(Mar 18, 2019) Rep. Patty Kim, Rep. Christopher M. Rabb
It’s time to give hard-working Pennsylvanians their first pay raise in more than 10 years. Many of the men and women in Pennsylvania we entrust with taking care of the people most important to us -- our infants and small children while we work, our older family members, our loved ones with physical and cognitive disabilities -- don't earn enough to raise their own families. These working Pennsylvanians make tremendous sacrifices every day to support our families; we need to show them that we support theirs. Our One Fair Wage proposal makes sure the working people who watch our children, clean our homes and hotel rooms, prepare and serve our food, and even care for our parents and grandparents earn a wage allowing them to support themselves and their families. When we raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania to $12 per hour, guarantee it’s raised annually until it reaches $15 an hour, and tie future raises to the actual cost of food, rent and medicine we make sure workers don’t fall behind again, and also make sure workers can afford to be customers, growing a stronger economy for everyone. And, for the first time in our state’s history, One Fair Wage would set the tipped wage at the same level as the minimum wage. Right now the tipped wage is – and we’re serious -- $2.83 per hour. After taxes, that’s a take-home pay of about $80 a week. The tipped wage has created a system of unfair pay that hurts women and people of Read more