Category: Minimum Wage

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PA House Democrats Clarify the Minimum Wage Debate

  By Minimum Wage

Originally published by KRC-PBPC.  Yesterday, Pennsylvania House Democrats, under minority leader Frank Dermody (D-Allegheny), stepped up in a big way for raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. And in doing so they made it obvious who is responsible for blocking a path to raising the minimum wage. During the debate on the state budget, one Democrat after another stood up to complain that the Republicans had refused to raise the minimum wage as part of the budget. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Turzai tried to cut off debate, bizarrely ruling that raising the minimum wage was not part of the budget. This is nonsense. Raising the minimum wage would both increase taxes and reduce spending (mostly on Medicaid) and obviously has budgetary implications. If it is legitimate to discuss the lack of funding for education or for General Assistance or infrastructure in the budget—and no one denies that—it’s certainly… Continue reading

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Pizza and the Minimum Wage

  By Minimum Wage, Pennsylvania, Public Policy, Published Op-Eds

Originally posted at Penn-Live on April 09, 2019 Spend a little time talking to Republican (and some Democratic) legislators about raising the minimum wage, and they will eventually tell you about their friend who owns a pizza shop and opposes an increase. This is the story the pizza shop owners appear to tell our legislators: If the minimum wage goes up by 2/3rds from $7.25 to $12.00 an hour, I’d have to raise the price of my 12-inch pizza by 2/3rds from $9.49 to $15.75. No one will buy a pizza for $15.74 and I’ll go out of business.” We decided to test this claim in two ways. Every state surrounding Pennsylvania has raised its minimum wage, and two have raised it substantially. The minimum wage in New York is $11.10, 53% more than in Pennsylvania. In Maryland it is $10.10, 39% more. If the pizza shop owners who talk… Continue reading

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Revenue Options, Real and Fake: a Minimum Wage Increase and Gaming

  By Budget, Minimum Wage, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania

Originally posted at Third and State. Ten years ago was the last time Pennsylvania raised the minimum wage in advance of the federal government doing so. In those ten years, inflation has reduced the value of the minimum wage to a poverty wage. That’s why it’s time to raise it again, ultimately to $15 an hour, but immediately to $10.10. A raise in the minimum wage to $10.10 will help 1.2 million Pennsylvanians who work hard but make less than $10.10 an hour right now. Eighty-seven percent of those affected would be over age 20 (not teenagers).  Eighty-four percent of workers who will be affected by a minimum wage increase have a high school degree or more.  And 30% of affected workers have some college education. Raising the minimum wage won’t just help workers who receive it — every dollar in new wages will be spent generating economic activity that… Continue reading

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Governor Wolf’s Minimum Wage Executive Order — A Step In the Right Direction

  By Minimum Wage, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts

This week, Governor Tom Wolf announced that, through executive order, he would require Pennsylvania state workers under his jurisdiction and employees working on future state contracts to be paid at least $10.15 an hour. Prior to his action, these workers making the minimum wage, many of whom who are heads of household, were often not making enough money to live above the poverty line. None of them were making enough money to have what economists call a living wage — the wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living in a given area. In many places across the state, a living wage for workers with a family is well more than even the $10.15 an hour that this executive order raises wages to. You can see MIT’s calculations for living wage by family by Pennsylvania county and metro area here. We have a moral obligation to ensure those working… Continue reading