With the extended mid-winter break for state lawmakers almost over and the budget due to be passed in about a month, a multi-pronged effort is beginning to make a final dash to approve a minimum wage hike.

Things started off with a YouTube video from Strong Economy for All, that was posted this morning on The New York Times’ City Room blog.

The group’s Executive Director Mike Kink told me the video of restaurant workers featuring the song “Money (That’s What I Want)” was done to highlight that industry and the need to raise the wage. The video also sought to shine a light on the restaurant owners who back the wage hike as well (one political consultant told me this is the “first” advocacy video this year to raise the minimum wage).

Later in the afternoon Assembly Democrats released an economic impact assessment of raising the minimum wage to $9 and tying future increases to the rate of inflation, known as indexing.

“The Assembly Majority has been a longstanding champion of workers’ rights and atop that list is the right of a worker to earn a dignified wage. No full-time worker who puts in an honest day’s work should live in poverty,” Silver said. “Certainly, no one could raise a family on this income without government assistance. The reality is that the current minimum wage is not sufficient to provide food and shelter let alone access to health care or retirement security.”

The report found that the wage increase would impact 925,000 workers in the state, with 87 percent of them working more than 20 hours per week.

Tomorrow, a renewed effort will come from the Senate Democrats, who will hold a news conference highlighting that the chamber has the necessary 32 votes (and possibly more) to pass the $9 minimum wage measure now.

It’s an attractive talking point for the Senate Democrats in part because it is designed to apply some pressure to the five-member Independent Democratic Conference now in a ruling majority with the Senate Republicans. The IDC, led by Sen. Jeff Klein, all back a wage increase.

Still, the wage increase, part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget, was complicated in part by President Obama’s proposal on the federal level. Cuomo’s plan would increase the wage from $7.25 to $8.75; Obama’s would make it $9 on the federal level, plus index future increases.

Senate Republicans took cover in this and suggested it may be better to wait on the federal level. Cuomo, who said he would like to see the wage raised on the federal level, said he would keep pushing in Albany as well.

The one card that the Senate GOP continues to play is pushing for surcharge in the 18a utility tax extension to be taken out of the budget and allowed to expire next year. The only complicating factor there, of course, is how to make up for the $200-million plus in revenue.

2013 Min Wage by Nick Reisman

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