*Below is a letter from employees working in nonprofit community-based organizations to Mayor de Blasio. Please sign by August 6, 2021.*

Dear Mayor de Blasio:

As employees in New York City’s nonprofit sector, we are writing to implore you to issue an Executive Order: (1) establishing a $17.50 per hour minimum wage for individuals working on City contracts, with future inflation adjustments; and (2) amending those contracts to provide the funding necessary to cover the increased wages.

As you know, President Biden issued a similar Executive Order in April, increasing the minimum wage for individuals working on federal contracts to $15.00/hour – including in areas of the country with a very low cost of living.

New York City, in contrast, is one of the highest-cost cities in the United States, and it is almost impossible to survive on $15.00/hour.

A minimum-wage employee working 40 hours per week will earn just $31,200 per year, and the amount left after taxes often is barely enough to cover just rent.  Even in the City’s most “affordable” neighborhoods, apartments rent for more than $2,000 per month ($24,000/year).  How are nonprofit workers like us supposed to afford basic necessities on such inadequate salaries?

We are doing some of the most important work in the City – educating children, caring for seniors, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, assisting recent immigrants, and so much more.  In return, we deserve to earn a “living wage” – i.e., the wage necessary to cover housing, food, child care, health insurance, transportation and other basic necessities.

The “Fight for $15” began as an effort to establish a decent wage for people who worked full-time, but the planning for that initiative started a decade ago, and didn’t hit the public radar until November 2012.  

Now in 2021, adjusted for inflation, that $15 per hour should be about $17.50 an hour. And even that amount is low. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator (https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/36005), the living wage in New York City is $21.77/hour for a single childless adult and $20.63/hour for two working adults with one child — with higher numbers for families with more children.  Indeed, the calculated living wage is more than $20/hour in 11 of the 12 listed categories.

This is not just an issue of fairness – it is a moral imperative.  Although we are employed by nonprofit organizations, the City determines how much we should get paid, by deciding the amount of funding provided under City contracts.

As Mayor, you have the power –with the stroke of a pen – to ensure that we can earn a living wage, and thereby afford to house, clothe and feed our own families.

Indeed, this is a power you are very familiar with, because you have used it twice before:

   • On September 30, 2014, you signed Executive Order No. 7, increasing the minimum wage to $13.13 per hour for employees of commercial tenants at City-subsidized projects.
   • On January 6, 2016, you adopted a $15.00 per hour minimum wage for employees working under City contracts.

Unfortunately, those amounts were insufficient to live on then, and are even less sufficient now.

Adopting a $17.50 per hour minimum wage for City-funded employees, and adjusting that amount for inflation in the future, would address income inequality, demonstrate your commitment to progressive values, and support those toiling to make this a more livable city. Hopefully this action will inspire other mayors and governors to do the same, thereby spreading the beneficial impact nationwide.