Pennsylvania is facing an affordability crisis, and for too many workers, the affordability crisis is a wage crisis. Families are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of housing, groceries, child care, transportation, health care, utilities, and other basic needs while Pennsylvania's minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25 per hour.  

The Pennsylvania House has already passed bipartisan legislation earlier this year to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, but the bill has stalled in the Senate.  Pennsylvania workers have waited 17 years for a raise.  They should not have to wait any longer.

The workers who would benefit from raising the minimum wage are not primarily teenagers working after school. They are the people who keep our communities running: child care workers, home health aides, retail employees, restaurant workers, and other essential workers. More than half are women, nearly 294,000 are parents raising children, and nearly nine in ten are adults working to support themselves and their families.

Even a $15 minimum wage would not be a true living wage in Pennsylvania. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children needs approximately $23 per hour to afford basic necessities without public assistance. Raising the minimum wage to $15 is not the finish line, but it is an important and overdue first step toward closing that gap and helping working families keep up with the cost of living.

Now there is a critical opportunity for action. Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa recently used a procedural tool that can force the Senate to publicly consider legislation that has been sitting in committee without a vote.  In plain language: senators will soon have to decide whether Pennsylvania workers get a raise or whether the bill remains blocked.

That means your voice matters right now! A $15 minimum wage would directly reach more than 1 million Pennsylvania workers and increase wages by an estimated $5.1 billion annually. Our analysis estimates that raising the minimum wage would lift nearly 96,000 Pennsylvanians above the poverty line, including more than 35,000 children.  When workers earn more, they spend more in their communities—at grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, and local businesses.

Raising wages is also one of the few policies that helps workers, strengthens local economies, and improves the Commonwealth’s finances at the same time.  An increase to $15 an hour would add up to $80 million in revenue to the state and $300 million from projected DHS savings.

Pennsylvania is falling behind.  Thirty states, including every state bordering Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C., have already raised their minimum wage above $7.25 per hour.

Pennsylvanians need relief.  Use this letter-writing tool to show your support for working people, and tell your state senator: Raise the wage now!