Clausen: When $12.50 doesn't equal $15

• Compromise on minimum wage feels sloppy, unfair and disingenuous.

Low-wage workers aren't going to make $31,200 a year with a new minimum wage in, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo doesn't have a new national model either.

In fact, the path to a higher New York state minimum wage has had more craters and potholes than your favorite highway at this time of the year. Getting this far has been sloppy, unfair and disingenuous.

Cuomo did an end-around on the state Legislature by appointing a three-person Wage Board to review conditions in the fast food industry, ultimately agreeing to boost the minimum wage to $15 for workers at large chain restaurants.

It was a move that worried small business and restaurant owners throughout the area, and led to some new surcharges to cover the labor increases for tipped workers on sale receipts. Geneva’s Belhurst Castle called it a NYS Labor Surcharge; Back Nine Grill in Pittsford purposefully and incorrectly spelled it, "NYS Coumo Tax."

Clausen: Misspelled 'Coumo' tax hits food tabs

They said minimum wage was never supposed to be a living wage. It's a training wage.

Only problem is that these days too many people rely on that training wage to make a living. Too many of them rely on public assistance. Paying them more would help pull people out of poverty. Some small businesses would have to reduce their own pay, and who really wants to do that?

"We will survive but may have to adjust pricing at some point," said Mike Clarcq, president of the Rochester Chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association. "Philosophically, what people need is access to affordable higher education so they are not working minimum-wage jobs and they have a real future."

But the measure also angered a lot of folks with degrees earning less than $15 an hour now.

Shouldn't paramedics, nurses and other emergency workers who perform life-saving work make at least that too? After all, they've worked hard on earning college-level degrees and many have additional training.

Of course, they deserve more. So do workers in other fields, too.

Just not under that very first plan as it was approved last year.

Clausen: New inequity of $15 fast-food wage

School districts also were fearful that a higher minimum wage would force them into political suicide, asking voters to approve budgets with big jumps in taxes reflective of higher labor costs.

That was unfair to schools, workers and small businesses.

Now there is a compromise.

Instead of $15 an hour by July 2021, it's $12.50 by the end of 2020 in upstate New York. After that point, the governor's Division of the Budget will be required to develop a formula for getting the rate to $15.

By law, the formula has to be set by Oct. 1, 2021. It doesn't seem likely that a new governor or an opponent to the measure will get the law overturned somehow, although the commissioner of the state Department of Labor can choose to stop minimum wage increases if the economy can't handle it.

How he decides that is anyone's guess at this point.

Different things will happen downstate. Workers in the New York City area will get $15, and much sooner. Small businesses of 10 or fewer employees in New York City will get an extra year before they will have to pay their workers $15.

It’s possible that some of these businesses will find ways to run their shops more efficiently and maybe through automation. Fewer jobs will likely be the result.

Q&A: How will NY's $15 wage work?

Cuomo and other leaders advocating the higher minimum wage never seemed to fully understand, at least publicly, how much difference there is between the upstate and downstate economies. There are no towering skyscrapers or $50 burgers in Rochester.

Median wages downstate run about $15 an hour higher than in the Rochester area. The costs of living in the two areas are also very different. We know that.

Not seeing that was sloppy by the power brokers.

The whole minimum wage debate was kicked off with the help of fast food workers who got the governor’s attention through letters, rallies and lots of shouting and screaming on megaphones.

Many of them must be feeling let down right about now.

Their win over the summer was just stripped from them like an Olympic gold-medal winner busted for doping.

But the fast food workers aren't giving up just yet. Many will join Metro Justice for new rallies. The first begins at 7 a.m. Thursday. They want $15 an hour, union rights and better benefits.

"We were told only months ago that raising the minimum wage to $15 was necessary to restoring opportunity and basic dignity to workers and their families across New York state," Metro Justice Organizing Director Colin O'Malley said in a statement. "To raise upstate wages to $12.50 by 2021 is too little, too late."

And that's how settling for $12.50 was disingenuous for so many.

Todd Clausen is the work life reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle. Email him at TCLAUSEN@Gannett.com or call him at (585) 258-9883.

Mass march and rally for $15

Fast food workers and Metro Justice supporters will march Thursday at three area events. They will gather for a morning rally at 7 a.m. outside McDonald’s, 1701 East Ave. Rochester; at 11 a.m. at Wendy’s, 1175 E. Ridge Road, Irondequoit; and for a 5 p.m. gathering and march at Washington Square Park in downtown Rochester. For more information, go to /bit.ly/22ga3hK.