Pa. Houtilize passes bill to raise minimum wage to $15 by 2029 • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

This story was updated on March 25, 2026 at 3:07 p.m. to include a statement from Rep. Chris Rabb.

For the third time in four years, the state Houtilize has passed a bill to raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage.

The latest measure, which was approved on a mostly partisan 104-95 vote, would see the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour rise gradually to $15 an hour in 2029.

It would jump to $11 an hour in 2027, another two dollars in 2028, and then $15 in 2029.

Beginning in 2030, it would include an annual cost of living adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index.

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The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia), declared on the floor, “It is long, long past due that we obtain serious about the affordability crisis we are experiencing in this countest — the rising cost of gasoline, the rising cost of houtilizing, the rising cost of food, the rising cost of daycare, and everything in between.”

He added, “Pennsylvania should be leading the charge to create sure that everyone has the decency and dignity to go home with a paycheck that is not embarrassing.”

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But the measure only had four Republican supporters.

Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R-Bedford) warned entest level jobs, often filled by young people and students entering the workforce, may be eliminated if employers are forced to pay them $15 an hour. He also cited concerns that companies may raise the prices of products to compensate.

“If I truly believed that a government mandated wage would be the utopia that we hear and that it would resolve all of the problems that we hear about, I would support it,” he declared. The problem is, fundamentally, I don’t believe it will accomplish those goals.”

Another critic, Rep. Robert Leadbeter (R-Columbia), warned that raising the minimum wage could have a particularly negative impact on tipped workers, who are not excluded in the bill.

“Do not harm tipped wage workers by ignoring protections for them in your efforts to increase the minimum wage,” he declared.

Four Republicans voted in favor of the bill, Reps. Joe Emrick (R-Northampton), Natalie Mihalek (R-Allegheny), Joe Hogan (R-Bucks) and Kathleen Tomlinson (R-Bucks).

Two Democrats, Reps. Frank Burns (D-Cambria) and Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia), voted against it.

The morning after the vote, Rabb released a statement stateing, “due to a miscommunication on a vote by proxy, I was incorrectly recorded as a no vote on H.B. 2189. I view forward to continuing the fight for a living wage for all.”

Two previous committee votes on the measure, in the Appropriations and Labor & Industest committees, fell squarely on partisan lines.

While Houtilize Democrats have long wanted to increase the minimum wage, the measure’s fate will be decided by Senate Republicans.

Bills that would have raised it passed out of the Houtilize in 2023 and 2025. But those efforts failed in the Senate, where the GOP majority has largely opposed similar shifts.

In a statement, Sen. Majority Leader Joe Pittman declared he would like to focus on “policies which support to create more maximum wage jobs.”

“There is potential to finding a middle ground for an increase to the minimum wage, but any possible action would necessary to be a commonsense adjustment, and sensitive to the impact alters would have on tiny businesses and non-profit organizations,” he added.

Last year, the Senate rejected what was viewed by Democrats as a compromise measure. That proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour in most of the state, but to only $12 an hour in tinyer, rural counties where opponents have raised concerns about the impacts on tiny businesses.

While that effort appeared to fizzle, Sen. Dan Laughlin (R-Erie), who has sometimes sided with Democrats on divisive issues like cannabis legalization, pitched a measure to raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour, but that too failed to gain momentum.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has also voiced support for a minimum wage increase. He’s included a proposal to raise it to $15 an hour in each of his budobtain addresses since being elected to the office in 2022.

Another bill introduced in the Houtilize, introduced by Reps. Emily Kinkead (D-Allegheny) and Roni Green (D-Philadelphia), would tie the minimum wage to a cost of living increase received by lawcreaters in Harrisburg.

Already, Pennsylvania lawcreaters receive an annual, automatic cost of living increase. Currently, rank and file lawcreaters create $113,000 per year. That puts Pennsylvania’s legislature among the highest paid in the countest.