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Pennsylvania marks minimum wage anniversary: Workers have been earning $7.25 for 13 years

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Matt Slocum/AP
Pennsylvania state Rep. Donna Bullock speaks during a rally to raise the state minimum wage at Sharon Baptist Church, Friday, July 9, 2021, in Philadelphia.

WESA/NPR, July 2022

Pennsylvania is one of 20 states that hasn’t raised the 13-year-old federal minimum wage of $7.25. But Pennsylvania is the only such state in the Mid-Atlantic, according to the United States Department of Labor.

A 2021 PA Department of Labor report showed that minimum wage earners only represent 2.6% of all hourly workers in the commonwealth, but 70% of them are 25 years old or younger.

Richard Paulsen is an assistant professor of economics at Bloomsburg University. He is seeing a large portion of the youth population either earning a base wage, or even deciding to not join the workforce at all. One reason young people might not take a minimum wage job? The wage can’t buy as much as it used to.

Continue reading at WESA/NPR.

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