Last spring, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani proposed a “$30 by 2030” minimum wage for New York City workers.1 Ambitious strategies to raise wages and lower costs are needed given that New York City’s current $16.50 minimum wage is inadequate compared with any reasonable measure of a living wage in the city.

Without a policy change, we project there will be 1.68 million NYC workers earning less than $30 an hour in 2030, or 36.7% of the city’s wage-earning workforce. It is likely that the vast majority of these workers would experience significant wage gains if a $30 minimum wage were implemented.

An enormous body of research on the effects of higher minimum wages has shown that past minimum wage increases have meaningfully raised pay for low-wage workers without causing significant increases in unemployment. However, the “$30 by 2030” proposal would go beyond the levels of minimum wages studied in past research, making it more difficult to precisely estimate the number of workers who would benefit and any additional impacts of the measure, such as reductions in hours or employment.

New York City’s current minimum wage does not come close to a living wage

NYC workers face some of the highest living costs in the nation. EPI’s Family Budget Calculator (FBC) measures the income a family needs to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living in every U.S. county. The FBC thresholds are conservative amounts: they account for necessities like housing, food, transportation, health care, and child care but do not provide any allowance for savings for retirement, emergencies, or college. As **Figure A **shows, a family of two adults and two children in the Bronx faces annual costs of nearly $135,000.2 In Manhattan, these costs are greater than $167,000 a year. For a single adult with no children, annual costs range from $62,913 in the Bronx to $87,038 in Manhattan.

Figure A

A family of four in NYC needs at least $134,000 a year to make ends meet: FBC living cost data across five boroughs in NYC

| | 1 adult, no children | 2 adults, 2 children | The Bronx | Brooklyn | Manhattan | Queens | Staten Island | | | –––––––––– | –––––––––– | ——— | –––– | ——— | —— | ———–– | | $62,913 | $134,773 | | $74,620 | $150,186 | | $87,038 | $167,753 | | $79,929 | $155,998 | | $78,790 | $156,133 |

With the FBC cost data we can estimate a living wage that would allow workers to support their families.3** Table 1** shows that the living wage in 2025 is already above $30 an hour in Manhattan ($33.89), Queens ($31.31), and Staten Island ($30.68). While Brooklyn and The Bronx do not exceed this threshold, the costs facing these families will almost certainly continue to rise between today and 2030. These figures make it clear that discussions of a $30 minimum wage in New York City are not superfluous—they reflect the very real needs of working people throughout the city.

Relative to the actual living wage, New York City’s minimum wage is significantly lower than many other high-cost-of-living cities in the country. NYC’s $16.50 minimum wage is around half of the living wage in most of the city’s boroughs. By comparison, the minimum wage is around three-quarters the estimated living wage in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. Chicago’s and Denver’s minimum wages are each more than 80% of a living wage, while the minimum wage is 69.3% of the living wage in San Francisco. All these cities have room to push for higher wages for their workers, but it is clear that New York City’s minimum wage leaves workers further behind than many other major cities in the country.

It is notable that among the cities in Table 1, those with local control over minimum wage policy have been significantly more successful at approaching living wage targets. While New York City’s minimum wage is higher than the upstate region, the policy is currently set by state lawmakers in Albany, not at the local level. Boston (Suffolk County, MA) uses the Massachusetts state minimum wage of $15.00, which is around half of the living wage in the city. Portland, OR, also has its minimum wage set by state lawmakers and has a slightly stronger minimum wage floor (69.8% of the living wage), but every city with a wage floor of at least 70% of the living wage has local control over the policy.4 This pattern suggests that when given the power to do so, local government officials are more responsive to the wage floor needs of workers in their city.

Without a policy change, 1.68 million New York City workers will be paid less than $30 an hour by 2030

Under the status quo minimum wage policy in New York City, we project there will be 1.68 million workers earning less than $30 in 2030, a little more than a third (36.7%) of the total wage-earning workforce in the city. These workers would likely be directly affected by the minimum wage increases in Mamdani’s policy proposal. In addition, economic research shows that workers already earning above the new minimum wage also typically benefit through spillover wage effects as employers seek to maintain organizational wage ladders.

Most minimum wage research finds that increasing the wage floor significantly increases earnings for affected workers, while causing little to no loss in employment. That’s because businesses are able to adjust to increased labor costs through modestly increasing prices, reductions in turnover, and the movement of workers from less-productive firms to more-productive firms.

Moreover, even if a minimum wage increase did result in reduced employment, it’s important to understand what that actually means for low-wage workers. The low-wage job market is characterized by high levels of turnover and churn, as workers are typically always looking for any new position that will offer them more livable pay. Many low-wage workers also spend some portion of the year not employed—due to care responsibilities, participating in education or training programs, or seeking other work. In this context, what researchers would describe as reduced employment does not mean that some set of workers will now be permanently unemployed. Rather, it likely would mean that some low-wage workers would work fewer hours over the course of the year or spend more time between jobs. Of course, these workers would now be earning more per hour when they do work because of the higher minimum wage—what really matters is the net outcome on their annual earnings.

We are cautious about extending the general conclusions of minimum wage research on employment to a $30 minimum wage in New York City. The proposal is more ambitious than the levels that economists have studied extensively. One tool economists use to assess the “bite” of a minimum wage is the minimum-to-median-wage ratio (sometimes called the “Kaitz index”). When underlying wages in the labor market are higher, as proxied by the median wage, the minimum-to-median-wage ratio is lower, and a given minimum wage affects a smaller share of employment. For example, a $17 minimum wage will have a much smaller effect on workers and employers in a higher wage place like New York City than it would have in places where wages are generally much lower.

