PHILADELPHIA —Sept. 6, 2005 -- With gasoline prices skyrocketing and thousands of Pennsylvania families sinking below the poverty line, state Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione hosted a Senate hearing today to discuss her bill to restore the value of the minimum wage. “I’m sure that today’s testimony will demonstrate the financial difficulties of single workers, workers supporting families and senior citizens who have had to return to the work force to pay their ever-rising utility bills and buy life-sustaining prescription medication,” Tartaglione said in her remarks to the committee. Tartaglione’s plan, (Senate Bill 369), calls for raising the minimum wage from its current amount of $5.15 an hour to $5.85 an hour, beginning July 1, 2005; to $6.45 an hour, beginning July 1, 2006; and to $7 an hour beginning July 1, 2007. Because the current minimum wage has never been adjusted for inflation, the buying power of the $5.15 per hour has fallen lower than at any time in the history of a minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Inflation Calculator, $5.15 in 1997 (when the federal government last adjusted the minimum wage) has the same buying power as $6.06 in 2004. At its purchasing power peak of $1.60 in 1968, the federal minimum wage was worth approximately $8.70 in 2004 dollars. The committee heard from representatives of business, consumer, religious and community groups.
“Today’s meeting on Senate Bill 369 is the result of 6 years of work with
many individuals and organizations on both sides of this issue,” Tartaglione
said. “This is the first hearing the Senate has had on this issue and I hope
we can come away from it with a better understanding of the problems faced
by both the employer and the minimum-wage worker.”
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