By Jimmy Jordan
The Ithaca Voice, April 10, 2023
As negotiations continue over the New York State budget after missing its initial April 1 deadline, business owners, workers, and labor advocates in Tompkins County are all waiting to see what becomes of the state’s minimum wage. ...
Joe Wetmore, the former owner of Autumn Leaves Used Books, said he supported further increasing the minimum wage and tying it to inflation. He criticized Hochul’s proposal to give the governor’s office the power to cap the increases to the minimum wage that would come as a result of inflation.
“[Hochul] wants to have the ability to put a cap on minimum wage increases. But she’s not saying she’ll put a cap on expenses for people in the lower end of the economy. So the idea is, people who are poor, you can limit how much they make. But you don’t limit how much rents are, or how much food is in terms of costs.”
“Who’s that going to squeeze? I think that’s pretty obvious,” said Wetmore.