Labor & Industry Secretary Visits York Small Business to Call for Legislative Action to Raise Pennsylvania’s Minimum Wage

“At L&I, we attempt to make workplaces as secure as potential and that features making certain the financial safety of staff each time and wherever we are able to. Because it stands, employers in Pennsylvania can legally select to pay their staff simply $7.25 an hour. That's poverty-level pay in change for an sincere day's work from a number of the most susceptible folks in our labor drive. It's merely unacceptable,” stated Secretary Berrier. “The Wolf Administration helps a plan that ends the authorized exploitation of hourly staff and eliminates the tipped employee minimal wage of $2.83 an hour. We consider one honest minimal wage for all staff helps tipped staff ― two-thirds of whom are ladies.”

Governor Tom Wolf's plan proposes elevating Pennsylvania's minimal wage to $12 per hour by July 1, 2022, with a pathway to a common honest minimal wage of $15 per hour by 2028. The proposal will assist staff get well the buying energy misplaced because the minimal wage was set at $7.25 per hour to match the federal minimal wage greater than a decade in the past. In response to the Keystone Analysis Middle, if the minimal wage had saved tempo with productiveness development because the late Nineteen Sixties, it will be greater than $24 per hour at present in Pennsylvania.

Governor Wolf has repeatedly referred to as on the Basic Meeting to go S.B. 12, sponsored by Sen. Tina Tartaglione, or H.B. 345, sponsored by Rep. Patty Kim, to lift Pennsylvania's minimal wage to $12 an hour with a path to $15 and take away native pre-emption. The passage of both invoice would cement the administration's objective of placing staff first and, for the primary time since 2006, elevating the commonwealth's minimal wage through laws.

In her remarks, Secretary Berrier highlighted the division's achievement of final-form rules that change Pennsylvania's Minimal Wage Act guidelines by updating how employers pay tipped staff and making certain that salaried workers with fluctuating schedules are appropriately compensated for time beyond regulation.

At at present's occasion, Secretary Berrier and Rep. Hill-Evans toured the York Metropolis Pretzel Firm constructing on East Market Avenue in York and spoke with co-owner Philip Given who shared why, regardless of inaction by lawmakers in Harrisburg, his store selected by itself to pay workers a beginning wage of $12 an hour.

“For us, a profitable enterprise begins with a profitable crew,” stated Given. “It is vital for us as an organization to rent at and advocate for a dwelling wage for all workers in our business. If we anticipate our workers to deal with the shopper and product with respect, they must be handled with respect and that begins with their beginning wage with our firm.”

“By elevating their beginning wage and providing advantages past greater pay, the York Metropolis Pretzel Firm helps to paved the way in offering a extra equitable life for staff in Central Pennsylvania,” stated Rep. Hill-Evans. “Elevating the minimal wage will assist staff — particularly ladies — who make up a disproportionate quantity of people that work in low-paying jobs.  York Pretzel Firm is a good instance of how a enterprise can enhance staff' high quality of life, improve financial safety and slim the pay hole whereas nonetheless sustaining a profitable enterprise.”

Thirty states, together with all of Pennsylvania's neighbors, have the next minimal wage than $7.25 an hour. Polls present the general public strongly helps rising the minimal wage. Over the previous 20 years, there have been poll referendums to lift the minimal wage in 20 states, most just lately in Florida – each one has handed. It's estimated that roughly 42 p.c of the U.S. workforce will earn no less than $15 an hour by 2026.

If the legislature have been to take motion to extend Pennsylvania's minimal wage, greater than 618,400 ladies would get a direct pay improve – almost 21 p.c of all ladies working within the commonwealth. With most low-paying jobs held by ladies in Pennsylvania, the present minimal wage solely guarantees to additional worsen the gender pay hole.

Legislative motion on Governor Wolf's proposal would additionally immediately profit 26.2 p.c of individuals of coloration, together with:

• 31.9 p.c of Hispanic staff
• 26.3 p.c of Black (non-Hispanic) staff
• 15.7 p.c of Asian (non-Hispanic) staff
• 25.8 p.c of different races/ethnicities

MEDIA CONTACT: Alex Peterson, dlipress@pa.gov

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