pitched his proposed 2026-27 state budget<\/a> in early February, he exhorted lawmakers to pass the minimum wage increase. He pointed out that \u201cfour of our six neighbors are at $15 or more,\u201d while Ohio is \u201con their way to $15\u201d and \u201ceven West Virginia is ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\nThe governor also views the potential increase as a financial help to the state. If enacted, he said, the increase would boost the incomes of 61,000 people who are currently on state-supported Medicaid to the extent that those people would no longer need to rely on the program.<\/p>\n
The savings, he said, would be about $300 million. Shapiro also predicted a ripple-effect increase in personal income taxes and sales and use taxes.<\/p>\n
Other proposed revenue-enhancers in Shapiro\u2019s proposal were legalization of recreational marijuana, and regulation and taxing of the tens of thousands of so-called \u201cskill games\u201d that have proliferated in convenience stores, bars, and clubs across the state.<\/p>\n
If Senate Republicans don\u2019t want to enact these revenue boosters, House Democratic Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris said on Tuesday, they should make public a list of cuts. \u201cWe need to know what nursing homes they want to cut. We need to now what home care agencies are no longer going to get funding,\u201d said Harris, of Philadelphia. \u201cWe need to know what schools are going to get cut and what teachers and nurses we are going to send home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate Republican Majority Leader Joe Pittman of Indiana County focused on the minimum wage bill and the need to create \u201cgood, family sustaining jobs.\u201d He said it might be possible to find \u201cmiddle ground\u201d on increasing the minimum wage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny possible action would need to be a common sense adjustment, and sensitive to the impact changes would have on small businesses and non-profit organizations,\u201d Pittman said.<\/p>\n
Dawkins\u2019 bill was amended earlier in the week to include language that would allow individual counties to boost the minimum wage on their own, providing the amount does not go above $15 an hour. On Tuesday, Dawkins described this move as an attempt to give Senate Republicans \u201coptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawkins said it was time to do the \u201cright thing\u201d and allow minimum wage workers to take home \u201ca paycheck that is not embarrassing.\u201d Democratic Majority Leader Matt Bradford of Montgomery County equated the current situation to keeping \u201cthe boot on the neck of our workers.\u201d He said, \u201cWe have an obligation to do what is right and moral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republican Rep. Robert Leadbeter of Columbia County condemned what he said was the failure of the bill to protect the sages of tipped workers. Republican Minority Leader Jesse Topper of Bedford County said the bill could make products more expensive, and lead to the loss of jobs by \u201cour young high school students who are learning how to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
All Democrats voted in favor of the bill except for Reps. Frank Burns of Cambria County and Chris Rabb of Philadelphia. Four Republicans joined with most Democrats in voting \u201cyes\u201d: Reps. Joe Emrick of Northampton County, Joe Hogan and Kathleen Tomlinson of Bucks County, and Natalie Mihalek of Allegheny County.<\/p>\n
Separately, Republican Rep. Stephanie Scialabba of Butler County announced Tuesday that she will resign from the chamber, effective next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania House on Tuesday voted\u00a0to raise Pennsylvania\u2019s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[50339,442,28,30,9116,67175,29,69],"class_list":["post-148162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-15-minimum-wage","tag-gov-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-house","tag-pennsylvania-minimum-wage","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}