Before I am Famous

literature is something we infer after the story is told

PA Legislature Approves their Pay Raise

Posted on | August 2, 2005 |

I live in the great state of Pennsylvania. Recently, our state lawmakers passed a law that allowed a very large raise, making the base salary of 81,000 dollars per year. I am all for cost of living raises because everyone should have that. But this a very big jump the news said somewhere from 16- 34% increase. Do you know what minimum wgae is in PA? It is 5.15 dollars perhour. That wage has not budged since it was mandated from the federal government.

There is no cost of living raise for those on minimum wage. A person working 40 hours a week on that rate makes somewhere in the ball park of 10,000 dollars a year. Wow that is a lot of money. Yet stuff gets more expensive as the years go by. I think a lot of poor people making minimum wage would love an increase in pay. I think that maybe it would boost the economy. More money coming in = more money for the state in sales tax revenue.

If minimum wage was increased to reflect cost of living, I think a lot more people would not have to rely on help from the state to buy food or pay bills. I know a lot of people don’t like asking for help but they are stuck between a rock and hard place. They don’t want to starve or have their kids starve. Maybe they would like to buy a house or save some money for retirement.

I know from personal experience making that amount, there was no way I could save for anything. There is just no way to stretch something already streched so thin. Maybe instead of the lawmakers giving themselves a very large raise maye they should have taken that money and raised the minimum wage in this state. I like to say thanks for the miniority who voted against the pay increase because to me that says you care more about us then yourselves.

Category: news thoughts

Comments

Leave a Reply