Senator Jay Costa:  Let me hear you say that. We can’t survive on $7.25. A little louder so upstairs they can hear us in the other chambers. We can’t survive on $7.25. Thank you very much. I’m very honored to be here with my colleagues to really make a strong statement that we have to advance the minimum wage bill. It’s great that my colleagues from all across Pennsylvania, business owners from Pittsburgh, and other parts of our commonwealth are here today to lend their support to this important measure.

It’s simply unconscionable that Pennsylvania stands as an island. We stand as an island, and not in a good way. Not the island you think about. We’re standing as an island that we’re holding back our folks from the economic prosperity that they deserve. The moral thing to do, as was mentioned by my colleagues is to make certain that we advance this measure so that people in Pennsylvania, men and women, and particularly our women, will have the opportunity to have a fair wage, and earn a fair wage, and work to become sustainable individuals.

We are an island, as I said. And that’s wrong. Every single state around us; some 30-some states, 60 percent of our states have a higher minimum wage than we have in Pennsylvania. Every state around us in the northeast has increased their minimum wage, and has a higher minimum wage than what we have. That’s unconscionable when we stand here as the commonwealth, as was mentioned by John earlier. We are a commonwealth, and the things that we do in Pennsylvania, and the legislation that we address and enact here every year should have a goal and the desire of making certain that we enhance, and we improve the commonwealth of all of our people in Pennsylvania. We cannot leave folks behind.

I’m proud to stand here. I want to thank Senator Tartaglione, and Senator Haywood for their advancement and legislation on this issue, as well as Representative Patty Kim, and the speakers you heard here today. Thank them for taking up the challenge. But we need to do it together working with business, and labor, and our community, working together to say one thing. And let me hear you say it again. We cannot survive on $7.25. Thank you very much.