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WILKES-BARRE — Pennsylvania’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is, in a word, ridiculous.
In the 1960s, we were paid $1.25 per hour to pack Nutty Buddys coming off a conveyor belt into a cardboard box.
We barely had enough for gas money, let alone a Sporting News, a cheeseburger, fries and Coke, or a pizza or hot dog.
It was ridiculous back then and it is even more ridiculous today.
Now 60 years later, the minimum wage has “climbed” to $7.25 per hour.
Ridiculous.
Last week, the House Majority Policy Committee hosted a hearing and they heard testimony from people detailing the need to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania.
An understatement, for sure.
“It’s long, long past the time for the General Assembly to raise the wage — the time for action was yesterday,” said home health care worker Genale Rambler in detailing the crisis many workers are facing. “The General Assembly should be responsible to workers like me so that we can earn a living wage. All we want to be able to do is take care of our families.”
A simple message, but eloquently delivered.
Rambler testified how she earns less per hour than the caregivers she sometimes needs to hire to care for both of her parents when she is unable to care for them.
Rep. Roni Green from Philadelphia, the hearing host, said, “We are here to fight on behalf of workers, and — I think I can speak for my colleagues here today — we will not stop until we get it done. The old cliché holds true — a happy worker is a productive worker. We can do better, we must do better.”
The minimum wage in Pennsylvania has remained unchanged at $7.25 per hour since 2008. About 63,000 people in Pennsylvania earn minimum wage.
Then Rep. Patty Kim of Dauphin/Cumberland counties, said this:
“Too many people have worked too hard for too long to not be able to pay their bills. We want to tag a cost-of-living adjustment on this, so we never have to wait years and years — or wait for a once-in-a-century pandemic — for this issue to have a bright light shined on it.”
All of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have a higher minimum wage than Pennsylvania. Testimony highlighted how the costs of items are not solely dependent on labor, and they listed how the cost of specific items in Philadelphia, Erie and across the state border — where workers earn more money — are exactly the same.
The hearing revealed that a minimum wage worker in Pennsylvania would need to make $16.95 an hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
Unlike a popular myth, testifiers detailed that the vast majority of minimum wage workers (86%) are adults, and not teenagers working summer jobs.
All of us are served daily by hard-working employees who make minimum wage. These employees always greet us with a smile, they perform their jobs with pride and competence and they come to work every day.
And after work, they go home to take care of their families. They find a way to put food on the table, to make sure their kids are taken care of, and they rarely have enough in their pocket to enjoy many of the things we all take for granted.
These workers deserve better. The middle class needs to grow, not shrink. We need to appreciate what these workers do every day and they need to be paid a fair wage.
Life is not about existing. It’s not about getting by. It should never be about worrying whether or not we have enough to buy food or medicine, or to pay the rent.
Back to that hearing in Harrisburg.
“People across Pennsylvania want to work, but they also need to earn a living wage during these difficult times,” House Majority Policy Committee Chairman Ryan Bizzarro said. “We can either raise the minimum wage to a reasonable amount, or Pennsylvania will be forced to provide public assistance and social safety networks for workers — including those working 40 hours per week — just to survive.”
Now that should resonate with all elected officials, regardless of political party affiliation.
These workers earning the ridiculous minimum wage should not be worried about survival.
They and their families should be able to live a better quality of life.
Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle, or email at boboyle@www.timesleader.com.