“With the governor on board, and the weak arguments against action fading away, it seems clear that thousands of Pennsylvania workers are about to get equality with surrounding states,” Tartaglione said. At a Harrisburg news conference today, Gov. Rendell made adjusting the minimum wage one of his five priorities for the fall session of the legislature, scheduled to begin next week. “It’s time to do something for working Pennsylvanians who work so hard and receive so little,” Rendell told reporters. Rendell explained his past opposition to the efforts of Tartaglione and others was tied to hopes that the federal government would take action. Tartaglione, who has sponsored minimum wage bills in three consecutive sessions, spent much of this year trying to convince the governor and other legislative leaders that the federal government was not going to act, and Pennsylvania workers were falling behind workers in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and other nearby states that have raised their minimum wages. Last week, experts testified at a Senate hearing sponsored by Tartaglione that the time had come to fix the damage caused by inflation. Although hers is one of several different minimum wage proposals sitting in legislative committees, Tartaglione said she was looking forward to finding common ground among the authors to pass a bill by the end of the year. “The momentum we have now is stronger than at any time in the past,” Tartaglione said. “I agree with the governor that if we can get a minimum wage bill in front of the full House and Senate, it will pass.”
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