Sen. Tartaglione, Minimum Wage Earners to Hold Media Availability Tuesday

HARRISBURG, May 4, 2015 – Following a morning-long Senate committee hearing on her bill to increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10, state Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione, working men and women, and other supporters of a higher base wage will hold a press conference at 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 5, in the East Wing Rotunda.

Despite successful countrywide efforts to increase the minimum wage and numerous legislative proposals to raise the commonwealth’s rate, Pennsylvania still requires employers to pay just $7.25 an hour.

Tartaglione’s Senate Bill 195 would increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $10.10 by January and would include an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Another proposal in her five-bill package would increase the tipped minimum to 70 percent of the regular minimum.

The Senate Labor and Industry Committee will begin its hearing at 9 a.m., tomorrow, in the North Office Building hearing room. Its current agenda is here.

Media coverage of both events is encouraged.

WHAT: Sen. Christine Tartaglione, minimum wage earners and other supporters to hold a press conference urging lawmakers to approve minimum wage increase

WHEN: 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 5

WHERE: East Wing Rotunda, Capitol, Harrisburg

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Follow Sen. Christine Tartaglione on Facebook, Twitter and via her website.

New Study Proves $ 10.10 Minimum Wage Would Be ‘Rising Tide,’ Tartaglione Says

HARRISBURG, April 22, 2015 – Because “a rising tide lifts all boats,” state Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione said today a new study shows that if Pennsylvania finally approves a minimum wage of $ 10.10 an hour, residents in each of the state’s 67 counties will benefit.

“History has proven, time and again, that minimum wage increases do not cause widespread pain, despite the claims of critics,” Sen. Tartaglione said this morning during a press conference with Raise The Wage PA.

“The new Keystone Research Center study is one more finger in the dyke of opposition. The KRC’s work clearly shows that a higher Pennsylvania minimum would help workers who have not received a pay raise since 2007.

“When prices for food, clothing and housing have dramatically increased, the earning power of $7.25 has dropped,” Tartaglione said. “Pennsylvania cannot afford to keep minimum wage workers impoverished. We need $10.10 approved now; tipped minimum wage earners need a raise, too.”

Pennsylvania’s tipped minimum wage is $2.83 an hour and has not increased since 1999.

Senate Bill 195 would increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $8.67 an hour by July 1 and $10.10 an hour by Jan. 1., while Senate Bill 196 would increase the tipped minimum to $3.95 an hour on July 1, and move it to 70 percent of the regular minimum at the start of 2016.

The other three bills in Sen. Tartaglione’s minimum wage package include:

  • Senate Bill 197, which would provide annual cost-of-living increases for minimum wage earners based on the Consumer Price Index,
  • Senate Bill 198, which would modernize the state wage payment and collection law to increase recordkeeping requirements for employers and enforcement duties of the state Department of Labor & Industry. It would also allow employees to receive back wages and two times those wages in damages, and
  • Senate Bill 199, which would prohibit employers from deducting bank fees or charges from employee tips when a customer pays their bill with a credit card.

Not only would a higher minimum wage help thousands of workers, Sen. Tartaglione said it would serve as an economic stimulus for many local Pa. economies.

While the KRC study says a $10.10 minimum wage would help 1.2 million Pennsylvania workers, it also says the raise would put nearly $2 billion into the state’s economy.

Nearly one-in-four workers in the state’s 48 rural counties and more than 700,000 workers, or 18 percent, in the state’s urban counties will benefit, Tartaglione said.

“More than 200,000 people in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties would also get a boost,” the senator said.

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Follow Sen. Christine Tartaglione on Facebook, Twitter and via her website.

Tartaglione, Raise the Wage PA Start Bipartisan Push to Up PA’s Minimum Wage to $10.10

HARRISBURG, Feb. 9, 2015 – Republicans and Democrats, advocacy groups and minimum wage earners filled a church near the state Capitol this afternoon to organize for a new effort to finally increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $10.10.

“We need to help the ones who need help the most,” Sen. Tartaglione said during the kickoff to Raise the Wage PA’s minimum wage kickoff event. “Every other neighboring state believes that, and they have acted to increase their minimum wage rates to much healthier levels.

“Not only would my proposal to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 by Jan. 1 help those who need it most, it would help thousands more Pennsylvanians than any other proposal promising a token increase,” she said.

