PA workers want to know: what will it take to raise the wage?
Philadelphia House Delegation January 23, 2025 | 9:21 AM
Pennsylvania has not raised its minimum wage since 2009. Since 2014, 32 states and Washington, D.C., have increased their minimum wage, including every state that borders Pennsylvania.
While the minimum wage in Pennsylvania has remained stagnate for 16 years, the cost of basic necessities like housing, healthcare, childcare, food, and utilities have all risen. The essential workers who keep our economy moving no matter what want to know why they’ve been ignored by Republicans in Harrisburg for so long.
We’re no longer talking about a policy disagreement. We’re talking about right and wrong. We’re talking about the value we place on hard work. The value we put on the people who do the necessary work to care for our elders, our children, our streets and our businesses.
I know what a raise means for working families who live paycheck to paycheck. It means better food on the table for their kids. It means clothes and gas in the car, and hopefully something left over for a little fun and the future. I wish it wasn’t true, but money moves from paycheck to expenses pretty quickly. That’s why a living wage, and not just a minimum wage, matters.
I saw this firsthand when I worked in one of Philadelphia’s County Assistance offices: hard working people trying to get ahead but having trouble just getting by. During my work as a community and labor organizer, and today as I continue to work with my friends and neighbors, I see the same struggles. I take those struggles with me to Harrisburg, and I’m heartened when I see bipartisan votes in the Pennsylvania House to finally raise the minimum wage. Once those efforts make it to the Senate though, nothing happens. Nothing has happened for 16 years.
As we start a new legislative session, I’m hopeful. My Democratic colleagues and I serve in the majority in the House. Governor Shapiro has the back of working families – he has included a wage increase in his last two budget proposals. Senate Republicans have feigned interest before, but year after year they fail to advance any wage change. They claim to be open to a “reasonable adjustment” – that would be a welcome change from their previous offers of simply “no.”
The minimum wage is at or above $15 in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Even in the deeply red state of Missouri, voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure to raise their minimum wage from $12.30 to $15 by 2026. Republicans in West Virginia? They put their workers on a path to a $15 minimum wage. Even Ohio figured it out - they raised their wage and tied it to inflation.
It’s wrong that workers are valued so little here in Pennsylvania.
Republican candidates in Pennsylvania did well at the ballot box in November. Some say they shifted their priorities to the working class. However, I haven’t seen it with their votes in Harrisburg yet. Passing a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, tied to inflation, would be an opportunity to show it.