House OKs raising Pa. minimum wage
The $2 hike would bring the rate to $7.15 an hour by July 2007. The Senate backs a smaller pay increase.
By Martha Raffaele
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania's minimum wage would rise $2 an hour by July 1, 2007 - an increase that is one of Gov. Rendell's biggest election-year priorities - under a bill passed yesterday by the state House.
The House approved the bill 146-50, and then sent it to the Senate, where the Republican majority favors a smaller increase.
The measure calls for increasing the current $5.15-an-hour rate to $6.25 an hour on July 1, and then to $7.15 a year after that.
The increase would not apply to workers under 20 years old during their first 60 days of employment.
"This represents a step in the right direction," said Rep. Mark Cohen (D., Phila.), the bill's primary sponsor. "We're raising the minimum wage to a level that keeps people out of poverty."
Labor unions and advocates for the poor say families are struggling to support themselves at the current rate, and that an increase will also boost wages for workers at many other pay scales. But business lobbyists say small businesses would be unable to afford any wage hike.
Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have raised their minimum wages in the nine years since Congress has left the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
Senate Republicans support raising the minimum wage to about $6.25 or $6.30, the equivalent of $5.15 adjusted for inflation since 1997, said Stephen C. MacNett, the chamber's top GOP lawyer.
An estimated 423,000 people in Pennsylvania earn between $5.15 and $7.14 per hour, although that number includes the newspaper carriers, farm laborers, seasonal park and camp workers, gardeners, maids, golf caddies, and others who are already exempt.
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