Union heads, elected officials demand $15-an-hour minimum wage in Pa.

When Aaron Allen took a minimum wage job in 2009, he found the $7.25-an-hour rate was barely enough to pay his rent.

Allen worked more than 40 hours a week at a restaurant but put off medical treatments because he couldn’t afford to see a doctor.

He recalled how he and his co-workers could hardly afford essentials.

“We all had to have second, third jobs, side gigs, just to make ends meet,” Allen, now an organizer with advocacy group Pennsylvania United, said Thursday during a news conference in Downtown Pittsburgh.

In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage hasn’t increased a cent since Allen’s struggles more than a decade ago.

He joined labor leaders and elected officials in Downtown Pittsburgh in calling on Pennsylvania’s lawmakers to approve legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, arguing the current level is unsustainable for working-class families.

Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, criticized the existing minimum wage that has sat stagnant for nearly 16 years.

“$7.25 is a ridiculous, insulting wage,” Miller said. “It’s a sweatshop wage.”

The crowd behind him held up signs saying “Raise the wage” and “Free the wage.”

Over 100,000 workers in Allegheny County currently make less than $15 an hour, said Sam Williamson, Western Pennsylvania district leader for the 32BJ SEIU union.

About 21% of workers across the state would get an automatic pay bump if the minimum wage jumped to $15 an hour, he said.

Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is lower than that in 32 states and Washington, D.C., according to the SEIU.

The Harrisburg-based Keystone Research Center estimated almost 776,000 Pennsylvania workers now making less than $15 per an hour would be directly affected. An additional 568,000 workers who earn only slightly more than that would likely see wage increases, too, as pay scales are adjusted, the research center predicted.

On average, affected workers would see about a $2-per-hour raise for full-time work, according to center, and Pennsylvania workers in total would see an increase of over $5 billion in annual wages.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said families are suffering under the current minimum wage, with many people taking on multiple jobs just to pay their bills.

“This is not something that is rocket science,” Gainey said of raising the minimum wage.

Also joining Thursday’s press conference outside of the City-County Building Downtown was Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, Gainey’s rival in the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary.

“I’ve always been supportive of raising the wage,” O’Connor told TribLive after the rally. “It helps our local economy. It helps workers.”

Legislation introduced by Pennsylvania Rep. Roni Green, D-Philadelphia, and Sen. Christine Tartaglione, D-Philadelphia, would not only increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour but would also allow counties and local governments to impose higher minimum wage requirements on their own.

Their bill has been referred to the House Labor and Industry Committee.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato — who called even $15 an hour “too low” — said she wanted the power to hike minimum wage requirements without waiting for Harrisburg.

“Let me govern,” she said. “Let me do my job as county executive and work with businesses and working people and unions and set a respectable wage that takes care of working people and working families throughout this region.”

Increasing the minimum wage won’t help just those workers who would see a pay raise, she said.

“Raising the wage is good for our economy,” Innamorato said. “When we put money into the hands of working people, it gets spent in our communities.”