ALBANY – State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver made good on his promise of earlier this month to introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour. He did that Monday, but while it would hike the base wage by $1.25 an hour, it is not enough to the Worker Justice Center of New York.

The worker advocacy group, based in Kingston, had hoped it would be raised to $10 an hour, said its co-director, Milan Bhatt.

“Unfortunately the wage rate of $8.50, which would go into effect January 2013 falls short of what we as advocates felt was the right level, which was $10 an hour,” Bhatt said. “Based on the cost of living and based on various other historic indicators, we believe that the $10 mark is what we need here in New York and we hope that it will eventually get there.”

Bhatt said when the state’s workforce cannot earn a “meaningful living, our entire economy suffers and New York falls behind the curve.”