In his return to the campaign trail, Andrew M. Cuomo has made no secret of what he thinks is one of his greatest achievements as governor of New York.
“The first state to pass the highest minimum wage in the United States of America, right here,” he said in a speech last month.
Now, as Mr. Cuomo runs for mayor of New York City, he is invoking his past as a political prologue.
Mr. Cuomo on Wednesday will propose raising New York City’s minimum wage to $20 an hour by 2027 if he is elected, which would put it among the highest in the nation.
Mr. Cuomo, the front-runner in the Democratic primary next month, will announce the proposal at a campaign rally with several unions that are endorsing him.
“New York City needs to be a place where working families can afford to live and thrive, and right now that’s out of reach for far too many in what is supposed to be the greatest city in the world,” he said in a statement.
His proposal would need support from Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers. They raised the minimum wage to $16.50 an hour this year in New York City, Westchester, and Long Island; it is $15.50 in the rest of the state and is expected to rise in the future based on inflation.
Many states have moved to raise the minimum wage as inflation has worsened. Washington, D.C., has one of the highest minimum wages at $17.50 per hour; several communities in Washington State have a minimum wage above $20. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
Mr. Cuomo said his proposal would raise wages for roughly 800,000 workers in New York City. He is calling for the new rate to start on Jan. 1, 2027, the one-year mark of his first term if he wins.
The proposal may help Mr. Cuomo combat assertions from his Democratic rivals that he is more attuned to the needs of the business class than to those of the working class.
Many of the other Democrats who are running for mayor also have announced plans to address affordability and income inequality. Zohran Mamdani, a progressive state lawmaker who is in second place behind Mr. Cuomo in polls, proposed raising the city’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030.
Mr. Cuomo will appear at the rally with several unions, including the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and the Amalgamated Transit Union. Most major unions in the city have endorsed Mr. Cuomo.
The former governor said in the statement that the best way to address affordability was to build new housing and raise wages. He called the proposal “an aggressive, progressive action that will help hourly workers and stimulate the economy.”
As governor, Mr. Cuomo signed a law in 2016 to raise the minimum wage to $15 for most workers. Mr. Cuomo had pushed for the change for years, starting with fast-food employees, after facing pressure from unions and workers. That increase put the state at the forefront of a national movement to raise wages, but New York later fell behind other states.
His campaign said that the proposed minimum wage was similar to what it would have been if the 2016 increase had been indexed to the Consumer Price Index rate for the Northeast. At a compound annual growth rate of 2.7 percent, the minimum wage would have reached $19.57 after 10 years, his campaign said.
Under Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, the wage would not automatically continue to rise with the cost of living, but he called for a study to be completed by the city by Jan. 1, 2027, to inform further increases.
He also suggested creating a tax credit for small businesses to help them adjust to the higher wage. The credit would be available to businesses with 10 or fewer full-time employees and would cover up to 30 percent of the wage increase per employee. It would decrease over time.
Mr. Cuomo, a moderate Democrat, has centered his campaign message on how his experience as governor makes him best suited to better New Yorkers’ lives. He often talks about improving public safety, but he has also sought to address the city’s affordability crisis, embracing some of his rivals’ ideas like making free preschool for 3-year-olds universal and expanding a free bus program.
Some Democrats are skeptical of Mr. Cuomo’s campaign pledges. They argue that he will prioritize his wealthy donors and that he did not do enough to address affordability as governor — a position he resigned from in 2021 after a series of sexual harassment allegations that he denies.
Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent in the general election in November, said at his weekly news conference on Tuesday that Mr. Cuomo was making many promises, such as changing his stance on cuts to pensions for public employees.
“He would say anything to get elected,” the mayor said.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
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