The mayor of Syracuse made her support for raising the pay of the lowest-paid workers more than rhetorical on Wednesday by increasing the minimum wage for the city’s employees to $15 an hour, effective immediately.

The move by the mayor, Stephanie A. Miner, announced in a letter sent to city workers, is more emphatic than the wage increase that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is pushing for in Albany. Mr. Cuomo, who, like the mayor, is a Democrat, has called for the statewide minimum wage for all workers to rise to $15 an hour gradually, as it is now scheduled to do for employees of fast-food chains.

But rather than phase in the increase, Mayor Miner decided to enact it in one swoop, providing some workers with an instant raise of more than 70 percent. She said in an interview that 69 positions on the city’s payroll paid less than $15 an hour. Those jobs include temporary assignments in the Public Works Department and clerical positions in other agencies.

“This is an investment in the people who work here that will inure to the benefit of their families and the local economy,” Ms. Miner said. “I do know that it will benefit those families. They may have pizza on a Friday night where they didn’t before, or they may buy an extra pair of shoes for their kids to wear to school.”