4/11/16
by News Department on 04/11/16No minimum wage increase...
New York and California have enacted $15 an hour minimum wage laws, but Pennsylvania is not ready to follow suite.
The Republican Herald reports that the debate in Harrisburg, for a second year in a row, is over whether the state’s current $7.25 an hour minimum wage, as proposed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, should be increased to $10.15 an hour.
Wolf took a limited unilateral action on the minimum wage issue last month, signing an executive order to provide a minimum wage of $10.15 an hour for some 450 state employees — mainly part-time and seasonal workers in clerical and maintenance — and the employees of more than 100 companies with contracts or leases to do business with the state.
Discussions in the Senate, however, have focused on an undetermined gradual increase in the wage above the $7.25-an-hour floor and ways to protect teenagers and young adults from being priced out of the workforce.
A law is needed to apply a minimum wage hike for all employees in the public and private sectors of Pennsylvania’s economy.
