Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Federal Minimum Wage - Organization Pushes For Pa - To Increase Minimum Wage

At the start of the New Year, 10 states will have higher minimum wages than they did previously, but Pennsylvania won t be one of them.

Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington will all boost their respective minimum wages between 10 to 35 cents per hour, effective Jan. 1. With these new wages going into effect soon, officials at Keystone Research Center call for Pennsylvania to follow the lead of the other states and raise its minimum wage.

Pennsylvania minimum-wage workers haven t seen a meaningful increase since 2007, during which time the buying power of the minimum wage has fallen 10 percent, Keystone Research Center economist Stephen Herzenberg said in a news release. A minimum wage increase that would boost consumer spending is especially needed because of Pennsylvania s recent lagging job-growth performance. Pennsylvania also needs a minimum-wage hike because it is among the states with the fast-growing income inequality.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Pennsylvania is one of the states in the country that has a minimum wage equal to the federal minimum wage $7.25. In a comparison of changes in the basic minimum wage during selected years since 1968, data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that Pennsylvania has mostly been in-step with the increases on the federal level.

The only changes occurred in 2007, when the Pennsylvania minimum wage jumped to $6.25, where the federal wage stayed at $5.15. The state minimum wage jumped again to $7.15 in 2008, when the federal minimum wage was slowly catching up and increasing the wage to $5.85 after seven years at $5.15.

The federal minimum wage again increased to $6.55 in 2009 with Pennsylvania staying at $7.15, and both eventually settled on $7.25 after increases on both sides in 2010. The minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 at both the state and federal level since then.

Legislatively unlikely

For Pennsylvania to once again jump away from the federal government and offer another increase in the minimum wage, it would require some movement on the part of the state House of Representatives and the state Senate.

Rep. Stephen Bloom, R-199, said it s unlikely that the state would make such a move.

I don t think it s likely that Pennsylvania will establish a minimum wage at a level above the federal minimum wage, he said. I don t believe that s legislatively likely.

Bloom argued that an increase in the minimum wage could result in a loss of job numbers in an already weak economy.

No comments:

Post a Comment