At a budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, Senator Joe Pittman grilled the director of the Independent Fiscal Office about Governor Tom Wolf’s push for a minimum wage hike, forcing Director Matthew Knittel to admit that human services may have to be cut in order to accomplish Wolf’s goal.
The governor wants a $12 minimum wage in Pennsylvania to take effect July 1st, and then annual increases until it reaches $14 per hour in 2027.
Pittman pointed out that while for-profit businesses would have the ability to raise their prices and pass on the wage increases to their consumers, non-profits with employees have no way to offset the increased expense.
When Pittman asked if that meant those agencies would have to cut their services, Knittel acknowledged that “It will have to come from somewhere. I’m not sure where at this point.”
Knittel also admitted that 60 percent of Governor’s Wolf’s proposed minimum wage hike would be passed on to consumers in higher prices.
Pittman also questioned Revenue Department Secretary Dan Hassell about the revenues produced by natural gas impact fees and by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Intitiative. Hassell said revenues do indeed go down if gas wells are not producing but, on RGGI, he refused to accept Pittman’s characterization of it as a carbon tax and said, “I don’t know enough about it,” when asked to confirm that “Without the production of carbon there is no revenue from the carbon tax.”
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