Mamdani: $30 Minimum Wage ‘Should Be Phased in Over a Longer Period of Time for Small Businesses’

GEIST: “What do you say, though, on the question of affordability? Let’s just take the $30 minimum wage to the guy who owns the dry cleaner, the woman who owns the nail or hair salon, all these small businesses that you’ve grown up around and see on your block all the time, say, ‘I can’t afford to pay people $30. I’m going to have to either lay people off or close my business.’ How do you explain that?”
MAMDANI: “Well, this should be phased in over a longer period of time for small businesses, as is typically done when you’re increasing the minimum wage. And what we’ve heard in terms of concerns are similar ones we heard when we increased the minimum wage here in New York City before. What it comes back to is the fact that today, to live in this city, you have to already be earning 30 bucks an hour, pretty much. And so if we don’t want to pay people that, we’re going to lose New Yorkers. I met a man who was working for 1199 outside Elmhurst Hospital, he told me he commutes two hours every single day to get here because he lives in Pennsylvania, because he can’t afford to live in New York City. So I’m going to be there standing up for small businesses. I’m going to make sure the days of bodegas being more regulated than Amazon come to an end. And I’m also going to make sure that the workers of those same small businesses can afford to stay here.”