Members of the Cuomo Administration are criss-crossing New York trying to drum up support for the governor's agenda. New York's Secretary of State was in Buffalo Thursday discussing a proposed increase in the minimum wage.
At Sweetness 7 Cafe on Grant Street Secretary of State Cesar Perales sat down with about about a dozen small business owners to discuss the Governor's proposal.
William Breeser, who owns three local companies, is opposed.
"The folks at McDonalds the minute you raise the minimum wage they're going to raise the price of a hamburger. The money has to come from somewhere," Breeser said.
"Once that happens, the folks that I employ, who aren't going to get a wage increase right now, they're going to get hurt by this in the short-term. But there will be a ripple effect."
Sweetness 7 Cafe owner Prish Moran says she supports the plan because people can't survive on the current minimum wage. But Moran says if her payroll goes up, taxes need to go down.
"Because that is a big part of this. It's not just the payroll," Moran said.
"We pay...a huge chunk of money every week on top that the taxes that we pay for each employee."
According to Perales the proposed legislation includes a six percent tax cut.
"Business taxes are going to go down simultaneously. I mean this is an effort to balance this out so that it is less of a hit on the small business owner," Perales said.
Perales says raising the minimum wage from $8.75 an hour to $10.50 an hour would lift thousands of New Yorkers out of poverty