Despite inflation that has pushed up prices in the New York area by 4% in the last year, low-wage workers won’t see an expected increase in the city’s $17 an hour minimum wage on Jan. 1 because of a quirk in the 2023 state law that indexed the minimum wage to the consumer price index.
The blow to those workers comes as the city’s economy falters. Data released last week by city Comptroller Mark Levine shows that the city has lost private sector jobs over the past 12 months.
Together, the inflation and employment numbers put in sharp relief the city’s increasingly unequal K-shaped economy. While Wall Street continues to boom on artificial intelligence deals that support luxury consumer spending, housing, and city and state tax revenues, many more New Yorkers are losing economic ground…