Advocates urge state lawmakers to focus on poverty

ALBANY -- Advocates for the working poor this week said lawmakers must address increasing hunger and poverty in New York before they vote themselves a pay raise.

Tuesday, advocates for the poor spoke outside the State Senate chamber to push for an increase in the minimum wage to as much as $15 an hour.

"Complaining that the legislator salary of $79,500 does not go far enough in this day and age while setting a minimum wage for the rest of us that leaves millions of workers suffering is over the top even for Albany," said Sara Niccoli, executive director of the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State.

The group, an alliance of faith communities and unions, is one of several that have pleaded for an increase in the minimum wage if lawmakers return to Albany for a special session next month to raise their salaries.

The legislature can't raise its own wages in the current session, but it could convene before Dec. 31 to raise the salary for lawmakers in the next legislative session beginning Jan. 1. Salaries haven't been raised since 1999.

The legislature raised New York's minimum wage to $8 an hour last year, from $7.25. That law already will further raise it to $8.75 on Dec. 31 and to $9 on Dec. 31, 2015.

At an event here Monday, advocates urged lawmakers to treat feeding the hungry as a human right and fund it as a priority.

Social workers and religious workers said many nonprofit agencies that have fed 3 million New Yorkers suffering from hunger didn't survive the Great Recession. They also said the biggest segment of contributors to food programs for the poor -- moderate income New Yorkers -- are giving less because of stagnant wages.

"Far too many are not experiencing that comeback," said Rep. Paul Tonko (D-Amsterdam). "They have seen their household income decline. They've seen tougher times befall them, and their loved ones. So tough times require tender responses."Sister Honora M. Kinney, of Albany, cited President Franklin D. Roosevelt's call for "freedom from want" in his Four Freedoms speech in 1941 as a basis for making the poor a higher priority forgovernment, which she said is now addressing "symptoms, not causes" of poverty.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo haven't yet decided whether to have a special session.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.