Former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged to raise New York City's minimum wage to $20 an hour if elected mayor. (Handout)
"Their pundits are going say, 'Oh, it's going be too hard to get it passed politically. The politicians are going to be afraid to get it passed," the former governor added. "Well, I tell you this, they're wrong. And you know how we know they're wrong? Because we did it before, and we're going to do it again.
"We raised it to $15, the highest minimum wage in the United States," he noted, likely touting a law he signed during his second term as governor. "And what happened when we did it? The economy went up, not down. We protected small businesses with a tax credit.
Cuomo slammed "businesspeople" and political naysayers in his pitch Wednesday. (Reuters/David 'Dee' Delgado)
The city's minimum wage was raised twice in the past two years. In 2024, it was raised to $16 an hour from the $15 previously set in 2018, during Cuomo's governorship. This year, there was another 50-cent increase to the current $16.50 an hour.
Cuomo leads a crowded Democratic primary field in his bid to become the Big Apple's mayor, and he is most closely trailed by state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist.
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The primary will be held June 24.
Kyle Schmidbauer is a production assistant for Fox News Digital. A graduate of Montclair State University in New Jersey, he joined Fox in 2022.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-says-raise-nyc-minimum-wage-20-hour-elected-mayor