Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage

by Jenny Blanchard 

What is the minimum wage in PA?

• $7.25/hr
  

When was the last time the PA state legislature voted to raise the minimum wage?

• In 2006 they voted to raise it to $7.15/hr.
  
• It increased to $7.25/hr in 2009 to match the federal minimum wage.

Over the last 20 years, there have been numerous efforts to raise the minimum wage in PA. Most recently, House Bill 2189 passed the Democratic-controlled House with bipartisan support in March 2006. The bill outlined a gradual rollout starting at $11 per hour in 2027, $13 in 2028, and $15 by 2029. Senate Republicans blocked the latest minimum wage increase bill by refusing to advance it out of the Senate Labor & Industry Committee, which means the bill will never come to a vote on the floor of the Senate.

When I worked at the Catherine McAuley Center, one of our clients who had struggled with homelessness came through the door excitedly to announce that she had secured a job at the Radisson Hotel in Scranton, at an hourly rate of $8 an hour. She was the mother of three children, which means she needed a two-bedroom apartment at the bare minimum.

What is the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Scranton? Anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500 a month. You need to earn $3,600 a month or $830 a week to afford this apartment (your rent should not exceed 30% of your income).

Assuming a 40-hour work week, how many hours a week do you have to work to afford the two-bedroom apartment?

• At $8 an hour, she has to work 104 hours a week.
  
• At $15 an hour, she has to work 55 hours a week.

There are many opposing arguments against raising the minimum wage that falsely insist that this will hurt the economy, lead to job losses, and increase the price of goods. But the worst and completely baseless argument is that most of the people who work at the minimum wage are teenagers, and therefore it is not meant to be a living wage. This is a lie.

The vast majority of minimum wage workers are adults. Two thirds are over the age of twenty. Nearly half are over thirty. They are the home health aide, the fast-food worker, the retail clerk, the childcare provider. They are disproportionately women. They are disproportionately people of color. Many are the primary earners for their families. The “teenager” in the myth is a figment that serves as a convenient excuse to explain away the reality of adults being paid poverty wages. 

We commonly use expressions like unskilled labor, entry-level jobs and then refuse to consign any dignity to these jobs. The minimum wage was always about life. It is about the price of rent, of bread, of light, of heat. It is about the value of an hour of human life spent in labor.

The argument that the minimum wage is not meant to be a living wage suggests that some people do not deserve to live.