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State Sen. Christine Tartaglione (D-Philadelphia) rises at the end of every legislative session with one message for lawmakers.
"It's been 7,309 days since Pennsylvania last raised the minimum wage," she said at the end of the session on July 12, immediately after the legislature passed this year's budget without a wage increase.
"This year marked 20 years -- 20 years -- since Pennsylvania last raised its minimum wage," Tartaglione told the chamber. "Twenty years of rising rent, rising grocery bills, rising utility costs, rising healthcare expenses. Twenty years in which every one of our neighboring states recognized that working people deserve better."
Pennsylvania's minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since a federally mandated increase in 2009. The state hasn't raised it on its own since 2006, when Tartaglione negotiated a bill raising the wage to $7.15.
All of its neighboring states, from West Virginia to New York, have raised their wages higher than the federal minimum in that time.
"The system is not set up to help the working class anymore," said Lynn Weidner, a home care worker from Allentown. She makes $16.26 an hour as a paid caregiver for her partner, who has cerebral palsy. She's also an unpaid caregiver for her mother, who has Alzheimer's disease.
Caregivers like Weidner only get a wage increase if they receive money from the state budget. The 2025-2026 spending plan included a $21 million increase in funding for direct home care workers, which allowed workers like Weidner to receive a pay hike.
There is no such increase in this year's spending plan, meaning caregivers won't be getting another raise. And while they're making above minimum wage -- largely thanks to the lobbying efforts of their unions -- they still struggle with basic needs, and some make too much to qualify for certain state and federal benefits.
Caregivers are not alone in their struggles to make ends meet. According to the state Department of Labor and Industry's most recent minimum wage report, just under 43,000 workers across the commonwealth made $7.25 or less in 2025.
Over 510,000 others made between $7.26 and $15 an hour -- all well below Pennsylvania's average living wage, which is over $22 an hour.
Legislative efforts
Tartaglione was sworn in as a state senator in 1995 and introduced her first minimum wage legislation that year. It never advanced to a full vote.
"I have introduced one every session for the past 32 years," she said. She's been reminding senators how long it has been since a wage increase on the floor of the Senate since before Gov. Josh Shapiro took office.
This year's legislation proposed a gradual increase of the minimum wage, peaking at $15 an hour by 2029, and incorporated an annual cost of living increase starting in 2030. It passed the state House in March but never advanced from the Senate Labor & Industry Committee.
Tartaglione called the minimum wage a "moral issue," emphasizing the economic benefits of ensuring working-class constituents have a stable, living income.
As the cost of living and inflation continue to increase, workers are struggling to live comfortably, even as Tartaglione said Senate Republicans have alleged "nobody's making $7.25 an hour anyway."
"My comeback is, 'Well, tell that to my single mother who's working three jobs because she needs to pay rent, she needs to put food on the table,'" she said. "How about the people that sweep the streets? How about the people that serve you the food when you go somewhere? They're all making $7.25 an hour. And we're telling them they're not important."
Shapiro has been vocal about his desire to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage, making it a legislative priority in each of his budget addresses during his first term as governor.
But each year's measure has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Democratic lawmakers from both chambers have expressed frustration with their GOP counterparts and emphasized that raising the wage remains a legislative priority.
"It's shameful that Pennsylvania Senate Republicans have refused to raise the minimum wage for decades while every state around us has done so," Alex Peterson, a spokesperson for Shapiro, wrote in a statement. "The Governor will continue to stand up for the working women and men of Pennsylvania and calls on Senate Republicans to put this up for a vote."
On the Senate floor on June 30, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said he has "made it very clear publicly and privately that we are prepared to talk about meeting in the middle" to raise the wage.
Tartaglione said that in conversations with Pittman, "he says maybe $11 [or] $12 an hour" could be a reasonable minimum wage compromise that could pass both legislative chambers.
Pittman's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Workers' struggles continue
Suzzanne Ott, a caregiver who lives in Venango County, received a wage increase earlier this year. She was previously making $12.91 an hour -- above minimum wage, but not enough to make ends meet.
"It makes it hard for people to survive," she said. "If we make enough that we're over welfare, we don't get food stamps, we don't get medical [care]. So sometimes it comes to a point where it's like 'Oh, I can't go to the doctor because my kids need food.'"
Ott now earns $17.50 an hour, which she said has made a big difference in how she and her family live, from being able to pay bills on time to saving money for the first time in years.
"I've made so many sacrifices in the last few months," she said. "Everything isn't perfect for me. But it's a lot better than it was."
Weidner agreed -- noting her wage increase helped her keep her health insurance. But, she said she and many other workers are still struggling.
Some, who got a raise but still make under $15 an hour, have been disqualified from Medicaid and face high prices from Pennie, the state health insurance, Weidner said.
"Workers lost their health insurance because of the lack of subsidies, and we're in this weird limbo area of not making enough but making a little too much to get any assistance," she said.
Tartaglione urged Republicans to vote on minimum wage legislation for the sake of Pennsylvania workers.
"Everyone deserves to make a livable wage," Ott said. "Raising the minimum wage doesn't make it a livable wage."
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