By Christian Alexandersen
Penn Live, Patriot News, February 9, 2015
Chants of "Low wage is not OK" were heard around the Capitol Complex Monday during a march and rally to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. About 200 people, including Lt. Gov. Michael Stack, met at the Grace Methodist Church for a morning of speeches and discussions before marching from State Street to Commonwealth Avenue. Once inside the Capitol, the Raise the Wage in PA marchers met with legislators ...
Rep. Patty Kim, D-Harrisburg, announced she was introducing a bill Wednesday that would raise the minimum wage to $9 in 2015 and to $10.10 in 2016. There would also be a cost of living adjustment included in the minimum wage increase. ... Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bucks, was one of the few Republicans legislators that attended the Raise the Wage in PA event. ... "This should not be a partisan issue," DiGirolamo said. "This should be an issue that Republicans and Democrats should work together on." ...
While a lot of business owners argue that increasing the minimum wage will harm their bottom line, Charlie Crystle, co-founder of the Lancaster Food Company, said that's not true.
"We can afford it," Crystle said. "The reality is that there's a lot businesses that take advantage of people and don't pay an honest days pay for an honest days work."
Crystle said he originally decided to pay his employees $11.25-an-hour but quickly realized that was a "scraping-by wage." He bumped his employees' pay up to $14-an-hour after recalculating and developing a new business model.
"There's a way to do it," Crystle said. "You have to build it into your business model." ...
Stack slammed WalMart and other big businesses that pay workers such low wages that they qualify for food stamps. "Walmart gets their whole program of paying a poverty wage subsidized by the government," Stack said. "Don't you think it's time WalMart and other companies pay a fair minimum wage?"
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