‘I hope you can live with your consciences’: Pa. minimum wage proposal blocked by Senate GOP

by Ian Karbal, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
June 30, 2026

Tuesday marked 20 years to the date since Pennsylvania lawmakers last raised the state’s minimum wage. That was to $7.15 in 2006. 

In the state Senate, the Republican majority voted unanimously to kill a Democratic-led effort to vote on raising it  to $15 an hour with an annual cost of living increase.

The effort to force the vote was proposed by Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny). 

The arcane procedural move effectively called a vote on whether to vote to bring a bill that passed the House to the floor. It’s one of the few tools members of the minority party have to force votes on legislation that’s important to them. 

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But Senate rules set at the start of the current session meant lawmakers could not debate the contents of the plan they were voting to bring forward.

So without mentioning the minimum wage, Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) asked Senators to vote no.

The result was a party line split. All 23 Democrats voted ‘yes’ and all 27 Republicans voted ‘no.’

According to the most recent minimum wage report from the state Department of Labor, in 2025 an estimated 42,900 Pennsylvania workers received minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, or less. 

Another 510,800 made between $7.26 and $15.00.

All of the states bordering Pennsylvania have higher minimum wages than the federal minimum, ranging from $8.75 an hour in West Virginia to $16 an hour in New York.

When voting on Costa’s motion was complete and senators were no longer restricted from speaking about the minimum wage, Pittman clarified his position.

“I often think about the issue of minimum wage, and it’s been no secret that in my time serving as leader, I have made it very clear publicly and privately that we are prepared to talk about meeting in the middle,” he said. But he accused Democrats of refusing to budge from a $15 minimum wage

“The reality is that this commonwealth is very diverse,” Pittman said. “Cost of living changes from region to region, labor costs change from region to region. I can tell you that I’ve heard particularly from nonprofits in the district I represent the challenges that a $15 an hour minimum wage would impose.”

Last year, a bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour in most of the state, and to $12 an hour in smaller, rural counties, did not receive a vote in the Senate after passing the Democratic-controlled House.

A spokesperson for Pittman did not respond to questions from the Capital-Star about what kind of compromise he would support.

Sen. Christine Tartaglione (D-Philadelphia) also rose to speak about the minimum wage. For other members, the beginning of her speech was undoubtedly familiar. 

“I rise today because it’s been 7,297 days since this legislature last passed a minimum wage,” she said. 

Tartaglione has made roughly the same comment, with the number changing, at the end of virtually every Senate session day since June, 2019. On Tuesday she went further. 

“We talk today about the 250th anniversary of our country,” she said. “America is supposed to be the land where, if you do everything right, you work hard, and you do your job, you’re supposed to have a living wage and be able to raise your children …That’s not happening for over a million people.”

She also discussed her role in passing the last bill that raised Pennsylvania’s minimum wage. In 2006, she negotiated that bill on behalf of Democrats with former Republican Sen. Joe Scarnati. She said that she agreed not to include an annual cost of living increase because he warned that it could never receive enough votes.

“I said, ‘Joe, I hope I’m not here in 10 years begging for a minimum wage,’” she said. “Today is twenty.”

Pennsylvania’s minimum wage was hiked again in 2009 to match the new federal minimum of $7.25, where it remains today.

Debate over whether to raise it has also worked its way into discussions of the looming state budget. 

In his budget address in February, Gov. Josh Shapiro called to boost it to $15.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, which was also the constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a spending plan, House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R-Bedford) said lawmakers may be able to find common ground on raising the minimum wage, but not as part of a budget deal.

“We often say a budget is a reflection of values,” Tartaglione said. “If that’s true, then a budget that leaves behind minimum wage workers is a statement that their work does not count at the same level as everyone else’s. I do not accept that. I do not believe that the people of PA accept that either. 

At the end of her speech, she added, “I hope you can live with your consciences if we leave here without doing anything.”

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Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.