Table 2 estimates the minimum-to-median-wage ratio for a $30 NYC minimum wage in 2030, as well as other wage thresholds. The ratio of a $30 minimum wage in 2030 would be around 0.76, higher than most other policies in the U.S.5 In a 2021 paper, economists Arindrajit Dube and Attila Lindner compared minimum-to-median-wage ratios across the 10 most populous U.S cities with minimum wages above the state level and found a population-weighted average minimum-to-median-wage ratio of 0.64.6 At the time, Los Angeles’s minimum wage had a Kaitz index of 0.75, but this policy has not been studied enough to understand its employment effects. According to Dube and Lindner, most state minimum wage policies greater than the federal minimum sit at a minimum-to-median-wage ratio of around 0.50. Among international peers, it is notable that the United Kingdom officially targets a minimum wage policy that is two-thirds the median wage (ratio of 0.67). Other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries also have high minimum-to-median-wage ratios, including France (0.62), New Zealand (0.69), Mexico (0.74), Chile (0.75), Costa Rica (0.87), and Colombia (0.92).

The cost-of-living crisis in New York City requires bold steps forward as part of a cohesive strategy to create a more equitable economy. Increasing the minimum wage should be one key part of this strategy, which must also include tackling the cost of housing, child care, and health care. The experience of other high-cost cities also indicates that local lawmakers are better positioned than state officials to set appropriate and livable minimum wages for their jurisdiction’s workers. New York state lawmakers can be much more ambitious in setting high standards for New York City, but it likely would be better to let the city set its own wage standards above the state floor, much in the same way that states can set their own minimums above the federal minimum.

Table 1

Minimum wage levels, living wage levels, and ratio of minimum wage to living wage for select counties in the U.S.

County State Living wage Effective minimum wage for major city Ratio of minimum wage to living wage Note New York City area The Bronx NY $24.50 $16.50 67.3% NY state minimum wage for NYC area Brooklyn NY $29.06 $16.50 56.8% NY state minimum wage for NYC area Manhattan NY $33.89 $16.50 48.7% NY state minimum wage for NYC area Queens NY $31.13 $16.50 53.0% NY state minimum wage for NYC area Staten Island NY $30.68 $16.50 53.8% NY state minimum wage for NYC area High cost-of-living cities King County WA $27.41 $20.76 75.7% Seattle minimum wage San Francisco County CA $27.66 $19.18 69.3% San Francisco city minimum wage Los Angeles County CA $23.97 $17.87 74.6% Los Angeles city minimum wage District of Columbia DC $24.31 $17.95 73.8% Washington, D.C minimum wage Cook County IL $20.20 $16.60 82.2% Chicago minimum wage Santa Clara County CA $31.18 $17.95 57.6% San Jose minimum wage San Diego County CA $27.81 $17.25 62.0% San Diego city minimum wage Suffolk County MA $29.69 $15.00 50.5% MA state minimum wage Denver County CO $22.48 $18.81 83.7% Denver city minimum wage Multnomah County OR $23.36 $16.30 69.8% OR state minimum wage for Portland Urban Growth Boundary Other major cities Philadelphia County PA $18.29 $7.25 39.6% PA state minimum wage (federal minimum wage) Dallas County TX $19.67 $7.25 36.9% TX state minimum wage (federal minimum wage) Miami-Dade County FL $22.93 $13.00 56.7% FL state minimum wage Harris County TX $17.22 $7.25 42.1% TX state minimum wage (federal minimum wage) Maricopa County AZ $21.05 $14.70 69.8% AZ state minimum wage

Notes: Minimum wage values effective July 2025. Effective minimum wage chosen for major city within relevant county. Oregon and New York state minimum wage law establish distinct regional minimum wage levels. The policy is controlled by the state legislature. Living wage values assumed to be for a single adult with no children receiving 81% of their income from wages.

Table 2

Projected 2030 count and share of workers below minimum wage and minimum-to-median-wage ratio in NYC for $30 minimum wage and other thresholds

Scenario	Count of workers below threshold	Share of NYC wage-earning workforce	Minimum-to-median-wage ratio	$25 by 2030	$28 by 2030	$30 by 2030	$32 by 2030
1,358,700	29.7%	0.64
1,579,900	34.5%	0.71
1,680,900	36.7%	0.76
1,868,200	40.8%	0.82

Notes: Assumes annual nominal wage growth rate of 3.3% based on CBO projections of Employment Cost Index. Annual population growth of 0.97%.

Source: EPI analysis of 2023 1-year ACS data and CBO January 2025 Economic Projections.

Notes

1. The proposal also calls for indexing the minimum wage to inflation or productivity increases, whichever is greater, thereafter. The tipped minimum wage in New York is set at two-thirds the regular minimum wage.

2. The FBC data is organized by county, but for the purposes of this analysis we refer to the corresponding New York City boroughs.

3. Gould, Mokhiber, and deCourcy (2024) suggest living wages can be approximated by 81% of the associated FBC thresholds because middle-income families receive about 81% of their income through wages and 19% from other non-wage sources, including government transfers (such as refundable tax credits) and non-wage market income (such as interest on savings).

4. Of course, any state action is more beneficial than using the stagnant federal minimum wage, which is still the effective wage floor in Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, and other cities in states where local minimum wage increases are preempted. These localities all have effective minimum wages that are less than half of the living wage.

5. Our projections assume a nominal annual wage growth of 3.3% based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections of the Employment Cost Index. If we vary this assumption ±0.5%, the outcomes of a $30 minimum wage in 2030 vary as follows: Kaitz ratio: 0.73–0.79. Share of workers under $30 an hour: 36.0%–40.0%.

6. At the time New York City had a 0.66 Kaitz index, higher than it does today (approximately 0.5).

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