Full Citation
Title: How Philadelphia's Minimum Wage Compares With Other U.S. Cities | The Pew Charitable Trusts
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2020
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: The notion of raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage—and thereby Philadelphia’s—has been a topic of considerable debate over the past year, both in the state Legislature and elsewhere. As of Jan. 1, 2020, Philadelphia’s minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, where it has remained since 2009. The rate—which is also the federal minimum—is set by the state, and the city has no authority to change it. Responding to a nonbinding ballot question in May 2019, Philadelphia voters voiced overwhelming support for a $15-an-hour minimum. And the city government has raised the minimum for its own workers, as well as for city contractors and subcontractors, to $13.25, with plans to gradually increase it to $15 by mid-2022. To help inform the conversation, The Pew Charitable Trusts set out to determine how Philadelphia’s minimum wage compares with the rate in other major cities and to take a detailed look at how many Philadelphians have been getting paid that amount—and who they are. The research found that a majority of major U.S. cities have higher minimums than Philadelphia’s, some substantially higher, although 14 of the 31 cities studied for this brief also are at $7.25. When the overall level of wages in each of the metropolitan areas that include those cities is taken into account, Philadelphia has what is effectively the lowest minimum of any of those cities. This is the result of Philadelphia’s low minimum, the relatively high wages paid throughout the region, and a higher cost of living than in many of the other cities with the same $7.25 hourly rate. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), an estimated 9% of all Philadelphians age 16 or older working in Pennsylvania and receiving wages or salaries from private employers or state or local government—about 44,000 individuals—were earning an hourly average of $7.25 or less in the five-year period ending in 2018, the most recent years with detailed data available. Of that number, approximately 21,000, or 4% of Philadelphia workers, worked full time and year-round at that rate. These estimates likely include some workers who are not covered by the minimum wage or whose employers did not comply with the law. Relative to the city’s overall workforce, residents earning $7.25 or less were disproportionately nonwhite or Hispanic, young, and lacking a college degree. Sixty-three percent of all Philadelphians earning the minimum wage or less worked in four sectors: accommodation and food services, retail trade, health care and social assistance, and educational services. As the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has declined over time, the share of those earning $7.25 or less has fallen from roughly 11% of Philadelphians working in Pennsylvania in 2010 to about 8% in 2018. An additional 7% made $7.26 to $9.50 per hour. With many low-wage workers and the sectors that employ them being hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, it remains to be seen what shape the minimum wage conversation will take once it resumes in earnest.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Eichel, Larry
Publisher:
Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure
Countries: