How 11 Trump states raised the minimum wage

• Ed Mahon
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Jeff Roberson / Associated Press

In this photo made Friday, April 25, 2014, Amy Jennewein speaks during a rally in support of raising the minimum wage University City, Mo.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Nebraska, South Dakota, Missouri all have approved increases

Jeff Roberson / Associated Press

In this April 2014 photo, Amy Jennewein speaks during a rally in support of raising the minimum wage in Missouri. An increase passed as a ballot initiative in 2018.

• I knew that 29 states, including all of Pennsylvania’s neighbors, have a minimum wage rate higher than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. But I didn’t know how those increases passed.

• So I looked into it and focused on states that Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016. Of those 30 states, 11 have a minimum wage higher than the federal level.

• Nearly all of those 11 states passed minimum wage increases through a ballot initiative. In the case of Michigan, a Republican-led Legislature passed minimum wage increases in 2014 and 2018. But both times, they faced a ballot measure that, if successful, would have created a larger increase.

• In Pennsylvania — where the minimum wage rate is the same as the federal level — all statewide ballot questions need to go through the General Assembly.

Best of the rest

Reid R. Frazier / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Doreen Luff, of Jefferson Hills, Pa., with her daughter Katie, 9, and son Jimmy, 6, in their back yard overlooking U.S. Steel’s Clairton coke works.

• “It feels like I have at the same time razorblades and feathers in my throat,” said a woman who lives near U.S. Steel’s Clairton Plant. A Christmas Eve fire damaged the plant’s air pollution controls, and StateImpact Pennsylvania took a deep look at the issue, including a comparison of air pollution levels in large cities.

• PennLive reported on the impact of a tornado in Union County, while Philly.com’s Stephanie Farr described “Game of Thrones”-themed jokes and other reactions to a 3 a.m. tornado warning in Philly.

• The Pittsburgh-Post Gazette received a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for its coverage of the Tree of Life massacre. On the other side of the state, The Philadelphia Inquirer was a finalist in the local reporting category for “dogged scientific investigation and evocative storytelling that exposed toxic dangers lurking in Philadelphia school buildings that sickened children in their classrooms.”