The minimum wage in Pennsylvania has been $7.25 an hour since 2008 — for the past 13 years. This means someone working a minimum wage job, working for 2,000 hours a year, makes under $15,000 annually.
Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a plan earlier this year to increase the wage to $12, and later to $15. Wolf’s longstanding efforts to increase the minimum wage have been met with strong opposition in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania General Assembly.
The Economic Policy Institute found the value of the federal minimum wage — which is currently $7.25 an hour — has decreased by 30%, meaning the minimum wage is worth less now than it has been at any point since February 1956.
A 2018 report of labor statistics in Pennsylvania shows that 10,464,719 of its residents are working-age adults.
ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) households are ones that make more than the federal poverty line, but less than the basic cost of living in the household’s county. The report indicates that out of 114,996 households in Northampton County, 40% are ALICE and in poverty.
Shley Nathan, ‘26, earns about $14 an hour working as a direct support professional for people with disabilities. Her job contributes to her education costs at Lehigh.
“I — for the most part, at this point in my life — have responsibilities that are more substantial than what I was doing while at home,” Nathan said. “I have these responsibilities because I am a busy college student who has a job. I have these responsibilities because I need to be able to support myself and my education.”
Nathan said the current minimum wage makes it impossible to get by.
“$7.25 for a job is absolutely crazy and impossible in the world we live in. How can people pay taxes and have a wage like $7.25? In 2022?” Nathan said. “No, that is nonsense. There’s something as a state we have to do about that.”
Luis Brunstein, an economics professor at Lehigh, said it is appalling that the minimum wage in Pennsylvania has not increased since 2008.
“My moral view is that no one in the United States should not be earning a living wage,” Brunstein said. “You should be able to be functional with the salary you receive.”
The U.S. Senate voted last year not to gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 over the span of five years.
On the state level, Senate Bill 12 is awaiting a vote in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The bill would raise the minimum wage in the state to $12 immediately, and eventually to $15, in annual increments of 50 cents.
Jackie Krasas, professor of sociology and anthropology at Lehigh, said state legislation has to be passed to make the change for all Pennsylvania workers, and the state’s “political winds” are blowing against a change, even though a majority of people support a wage raise.
A 2021 Franklin and Marshall College poll found 67% of Pennsylvanians support increasing the minimum wage.
A paper by Reed Garfield, a senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee Republicans, said raising the minimum wage leads to job loss, welfare dependence and high school dropouts, ultimately hurting poor people.
Krasas has a different viewpoint.
“Raising (the) minimum wage actually lifts a lot of people out of poverty — including children — and therefore strains our social safety net less,” Krasas said. “Raising the minimum wage also helps decrease the gender wage gap and the racial wage gap.”
The Living Wage Calculator, created by MIT faculty member Amy Glasmeier, finds that one adult with no children needs $16.67 per hour to have what they term a “living wage” to support themselves, which $7.25 does not cover.
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