Legal cannabis, raising wages, and skilled games: Top takeaways from Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal

Gov. Josh Shapiro highlighted his track record and called for legalizing adult-use cannabis, regulating skill games, and restoring housing rights for those who have past evictions. 

Gov. Josh Shapiro on Tuesday delivered his third budget address in front of lawmakers at the Pennsylvania capitol in Harrisburg, where he presented his budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year as a “common sense budget” for Pennsylvania residents and painted an optimistic picture for the commonwealth. 

Here are five main takeaways from Shapiro’s budget address:

Pennsylvania on the rise

Shapiro used Tuesday’s budget address to highlight some of his victories throughout his first two years in office.  

“Today, I can report that Pennsylvania is on the rise,” Shapiro said during his address. 

Some of the accomplishments Shapiro touted included 170,000 more Pennsylvanians working today than when he took office in 2023, enrolling close to 12,000 students in new apprenticeship programs, and attracting billions of dollars in private investments for the commonwealth. 

Adult-use cannabis legalization

Shapiro’s budget calls on Pennsylvania lawmakers to legalize adult-use cannabis for adults over the age of 21 and expunge criminal records for those who were convicted for possessing small amounts of the substance. 

“Five of our neighboring states have legalized adult-use cannabis. I’ve talked to CEOs of the companies right across the border, in Jersey, in Maryland, in New York, who tell me that 60% of their customers in those shops are Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said. 

“We’re losing out on revenue that’s going to other states instead of helping us right here. We’re losing out on an industry that over the first five years will bring in $1.3 billion in revenue.”

Shapiro’s administration is proposing a 20% tax on the wholesale price of all products sold and hopes to generate $536.5 million from cannabis sales. Some of the funding would be distributed to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for restorative justice programs. 

Skilled game regulation

Regulating skilled games, the slot machine-like games that have popped up in gas stations, bars and restaurants, and parlor lounges across the commonwealth, was a key sticking point during Shapiro’s budget address. 

“Let’s solve more problems together, starting with regulating so-called skill-games,” Shapiro said. 

“Every time somebody puts a buck into one of those unregulated machines, it undermines the [Pennsylvania Lottery] and the critical services it funds for our seniors like prescriptions and meals.” 

The Shapiro administration plans on regulating skilled games terminals through the Video Gaming Terminal tax and licensing fees and hopes to raise $368.9 million in the upcoming year. 

Raising the minimum wage

In order to attract workers, Shapiro, once again, called on the Pennsylvania General Assembly to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. 

“Let’s be real, folks. The floor of our wage structure in Pennsylvania is too damn low,” Shapiro said. “It’s been stuck at $7.25/hour for the last 16 years. In that time, every single one of our neighboring states has raised the minimum wage for their workers.”

Democrats in the Pennsylvania House passed legislation during the last legislative session to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and then tie it to inflation, but the bill stalled in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate.  

Shapiro accused Senate Republicans of sitting on their hands and harming low-wage workers. 

Restoring housing rights

Shapiro’s budget proposal also seeks to seal eviction records for tenants after a judge ruled in their favor. Pennsylvanians who were evicted for wrongful reasons still have to deal with the consequences of the eviction years later because it remains on their permanent housing record. 

State Rep. Ismail Smith-Wade-El (D-Lancaster) introduced legislation in the previous session that would seal evictions, but the bill didn’t make it through the state house before the two-year term ended. 

“After seven years, a foreclosure or bankruptcy disappears from your credit report,” Smith-Wade-El said in an interview. “But we in the commonwealth treat renters as second class citizens…what that means is thousands of Pennsylvanians being denied housing over old mistakes or evictions that actually never occurred.”