-author of our bill, Assembly Member Keith Wright;


• And the Chair of the Committee on Labor, Assembly Member Carl Heastie.

Here, as always, to show their strong support for raising and indexing the wage are a significant number of my Assembly Majority colleagues, many of whom are sponsors of this legislation.

Also with us are some very special guests who you will hear from shortly:

• Mario Cilento, President of the New York State AFL-CIO;


• Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union;


• Darius Ross, managing partner of D. Alexander Ross Real Estate Capital Partners, and a member of "Business for a Fair Minimum Wage;"


• And Amador Rivas from Make the Road New York.

The Assembly Majority, I am proud to say, is a champion of worker's rights and we have held that distinction for a long, long time. Chief among them is a worker's right to a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, because we believe that poverty is not a fair reward for those who work a full-time job.

This is a matter of human dignity. It is about the value of labor.

For those men and women who care for our young children in daycare centers, who clean offices, who stock shelves, our current minimum wage (seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour) falls far short of meeting their basic need for food, shelter, heat, and transportation, and clearly fails to help them save for health emergencies or a comfortable retirement.

Certainly, no one could raise a family on $15,080 a year without a helping hand from government. There is no moral or economic rationale that justifies that reality.

These families are trapped between the desire for financial independence and the constant erosion of their wages; between the steadily rising costs of gasoline, education, medical care and groceries and their dream of climbing the ladder into the middle class.

We should be rewarding work with a wage that working families can live on. This is why establishing a fair minimum wage has been our top priority.

Assembly Member Wright has conducted public hearings on our proposal and, recently, we published a policy paper on the subject. We have made a clear and compelling case for raising and indexing the minimum wage.

In addition, the issue has received significant coverage and has been debated in media outlets throughout our state. What we have found, not surprisingly, is overwhelming public support.

According to a January 31st, 2013 Quinnipiac University poll, more than 80 percent of New Yorkers support raising the minimum wage. They feel, as we do, that $15,080 for a full-time, year-round worker is appalling.

It is particularly so, given that 19 states and the District of Columbia have higher minimum wage rates than does the State of New York, and given that our minimum wage would be between ten and eleven dollars per hour today had it kept pace with inflation over the last 40 years.

Opponents say that raising the wage will hurt small businesses.

Let me point out that the majority of low-wage workers are employed not by mom-and-pop shops but by the large chains, which have posted steady profits even during periods of economic hardship.

As I suggested earlier, higher wages mean higher incomes. Higher incomes mean greater spending, which provides a boost to local economies and encourages more hiring.

Opponents argue that indexing our minimum wage will ultimately raise it far above the rates of neighboring states.

Right now, ten states index their minimum wages to inflation. There is no evidence that indexing artificially inflates the wage.

Opponents claim that raising the wage will hurt our economic recovery.

This claim vastly oversimplifies the economic issue. Many factors affect employment and unemployment. The Great Recession is a tragic example.

Now, we're in the midst of a "jobless" recovery. Yes, this morning, the Dow Jones industrial average passed its all-time high and corporate profits are as high - or higher - than they have ever been. Yet economic growth is weak, unemployment is high, but not because workers are enjoying big wage increases. They are not.

To suggest that raising the minimum wage would have a dramatic impact on our businesses and our economy is an exaggeration at best.

The bottom line is this:

The President supports raising the minimum wage, so does the Governor of the State of New York. The Senate Democrats support the idea, so does the so-called Senate Independent Democratic Conference, SO DO WE, but more important, the vast majority of New Yorkers are calling for a minimum wage hike.

The People have spoken. What more is needed?

It is time to heed their call. It's time to raise the minimum wage and to index it to inflation.