Tartaglione unveiled a five-bill proposal last month that would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and make the state’s tipped minimum equal 70 percent of the regular base hourly rate. After the increase to $10.10, her proposal would tie future increases to the rate of inflation.

Today’s three-hour event, organized by Raise the Wage PA, included Republican and Democratic state lawmakers, AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale, CEOs, the NAACP, PA Council of Churches, workers, officials from the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and others.

The group walked en masse from Grace United Methodist Church to the Capitol later in the afternoon.

“We are doing this as a group because we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats,” Tartaglione said. “We know there will soon be proposals to nominally increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage by 50 cents an hour, but we can – and should – do better than that.

“We must do what’s right for our frontline workers just our neighboring states have done what’s right for their workers.

“Study after study shows that there is more benefit than detriment following an increase in the minimum wage. Once we finally approve a $10.10 an hour minimum wage, history as a guide will prove to be right, and our workers and economies will all get a positive bounce from the fairer minimum,” the senator said.

Tartaglione’s Senate Bill 195 would increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $8.67 an hour by July 1 and $10.10 an hour by Jan. 1, 2016.

The tipped minimum wage, covered by Senate Bill 196, would increase from $2.83 an hour to $3.95 an hour on July 1, and would equal 70 percent of the regular minimum at the start of 2016.

The other three bills in Sen. Tartaglione’s minimum wage package include:

  • Senate Bill 197, which would provide annual cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index,
  • Senate Bill 198, which would modernize the state wage payment and collection law to increase recordkeeping requirements for employers and enforcement duties of the state Department of Labor & Industry. It would also allow employees to receive back wages and two times those wages in damages, and
  • Senate Bill 199, which would prohibit employers from deducting bank fees or charges from employee tips when a customer pays their bill with a credit card.

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Follow Sen. Christine Tartaglione on Facebook and her website.

PA’s Next Minimum Wage Contained in Tartaglione’s Newest Legislative Package

HARRISBURG, Jan. 27, 2015 – Pennsylvania’s frontline workers who are languishing with poverty-level wages would finally be paid more under new minimum wage legislation that state Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione announced today.

The five-bill proposal would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and make the state’s tipped minimum 70 percent of the regular base hourly rate. After the increase to $10.10, Sen. Tartaglione’s proposal would tie future increases to the rate of inflation.

“Pennsylvania is the only state in the Northeast that has not listened to the cries of tens of thousands of hardworking residents who are suffering because prices have increased but their paychecks have not for six long years,” Tartaglione said. “We must agree to require businesses to pay workers higher wages not because other states have done it; we must agree to more because it is the right thing to do for them, for taxpayers, and the economy.”

Tartaglione’s Senate Bill 195 would increase Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $8.67 an hour by July 1 and $10.10 an hour by Jan. 1, 2016.

The tipped minimum wage, covered by Senate Bill 196, would increase from $2.83 an hour to $3.95 an hour on July 1, and would equal 70 percent of the regular minimum at the start of 2016.

“More than 87,000 Pennsylvanians receive just $7.25 for each 60 minutes they work,” Tartaglione said. “It’s hard for many minimum wage workers to buy the things their employers are selling because they don’t have the money to pay for other important things, like electricity.”

Nearly twice as many workers (157,000), the senator said, receive the tipped minimum wage.

The other three bills in Sen. Tartaglione’s minimum wage package include:

  • Senate Bill 197, which would provide annual cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index,
  • Senate Bill 198, which would modernize the state wage payment and collection law to increase recordkeeping requirements for employers and enforcement duties of the state Department of Labor & Industry. It would also allow employees to receive back wages and two times those wages in damages, and
  • Senate Bill 199, which would prohibit employers from deducting bank fees or charges from employee tips when a customer pays their bill with a credit card.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis last December of federal consumer spending statistics between 2007 and 2013, middle class Americans had to adjust for a 24-percent increase in healthcare costs, 26-percent higher rent bills and 12.5 percent more for food.

“Unfortunately, a minimum wage earner doesn’t need a study to confirm that most everything for them costs too much money,” Tartaglione said. “We need a higher minimum wage now because the cost of not making this a requirement will cause more harm.”

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Follow Sen. Christine Tartaglione on Facebook and her website.