Passed by the State Assembly last year but killed in the Labor Committee of the Republican controlled State Senate, a $1.60 an hour increase in New York State?s minimum wage may be a very real possibility this year. The legislation---which would put NYS?s minimum wage on par with the $6.70 and $6.75 an hour state minimum wages in Connecticut and Massachusetts, respectively---has already passed the Assembly and the Senate Labor Committee this year, and is being sponsored in the State Senate by Republican Nicholas A. Spano. The combination of vigorous lobbying by the Working Families Party and state and local unions, and Republicans? election-year efforts to gain labor votes, may be enough to overcome the massive efforts by business lobbyists to defeat the bill in the State Senate.
See "The Odds Improve for an Increase in the Minimum Wage", STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times, May 30, 2002