LaSaintee Williams has worked at a Syracuse KFC for five years and earns $7.50 an hour, just a quarter more than the $7.25 minimum wage.

“I think it’s great, that minimum wage would go up,” the 22-year-old said last week about a plan from some Democratic lawmakers in Albany to boost the hourly pay to $8.50 an hour. “It would help a lot of people.”

Not so, says Eileen Brophy, who runs a janitorial service in Syracuse with 130 workers and 115 clients in the Central New York area. Base pay at the service starts at $8.50 and averages $9 an hour.

Raising the minimum wage — which last went up a dime three years ago to meet the current federal rate — could mean passing along a 17 percent increase in expenses to her clients. “You’re going to try to pass it onto your client,” said Brophy. “It’s not like I can get away with doing it for less.”

Raising the minimum wage has become the highest priority for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Democratic state leader whose power lies with many New York City and other urban members where the costs of living can quickly outweigh wages paid.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo generally favors increases in the minimum wage. But as a second-year governor who’s declared the state “Open for Business,” he’s waiting to hear how a mandatory wage increase would impact businesses that, to this point, have overwhelmingly supported his agenda.

“In concept, I have supported minimum wage increases,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said last month in Syracuse. “The $64,000 question is, ‘How is it impacting the economy?’ And we’re looking at that now.”….

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