ADULTS WOULD BENEFIT MOST FROM RAISING PENNSYLVANIA’S MINIMUM WAGE

But Few Working Adults Would Benefit From A State Hourly Minimum Wage Increase To Only $6.25

Harrisburg, PA – Working adults would be the primary beneficiary of a hike in Pennsylvania’s minimum wage according to a new study released today by the Keystone Research Center (KRC).

The KRC Policy Watch shows that 303,000 adults would benefit directly if the minimum wage was raised to $7.15 an hour. Fewer than half as many teenagers, just 124,000, would benefit from such a hike.

“Opponents of raising the minimum wage frequently assert that many if not most of those who would benefit from a minimum wage raised are teenagers.  Our analysis shows that this is clearly not the case in Pennsylvania,” said Mark Price, an economist at KRC and an author of the data review.

The KRC Policy Watch also shows that raising the minimum wage to just $6.25, as some have proposed, would benefit far fewer adults, just 109,000. But this number is still more than the number of teenagers -- 72,000 -- who would benefit.

Nearly two thirds – 64 percent – of the adults who would benefit directly from a minimum wage increase to $7.15 would not benefit from an increase to $6.25. Increasing the minimum wage to $7.15 rather than $6.25 would benefit an additional 194,000 adults compared to only 52,000 additional teenagers.

The KRC study also finds that:

• 427,000 Pennsylvania workers would earn $5.15 to $7.14 in January 2007 and benefit directly from a minimum wage hike to $7.15;

• 181,000 workers would earn $5.15 to $6.24 in January 2007 and benefit directly from a minimum wage increase to $6.25.

“Under proposals to raise the minimum wage to $6.25 or $7.15,” said Stephen Herzenberg, an economist and executive director of the Keystone Research Center, “the majority of workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase are adults. Since the proportion of teenagers among low-wage earners increases near the current minimum wage of $5.15, a minimum wage hike to only $6.25 would make a partially self-fulfilling prophecy of the claim that a lot of the beneficiaries are teenagers.” 

“If the Pennsylvania legislature wants to benefit a large number of working adults through a minimum wage increase, the Pennsylvania minimum wage needs to reach at least $7.15 by January 2007,” said Herzenberg.