A Republican-sponsored bill that would raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $15-an-hour has Democrats in Harrisburg newly optimistic that the idea’s time has come after years of arguments and a near-deal in 2019.

Pennsylvania’s wage floor is $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum. But state Sen. Dan Laughlin (R., Erie) is the lead sponsor of a bill that would more than double it by 2026.

While there are likely enough votes in the Democratic-controlled state House to approve the hike, the GOP-controlled state Senate would need to agree.

Read Spotlight PA’s full report: Why some lawmakers think this will be the year Pennsylvania raises its minimum wage.

THE CONTEXT: State Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) and Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) voted against raising the wage floor to $9.50 an hour in 2019. That year, the state Senate passed a compromise bill negotiated between Republicans and former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, but it died in the state House.

In an email this spring, state Senate GOP spokesperson Kate Flessner said the caucus is "focused on implementing policies that will create maximum wage jobs" rather than through "artificial minimum wage increases."

Ward said last week that, "Everything is a negotiation."

Republicans have long resisted minimum wage hikes as bad for business, but working-class cost-of-living pressures — the same cited by Laughlin in his memo seeking co-sponsors for the $15-an-hour bill — have had some in the party, broadly speaking, rethinking that opposition.

It's been 14 years since the last minimum wage hike for Pennsylvania workers, and last August the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said inflation meant a worker making $7.25-an-hour today was actually earning 27.4% less than a worker making the same amount in 2009.

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