I am writing you to urge you to support a $6.75 minimum wage for New York State. A bill to raise the minimum wage to that level has already passed the Assembly, and your vocal support will help it to pass the Senate.

The minimum wage is a defense for our poorest workers, requiring employers to provide a wage that ensures a basic standard of living, thus making sure that even the poorest working New Yorkers can support themselves. Arguments against the minimum wage suggest that increases will lead to unemployment; however, in neighboring Connecticut the minimum wage was raised to $6.15 with no corresponding loss of jobs. Indeed, common sense suggests that as the poorest in the society become more able to purchase needed goods and services, they will become less of a drain on the economy, and in fact put extra money into it, thus strengthening the overall economic state of the country.

Minimum wage workers are not only high school students flipping burgers for extra cash. Increasingly, they are heads of families trying to earn enough money to feed, house, and clothe their children. Six dollars and seventy-five cents is a small price to pay for most employers, and it would mean a great deal to many working families and to the businesses that serve them. I urge you to support this bill when it comes up for a vote, speak up for it and urge your colleagues in both parties to support it.