Three-Quarters of PA Minimum-Wage Workers Are Women

The state has one of the highest rates in the country.

Protesting the minimum wage. (Shutterstock.)

Protesting the minimum wage. (Shutterstock.)

Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of women earning the minimum wage. In fact, nearly three-quarters of minimum-wage workers in the state are women, according to a recent study from the National Women’s Law Center. It joins Louisiana and Arkansas as the only other states with more than seven-in-10 workers earning the state minimum.

In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and the tipped minimum wage is $2.83. It’s been at that rate since 2009 and there are no major legislative plans to raise it.

Nationally, women “represent about two-thirds of minimum-wage workers across the country, and at least half of minimum-wage workers in every state,” the NWLC said.

The organization went on to say that “in every state, the minimum wage leaves a full-time worker with two children near or below the poverty level.”

In New Jersey, six-in-1o women make the state minimum wage of $8.38 per hour, and in Delaware, two-thirds are women and make $8.25 per hour.

(The NWLC calculations are based on unpublished U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics data.)

In Philadelphia there’s a push to raise the minimum wage to $15, led by groups like 15NowPhilly.