With no balloons, cake, or candles in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s $7.25 per hour minimum wage has nearly reached a birthday milestone: it has been 16 years since the minimum wage was last increased for Pennsylvania workers.
It is not a “sweet” 16, but rather a somber occasion. Continued failure to raise the minimum wage is costly, and Pennsylvania’s poorest workers bear the largest share of the cost of this inaction. A $15 per hour minimum wage would go a long way towards helping families afford necessities.
Keystone Research Center’s Claire Kovach testified before the House Democratic Policy Committee in Harrisburg on May 5, 2025, and highlighted the need for a $15 per hour minimum wage in Pennsylvania. Below, we unwrap excerpts from her written and spoken testimony to see if it takes the cake:
Read the Full Testimony HERE
Watch a recording of the hearing HERE
Using data and estimates from the Economic Policy Institute and the US Census Bureau, Keystone Research Center estimates that a minimum wage of $15 per hour by January 1, 2026, would raise the wages of nearly 866,000 non-tipped Pennsylvania workers, over 15% of Pennsylvania’s workforce.[1] Our estimates categorize affected workers into two groups: those who would directly benefit from the $15 minimum wage (these are the workers currently earning under $15), and those who would indirectly benefit (or those earning just above $15 now, but would see a small wage increase if the minimum wage was increased to $15 per hour, as employers adjust their pay scales). We estimate that more than 460,000 Pennsylvania workers would directly benefit, and an additional 405,600 Pennsylvania workers would benefit indirectly. Across all those who would benefit, we estimate that the average worker would see more than a $2,000 yearly raise. Nearly all of this money will be spent directly back into the economy on basics, boosting consumer spending power in our communities.
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866,000 non-tipped Pennsylvania workers would see their wages rise if the minimum wage was increased to $15 per hour by January 2026. If you met with one of these workers per minute for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no breaks, it would take you over a year and a half to meet them all.
And in that year and a half you’d see what the data tell us— that so many of these workers are in high demand occupations, many in roles that are projected to be in critical demand in coming years. The majority of these workers are women (61%), and the majority are 25 years or older (53.5%). These workers are disproportionately people of color (34%). One in 5 of these workers has a young child in their household (20.6%).
Right now, these workers see their counterparts in bordering states of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware earning thousands of dollars more per year for the same work, as the lowest minimum wage in any of those states is currently $15 per hour.
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There have been discussions about whether to eliminate state preemption on the minimum wage in Pennsylvania—allowing localities to set their own minimum wages above the state minimum. Several states bordering Pennsylvania already have laws that allow this. Even with a $15-minimum-wage floor statewide, Pennsylvania localities with higher costs-of-living may need to further increase their minimum wage to enable most workers to cover the costs of a basic family budget without public assistance. According to MIT researchers, the average living wage for a full-time worker with no children in Pennsylvania is $22.91 per hour. This wage would keep that worker off anti-poverty programs but wouldn’t cover any purchase of prepared foods, eating outside the home, and does not allow a single dollar for savings or entertainment.[2] Almost $23 per hour for a single adult with no children is a “bare bones” family budget for the average Pennsylvanian. This living wage estimate varies by sub-state area, with a low of $19.15 per hour in Northumberland county, and a high of $25.62 in Pike county.
Removing preemption after setting a strong, statewide $15 minimum wage would allow areas with higher costs of living to set their own minimum wages to be higher than the state level, while allowing areas with different economies to stay at the state minimum.
The latest report by the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Advisory Board estimates that only 47,200 Pennsylvania workers earned at or below the minimum wage in Pennsylvania in 2024, the lowest number in the report’s series.[3] This research shows that many more Pennsylvania workers would benefit from a $15 per hour minimum wage, which is still below the living wage for the state. A $15 per-hour minimum wage now is crucial for the well-being of working Pennsylvania families.
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[1] Keystone Research Center minimum wage impact estimates are based on data from the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey, and the Economic Policy Institute Minimum Wage Simulation Model; 2015-2019 5-year ACS data pinned to 2024 CPS wage distribution. Employment scaled to match 2024 CPS labor force size. For more details see Technical Methodology by Dave Cooper, Zane Mokhiber, and Ben Zipperer. https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-simulation-model-technical-methodology/
Raising the tipped minimum wage would increases wages for up to 115,900 additional Pennsylvania workers.
[2] Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Living Wage Calculator User’s Guide/Technical Notes, https://livingwage.mit.edu/resources/living_wage_technical_documentation.pdf.
[3] Analysis of the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage, March 2025, page 3, https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dli/documents/cwia/products/minimum-wage-reports/minimum-wage-report-2024.pdf.