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Pittsburgh, Allegheny County governments are on track to reach $15 minimum wage. Some ask: Is $15 enough?

  • Courier Newsroom

The Pittsburgh City-County building on Grant Street. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)

by Erin West, PublicSource
In the City of Pittsburgh, 59 municipal employees — including refuse workers, school crossing guards and administrative clerks — earn below the $15-per-hour benchmark that labor advocates have been pushing for nationally.In Allegheny County, 169 full-time government workers still need wage increases to hit that benchmark. They include food-service workers and housekeepers at Kane Community Living Centers, among others. 

Both Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald promised increases to $15 per hour for full-time employees, more than double the state’s minimum wage of $7.25. The city expects to complete the increase across the board by the start of 2021. Under contracts in place to date, the county’s minimum wage will be $15 per hour by the beginning of next year. In 2018, the city employed about 3,500 full-time workers and the county employed roughly 5,300 workers, with the majority already making above $15 per hour.

But while the minimum wage increase has been lauded, some worker advocates note that it’s only a start and still leaves workers at the bottom of the payscale with financial hurdles.

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