FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 2025
CONTACT:
John Neurohr, jneurohr@clearpointpa.com, 717-364-6452
NEW REPORT: Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Increase Would Benefit Over 865,000 Workers
HARRISBURG, PA – The Keystone Research Center today released a comprehensive new report showing that a minimum wage increase to $15 per hour would directly benefit 865,600 Pennsylvania workers from diverse demographic backgrounds. The report, titled “Who Benefits? The Demographic Impact of a Minimum Wage Increase in Pennsylvania,” comes as Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has remained stagnant at $7.25 per hour for 16 years while state lawmakers continue to receive automatic annual raises.
“It’s unconscionable that Pennsylvania legislators have received automatic inflation-adjusted pay increases for decades while the state’s lowest-paid workers have been stuck at $7.25 since 2009,” said Keystone Research Center Executive Director Stephen Herzenberg. “Raising the minimum wage is the most powerful way our state can address systemic inequities that hurt working families across the entire state.”
The report details how raising the minimum wage would affect Pennsylvania workers across various demographic categories, revealing:
- Gender impact: Women would represent 61% of workers receiving raises, despite making up less than half of the workforce.
- Race and ethnicity: People of color comprise 34% of affected workers, with particularly high impacts for Black (16% of those who benefit) and Hispanic (13%) workers. White workers make up the other two-thirds of those who benefit.
- Family status: Over 178,000 parents would benefit, including 101,700 single parents.
- Working hours: 41% of affected workers are full-time employees.
- Industry concentration: One quarter (25%) of the workers who would benefit work jobs in retail, 17% work in healthcare/social assistance, and 15.7% work non-tipped restaurant jobs.
“This report demonstrates that raising the minimum wage would help hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who are working hard but still struggling to make ends meet,” said Senior Research Analyst Claire Kovach, lead author of the report. “The data shows that a $15 minimum wage would help reduce income inequality and provide economic stability for working families across the Commonwealth.”
The full report is available here.
The report is accompanied by recently-released fact sheets that demonstrate how Pennsylvania’s current $7.25 minimum wage falls far short of the wage needed for full-time workers to pay for a bare bones budget without public assistance. County-level data show that even a $15 wage is short of a living wage in many areas. The research highlights the significant gap between the minimum wage and a living wage in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
View the county-level map and fact sheets for more information about how proposed increases in the PA minimum wage would impact workers across the Commonwealth.
About Keystone Research Center
The Keystone Research Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that promotes a more prosperous and equitable Pennsylvania economy. The Center conducts research and policy analysis on issues affecting working families in Pennsylvania.