the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Furor over legislative raises may prompt minimum wage changes

Philly.com reports that PA legislative history could repeat itself:

HARRISBURG - Almost two decades ago, citizen outrage over a $12,000 legislative pay raise prompted lawmakers to share the benevolence. They boosted Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $3.70, 35 cents above the federal standard.

That 1988 vote was the last time the General Assembly increased the state’s minimum wage. Since then, the federal minimum wage, and thus Pennsylvania’s minimum, has inched up from $3.35 to $5.15 an hour.

Now with neighboring states raising their minimum wages above the federal level and the Pennsylvania General Assembly facing a backlash for the double-digit pay raise it approved for its members this month, supporters here are hoping history will repeat itself. … (read the rest at Philly.com)

There’s a certain amount of poetic license is Amy Worden’s article at philly.com. It is more accurate to say that Senator Frank Salvatore (R-Northeast Philadelphia) was persuaded by leaflets circulated by the Philadelphia Unemployment Project that support of a legislative pay raise coupled with opposition to the minimum wage was not a politically tenable position in his district, and that he helped persuade a few other Republican state senators to back a 10% increase in the minimum wage at that time.
This was far less than I, as the leader of the effort, and other House and Senate Democrats wanted at that time.

The important thing, which should not be lost in the attempt of some to merge the pay raise and minimum wage issues, is that people ought to be contacting their legislators (especially Republican legislators) to back the highest possible minimum wage increase. Saying they favor a federal increase is not an acceptable answer; saying they are against a legislative pay raise is not an acceptable answer; saying that they will their legislative pay raise to charity is not an acceptable answer. The important thing is that the state promptly raise the mininimum wage, and to do that requires the support of Republicans who have heard from their constituents.

Thanks for you thoughts, Mr. Cohen.

I agree that the minimum wage issue is important, and I have contacted my state representative (who, coincidentally, is a Republican), to strongly suggest a substantive minimum wage increase. Unfortunately, to this point, his response has been that the federal government should take the lead, and that for the state legislature to act on this issue would be damaging to the state’s economy—a belief I do not hold myself, obviously.