Pennsylvania Assembly Passes Minimum Wage Hike
April 7th, 2006 by PapaSkaroffThere’s good news from Harrisburg: In a lopsided 146-50 vote, Pennsylvania’s State Assembly passed HB 257, the long-stalled raise in the minimum wage. A large number of Republicans joined the solid Democrats on Wednesday to increase annual pay for the state’s lowest-wage workers by $4,000. Hourly pay would bump up to $6.15 starting July1 this year, and to $7.25 a year later, lifting thousands of families above the poverty line.
It’s not law yet, however. The State Senate still has to pass the bill before Gov. Rendell, an announced supporter of the wage increase, gets to sign it. Be sure to remind your State Senator to help pass HB 257 when it comes up for a vote soon.
When enacted, the new rates would make Pennsylvania the 20th state to set its minimum wage above the federal level.
Young burger-flipper exception: The bill as passed allows employers to pay newly hired teenagers a “training wage” of $5.15/hr for two months. And to protect the integrity of this exception, it forbids employers from firing regular employees just to substitute them with low-paid trainees.
Several Republican members of the Appropriations Committe who had voted against the bill in committee, switched and voted in favor of it when it reached the Assembly floor. Shades of the Kerry campaign: They voted against the minimum wage, before they voted for it!
Companion legislation, a bill to set future automatic COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments), didn’t make it out of committee. Without COLAs, expect the struggle to re-emerge in several years as inflation nibbles away at the new wage rates.
Other legislative news: As he had publicly pledged, Gov. Rendell last month vetoed the anti-voter bill. Under that law, passed with strong Republican backing, Pennsylvania voters could be turned away at the polls if they failed to bring proper identification. It would have replaced the current system in which voters sign a registry and have their signature compared to an older version already on file.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
On April 10, 2006 Arkansas became the 20th state to raise the minimum wage over $5.15, coming in with $6.25 effective on October 1, 2006. On April 11, 2006, Maine became the 10th State to have a minimum wage of $7.00 or over, hitting that figure on October 1, 2007. Maine was already over the federal minimum at the time.
With Arkansas’ action, A MAJORITY OF ALL AMERICANS NOW LIVE IN STATES WITH A MINIMUM WAGE HIGHER THAN THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE. Once this fact becomes widely known, pressure in the other states should increase.
I deeply appreciate this blog’s strong coverage of the minimum wage issue and your kind words about me. With all the effort that has already been generated to influence the Senate, and all the effort that will be generated in the future, I think we have an excellent chance of raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage this year.
Tennessee may beat us and become the 21st state. If we don’t act before the general election, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana will also beat us, because they are highly likely to pass referenda on this issue this November. But one way or another, we should prevail and get low income Pennsylvanians a raise in salary that they deserve.