Impact on Libraries
This legislation will increase the minimum wage in Pennsylvania to:
$15.00 per hour effective January 1, 2024
Beginning January 1, 2025, and each January 1 thereafter, the minimum wage shall be increased by an annual cost-of-living adjustment calculated by the secretary using the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland area.
The legislation also modernizes protections and enforcement standards in the law, by:
- Providing flexibility to municipalities to set a higher local wage under certain conditions;
- Guarding against wage theft by ensuring that the Department of Labor & Industry may recover wages and penalties for all violations of the act, not only when a complaint is filed;
- Increasing monetary penalties for violations, which in some cases have not been updated since 1968;
- Bringing enforcement in line with the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act by allowing workers to receive damages, in addition to unpaid wages; and
- Enshrining in law that gratuities are the sole property of the employee.
Actions
- Referred to Senate Labor & Industry Committee June 14, 2023