Support a Living Minimum Wage in Pennsylvania

1.7 million Americans were living on the minimum wage before our Great Recession. Today, it has grown to 3.6 million and many more earning just a little extra. The current minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and tipped workers only earn a meager $2.13 per hour until tips.

If we base the minimum wage on inflation since the 1960’s, $1.60 then would today be $10.74.

We must make the minimum wage livable. People earning the minimum are not just the youth in our society. These are people that have families, or struggling to earn money for school or debts, or trying to pay for housing and food. They cannot afford to be sick or have a day off. Earning the minimum now is simply not enough. More and more people with college education now must rely on food stamps to get by. Welfare programs provide more benefits and money a day, than what the minimum wage can provide. Many of the largest companies in the United States think this is okay and even expect their employees to hold a second job.

These large companies provide the largest portion people earning minimum wage and have cost taxpayers $7 billion dollars in funding for government assistance programs. These are companies who can afford it. They recovered from the recession. Therefore, they should take a step in supporting their employees. Popular opinion dictates that when the minimum wage is increased, so does unemployment and the ability to move up and earn better wages. That is not true; we have raised the minimum wage 22 times since it was enacted in the Great Depression. Each time  our the wage was raised the economy made improvements and no one lost their jobs. Companies may also see fewer turnovers, and fewer turnovers mean fewer new employees to pay to train.

We don’t need a minimum wage. We need to make steps to make a livable wage. It may be the few steps America needs for its people to get back on their feet again.