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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | April 8, 2024 04:38 PM |
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| From: | Senator Christine M. Tartaglione |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Establishing a Living Wage in Pennsylvania |
| In the near future, I will introduce legislation that will raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to a living wage of $20/hour on July 1, 2024 and provide cost of living-adjusted increases every five years thereafter by tying the wage to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI-U). This legislation also sets the tipped wage to 70% of the minimum wage. Pennsylvania has not updated its minimum wage since 2006, and as a result, we still maintain the lowest allowable rate in the country at $7.25/hr – the federal minimum. 30 states, including many with a lower cost of living, have a higher minimum wage than Pennsylvania. This year, in recognition of the constantly rising cost of living, 23 states will have increased their minimum wages from the rate of the previous year. Moreover, each of our neighboring states boasts a higher minimum wage than our Commonwealth, leaving our state as the least attractive labor market in the Mid-Atlantic. Tellingly, $7.24/hr is the very definition of a poverty-level wage for a childless adult under the Department of Health and Human Services’ Poverty Guidelines and is even further below the threshold when factoring in children. Keeping people in poverty is not how we move the Commonwealth forward – our current wage is immoral and unjustifiable. And after almost two decades of inaction, even a wage of $15/hr is no longer adequate. Indeed, MIT estimates that a childless adult Pennsylvanian needs $21.95/hr to support themselves based on our state’s typical expenses in 2024. If our legislature had passed a $15/hr minimum wage 10 years ago and tied it to the CPI-U, it would be just short of $20/hr today. However, this legislation aims to get Pennsylvania back on the right trajectory following 10 years of missed opportunities and there is no doubt that the need across our state is still present. According to the Department of Labor & Industry’s 2024 Minimum Wage Report, nearly 68,000 Pennsylvanians subsist on the poverty wage of $7.25. An additional 335,000 Pennsylvanians relied on near-poverty wages between $7.26 and $12 many of whom fill full-time positions in childcare, home health, retail, and hospitality. These are some of the most vital jobs in our Commonwealth and yet the compensation for their hard work is often not sufficient to afford basic necessities such as rent, transportation, food, and prescriptions. By establishing a living wage, this legislation will help these citizens obtain a dignified and sustainable living. In total, this will benefit the more than 1.5 million Pennsylvanians who make below the living wage many of whom are currently relying on some form of public assistance. In turn, the Commonwealth will save tax dollars to reinvest in critical areas of need such as childcare and homecare for seniors and people with disabilities as many of our citizens will no longer require public assistance to get by. Furthermore, my legislation also modernizes protections and enforcement standards in the law by:
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