THE IRRITATED AMERICAN A fast-food worker shows her new savings after minimum wage was increased from $7.25 to $8.75 (IMAGE: theguardian.com) Well looky here . . . all of a sudden and out of nowhere the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo had an epiphany of sorts. The gov, who previously swatted away an idea desperately sought by Mayor of NYC Bill de Blasio to raise the minimum wage of the city on it's own independent of the rest of the state--saying some garbled mush about how such a move would create a "chaotic situation," and would pit cities against one another, somehow leading to a situation wherein we would "cannibalize ourselves--" now has come around and decided that raising the minimum wage is a good thing after all. He has even come around to the idea that NYC requires an increase separate from the rest of the state, owing to its unique cost of living challenges. Thus, blended into a broader "anti-poverty" push are proposals to up the statewide minimum wage to $10.50, and raising the base wage in New York City to $11.50. This move has been desperately needed in NYC forever. The current minimum pay rate in the city is $8.75, only recently rolled up to this level from the previously laughable federal rate of $7.25. Ultimately, under existing law, which staggers an increase in stages up from the current federal rate of $7.25, the rate is set to go up to $9. Imagine living pretty much anywhere in NYC, even as a single person, on nine bucks an hour. That's $360 a month before tax. . . after tax coming in around $300-$315, let us say, depending on how many deductions claimed. That's around $1200-1260 a month. Let's say your rent is super-atomically cheap, and is $900 a month. That leaves you in the ballpark of $300 a month to play with for expenses. You must get back and forth to work--lets say you ride the subway twice a day at $2.50 a pop. Five dollars a day, times twenty average work days a month. $100 a month on travel. $200 left. Now you must pay your utilities:--lets be conservative and say that Con Ed charges you $60 dollars a month. $140 left. Now you must pay your phone bill--let's say you just use your smartphone without a landline. Let's say you just do prepaid on Virgin Mobile or Boost . . . you do a midline plan and pay $50 a month. Since there is no money in this budget to actually go out and buy the phone en toto as is required from these carriers, let's just assume you do your upgrading around your birthday or the holidays. Still cheaper than the subsidy-based post-paid plans. Now you have $90 a month left. You must buy your clothes, pay for cable and internet if wanted, you must eat, you must do laundry, you must have a social life, buy a car if you want one, go to the doctor, fill prescriptions, and all of the other minor incidentals that life's charming roulette wheel of fortune loves to toss at us--you must do all of this on $23 dollars a week. Viable? Some Republicans are sure it is, and are aghast that this will rob business owners of badly needed funds: "What, are we going to raise it every year? We want to be fair to small businesses," said Senator Martin Golden of Brooklyn about Cuomo's plan. And state senate GOP majority leader Skelos has been blunt: "We're not doing minimum wage (this year)," he said. Inasmuch as the Republicans own the state senate, and they have signaled they will not budge on this--the advice is to keep stretching that $23 weekly bonanza of pocket money (and remember, we're not even at $9 yet, we're still at $8.75). Choose your stock investments wisely! Preston Clive 1/20/2015***