New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has formally unveiled his effort to raise the pay of the state’s fast-food workers. On Thursday, Cuomo said he will ask the state labor commissioner to convene a panel on increasing the fast-food industry’s minimum wage. Cuomo said taxpayers are subsidizing the industry’s low wages through public assistance to its workers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “I announce today, as the governor of the state of New York, that I want to get out of the hamburger business. I don’t want the taxpayers of New York subsidizing the profits of McDonald’s anymore, and this has to end. I think the fast-food industry should live up to the spirit of the law and pay a minimum wage that is truly a minimum wage and a livable wage. I think their situation is a fraud. I think their profits are based on unpaid wages and unpaid employee expenses and costs that have been improperly transferred to government. And if the Republican Senate doesn’t want to hear it, then I will use the power I have.”

The panel’s findings are expected in three months. Cuomo’s announcement comes just weeks after thousands of fast-food workers staged a national protest calling for a $15 minimum wage, their largest such action to date.