by Alex Lloyd Gross
Imagine working for almost 20 years and having your meager pay stuck at $7.25 an hour. Now imagine that an automatic Cost of Living Adjustment has bumped the pay of the person screwing you by over $5,000 a year. In the meantime, you work three jobs and rely on public assistance and SNAP.
Welcome to Pennsylvania—the land where most Republicans in the House and Senate refuse to even discuss raising the minimum wage by as little as 10 cents. Not all, but most. Recently, a lopsided bill was introduced that would have raised the minimum wage in Philadelphia while allowing lower wages to be paid in surrounding counties. That bill did not pass. Imagine doing the same job as the person across the street, except they earn $15.00 an hour while you slave away for $8.50 an hour.
Locally, representatives like K.C. Tomlinson have broken from party lines and voted in favor of a higher wage. Meanwhile, if you go across the bridge to New Jersey, you can earn $15.92 an hour. Travel across the state and even West Virginia pays its workers more—$8.75 an hour.
Governor Josh Shapiro, who adopted the slogan that he “gets stuff done,” has been unable to convince the other side of the aisle to raise the wage by even a penny. There are hundreds thousands of people in PA that work for less than $10.00/hr. They are not teenagers. Across the country, that number is in the tens of millions.
On the federal level, the minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour and has been unchanged since the Obama administration. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump handed out French fries at a McDonald’s in Feasterville. He either pretended not to hear—or deliberately ignored—questions from multiple reporters about the minimum wage, while responding to questions about Kamala Harris from the same reporters. During his first term, the House voted to raise the wage, but then–Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an 85-year-old multimillionaire, buried the bill.
Alex Lloyd Gross File Photo Delaware Valley News.com Donald Trump works the drive through at a McDonald’s in Feasterville in October 2024.
Opponents who claim higher wages hurt jobs need to look at the Jersey Shore. There, business owners here, business owners cannot find enough seasonal workers, even when offering free meals, higher pay, and housing assistance. In June of 2025, Roy Rogers opened in Cherry Hill, and the business has been booming. That means workers are getting paid and prices remain stable.
One only has to visit Raising Cane’s. Count the staff at any Pennsylvania location, then visit Union Station in Washington, D.C. Everything is the same—same number of workers, same prices—except for the pay. The argument that higher wages hurt businesses simply does not hold water.