What's happening
This bill requires New York prisons to pay inmates $1.20 to $10 per day for work, with regular raises and cost-of-living adjustments.
Why it matters
Establishes significant and reliable compensation for inmate labor. , setting a mandatory daily pay range and ensuring regular raises, which may improve inmates’ ability to afford basic necessities, communicate with family, and save for reentry into society.
Mandates higher wages for manufacturing and industrial work assignments. , recognizing the greater value and demands of these roles, and potentially incentivizing inmates to participate in skill-building jobs that could support post-release employment.
Requires periodic cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation. , ensuring that inmate wages retain their purchasing power over time and are not eroded by rising prices, which is a rare provision in carceral labor policy.
Provides a safety net wage for inmates unable to work due to age or disability. , acknowledging the needs of vulnerable incarcerated populations and helping them maintain access to commissary and essential services, reducing further marginalization.
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Who cares
Inmates in work and program assignments
The bill would set base compensation at $1.20 to $10 per day, require twice-yearly raises for adequate performance and generally protect pay when inmates transfer facilities or change assignments.
Inmates in manufacturing or industrial assignments
They would receive $5 to $10 per day while in those assignments and return to their previous pay rate upon leaving.
Inmates unable to work or participate in programs
Those unable to participate because of specified impairments or conditions, or who are over 60 and not participating because of age-related infirmity or frailty, would receive $1 per day with cost-of-living adjustments every five years.
New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
The department would administer the compensation requirements and review base rates every five years, making a cost-of-living adjustment when the specified cumulative CPI-U change reaches at least 10 percent.
Headline styles
Raise Inmate Pay
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
3 Co-sponsors
1 Multi-sponsor
History
- Enacting clause stricken
- Referred to correction
Companion bills
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Raise Inmate Pay
In Senate Committee · Crime Victims, Crime And Correction · Sponsor Luis R. Sepúlveda
Raise Inmate Pay
In Assembly Committee · Ways And Means · Sponsor N. Nick Perry
Full text
1 pageUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
4340
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 4, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. WEPRIN, DE LA ROSA, GOTTFRIED, RIVERA -- Multi- Sponsored by -- M. of A. COOK -- read once and referred to the Committee on Correction
AN ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to inmate wages
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 187 of the correction law is amended by adding a new subdivision 5 to read as follows:
5. Inmates shall be compensated for all work and program assignments at a base rate of compensation of one dollar twenty cents to ten dollars per day and shall be given biannual raises for adequate performance in such assignments. An inmate working in a manufacturing or industrial assignment shall receive compensation of five to ten dollars per day for the duration of the time such inmate works in such assignment and shall revert to his or her previous rate of compensation once he or she is no longer working in such assignment. Unless an inmate is leaving such manufacturing or industrial assignment, his or her compensation for performing his or her work or program assignment shall not be decreased if he or she is transferred to a different facility or changes assignments within a facility. The department shall review and adjust the base rate of compensation of inmates every five years after the effective date of this subdivision to adjust for cost of living increases. A cost of living adjustment shall be made if the sum of the annual average changes of the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), as published annually by the United States department of labor bureau of labor statistics, is ten percent or greater upon review. Inmates who are not able to work or participate in programs because of a medical, mental, cognitive, developmental or physical impairment or condition or who are over the age of sixty and not participating in a work or program assignment because of age-related infirmity or frailty shall be paid one dollar per day, adjusted every five years for cost of living.
§ 2. This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD08581-01-9
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.