Pa. Min. Wage: Living Pay or Starting Pay?

By DAVE FIDLIN

Watchdog.org

Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to more than double the commonwealth’s minimum wage by 2025 dominated a Feb. 27 hearing between the House Appropriations Committee and Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Dennis Davin.

During the two-hour hearing, Davin defended Democrat Wolf’s proposal as a long-overdue gesture in ensuring all Pennsylvanians are privy to a livable wage. Other officials within Wolf’s cabinet made similar overtures in prior February hearings.

“This is something that I believe needs to happen,” Davin said as he opined during one of the legislators' questions on the hot-button topic. “From my standpoint, I’ve seen the effects [of the current $7.25 per hour minimum wage threshold], and I don’t like what I’m seeing.”

A number of the representatives on the Democrat-minority appropriations committee used the hearing as a sounding board to continue sharing beliefs that steps should be taken to increase the commonwealth’s minimum wage requirement.

“I don’t think that’s a fair wage for anyone,” Rep. Marty Flynn, D-Scranton, said of $7.25 per hour.

Rep. Patty Kim, D-Steelton, said she believes the notion of teenagers dominating the minimum wage workforce is a misnomer.

“The profile of minimum wage work is so outdated,” Kim said, pointing to some studies that assert more than half of the workforce receiving $7.25 in Pennsylvania is an adult.

At the end Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Stan Saylor, R-Red Lion, offered up a counterpoint to the discussion.

Saylor, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said he believes the proposed minimum wage increase will bring a series of unintended consequences – particularly for the already beleaguered retail industry.

“It’s not supposed to be a living wage,” Saylor said of minimum wage thresholds. “It’s supposed to be where you start out in life. We’ve got to get off this idea we need to keep people at minimum wage.”

Saylor said he believes Pennsylvanians would be better served if more of the commonwealth’s resources went toward workforce development.

“We don’t have one single program in this state that is holistic,” Saylor said. “Throwing money at a problem isn’t going to get people out of poverty. We need to do more to help these problems.”

For his part, Davin earlier in the hearing said he supports pouring more state resources into workforce development.

“The skills gap is really what we’ve been laser focused on,” Davin said of initiatives within the DCED.

During the current round of budget talks, Wolf’s proposal has called for increasing the minimum wage in a series of steps – first from $7.50 to $12 per hour and, by about 2025, increasing the base again from $12 to $15 per hour.