Rebecca Cornick cheerfully chopped 120 heads of lettuce, wiped tables and rang up some Baconators, fries and chicken club sandwiches. For most of her customers, it was just another afternoon at a Wendy’s restaurant in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Not for Ms. Cornick. She was celebrating.

It was Thursday, one day after a state panel recommended that the minimum wage for fast-food workers be raised to $15 an hour, and Ms. Cornick was savoring congratulations from some regulars and the knowledge that soon, very soon, she would have more money to pay her bills.

But her jubilation dimmed after her shift, as soon as she stepped onto the street. On her stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, the low-wage workers outside the fast-food industry will remain untouched by the pay increase. That includes her 24-year-old granddaughter, who earns minimum wage — $8.75 an hour — at a day care center two blocks from Wendy’s.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Ms. Cornick, 61, said. “So many people are desperate.”

Advocates for workers across the country cheered last week when New York became the first state to recommend a $15-an-hour minimum wage specifically for fast-food workers. But in New York City, the decision has created a stark new divide between low-wage workers who will receive the boost in their paychecks and those who will not.