Opinion: Pennsylvania’s ‘unconscionably low minimum wage’ affects Centre County residents
This fall, lawmakers in Harrisburg have an opportunity to boost the incomes of millions of hardworking Pennsylvanians by passing a bill to increase the state’s $7.25 hourly minimum wage to a level capable of sustaining workers and their families.
As policy makers consider this legislation, we hope they will take a test: living on Pennsylvania’s minimum wage for just one week. If policy makers experienced the struggle of getting by on $290 per week, opposition to a fair minimum wage would disappear.
It is a struggle. We know from experience.
The three of us are young people who work (or recently worked) in minimum wage jobs in State College’s food service industry. It’s hard to find time to search for better jobs when you’re working every hour you can, just to survive. It’s tough to find money to move when you can’t make rent. It’s impossible to plan for the future when you don’t know if you’ll make it to the end of the week.
This is the reality of low wage labor: It’s a trap, and conditions have only gotten worse. Many of us in the restaurant industry are faced with painful choices on a regular basis. Do we pay for textbooks, or buy groceries? Do we take time off to visit our families over the holidays, or work extra shifts to pay off loans? We’ve watched friends lose teeth because they couldn’t afford the dentist, and others skip desperately needed medical treatment.
Minimum wage is not just an issue for Pittsburgh or Philadelphia; it is an issue right here in Centre County. One-bedroom apartments in State College have a fair market rent of $887. This means a minimum wage worker, working a 40-hour week, will put 73 percent of their income toward rent — before any other expenses. Rent overburden, defined by Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is paying more than 30 percent of income on rent. To no longer be considered rent overburdened, State College minimum wage employees need 2.5 full time jobs!
Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is at the federal minimum and hasn’t been raised in 13 years. Surrounding states, in contrast, have increased the minimum wage to keep pace with rising rents and living expenses. Every one of our neighbors, including West Virginia and Delaware, has a higher minimum wage than Pennsylvania does.
Some have additional increases scheduled at the beginning of 2020, so if the state fails to act now, many hardworking Pennsylvanians will fall even further behind.
Naysayers will argue increasing the minimum wage will hurt Pennsylvania’s economy. But that’s not the case. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — hardly a left-leaning institution — found large wage gains for low-wage workers in New York’s “southern tier” after the state’s minimum wage increases, without job losses. Across the border, on Pennsylvania’s northern tier, worker wages lagged.
That is just the latest proof that increasing our unconscionably low minimum wage will help not only workers and their families but local economies as well. Low-wage workers will not be socking away their pay raises; they will be spending them on necessities in their communities. That helps local businesses and boosts the economy.
Last year, the Keystone Research Center projected that gradual wage increases to $15 would eventually lift the incomes of more than 2 million Pennsylvanians. That’s over a third of the workforce.
We are not just talking about teenagers working part-time jobs. Though with tuitions and student debt skyrocketing, that’s reason enough to consider an increase. Nearly nine in 10 minimum wage workers are adults. Most work full time. On average, they earn half of their family’s income.
Pennsylvania’s legislators already recognize the need for pay to match rising costs of living. After all, they receive a cost of living increase in their salary every year.
Pennsylvania’s low-wage workers are looking for the same opportunity: to make up for the past 13 years of no increases with an immediate boost to $12, followed by annual increases to $15 by 2025. It will be good for workers, good for families, and good for communities.
