Good Jobs, Living Wages
All work has dignity, and should be paid as such. No one who works full-time should live in poverty.
The Working Families Party’s first major campaign was to raise New York’s minimum wage. On December 6, 2004, we achieved our goal when the Republican-controlled State Senate overrode Governor Pataki’s veto of a two-dollar an hour increase. A $7.15 minimum wage, phased in over two years, became law. Our win in New York inspired other states to raise their minimum wage too, and momentum from victories in states across the country led to an increase in the federal minimum wage in 2007.
Of course, the minimum wage is still too low to live on. That’s why the Working Families Party has fought and won victories at the local level, leading successful campaigns to pass living-wage ordinances in New York City, Suffolk County (the first ordinance in the country to be passed by a Republican legislature), Nassau County, Syracuse and Westchester County.
