(TRENTON) — Assembly Speaker-Elect Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) issued the following statement Tuesday, on the eve of New Jersey’s constitutionally guaranteed minimum wage increase from $7.50 to $8.25 an hour:
“Tomorrow’s minimum wage hike represents more than just a pay increase for 250,000-plus New Jersey workers.
“It represents compassion.
“It represents understanding.
“And, because New Jersey voters chose to tie future increases to increases in the Consumer Price Index, tomorrow’s increase represents a permanent first step toward increased financial security for 250,000 New Jersey men and women.
“Naysayers will continue to predict doom and gloom and the end of business as we know it in this state, as they have every time we have increased the minimum wage. It is my hope and belief, however, that we will look back on this day in the future as the day when New Jerseyans carved a stable beachhead out for themselves on the march towards personal economic stability and the economic recovery of our state.”