From the protests and lawsuits alleging wage theft of fast food workers across the country, to President Obama's executive order and subsequent campaign to raise the federal minimum wage, and the revelations that the most numerous and least compensated jobs in the United States are in the service and retail industry, 2014 has been heartening for proponents of a higher minimum wage. New York lawmakers are offering up another solution: mandating a $15/hour "fair wage" for employees at some of the largest and most profitable businesses in the state.

State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember Nily Rozic, and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, joined by advocates, activists and underpaid workers, announced the proposal of the Fair Wage Act at City Hall. The bill "would require large employers and chain stores to pay their employees a real living wage of $15 an hour indexed to inflation," per the press release.

“We shouldn’t have the largest, most profitable companies be the ones that most squeeze their workers,” Squadron at the press conference. The bill would apply to businesses that gross more than $50 million a year as well as companies with more than 11 chain store locations in the country. Fast food corporations would be impacted, but the Daily News notes that the legislation would also affect "transportation-related businesses like airport contractors."

The Times spoke with Kathryn "Wall Street Is Our Main Street" Wylde, the president and COO of the Partnership for New York City, a business organization, who was critical of the act: “I think there may be a lack of understanding of how narrow the margins are in these franchise businesses, and I would like to see a study and analysis with industry input, before the legislators go off kind of half-cocked to legislate in an area where I doubt they have the information they need to write a sound bill.”

In Februrary Governor Cuomo, despite allowing the state minimum wage to gradually rise to $9/hour by 2015, was unsupportive of Mayor de Blasio's suggestion that New York City set its own minimum wage.

Can you survive on $16,000 a year in New York City?