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Shapiro makes new pitch to raise minimum wage during budget address

February 3, 2026

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Good evening everyone,

It’s Tuesday, Feb. 3, and welcome back to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report.

It’s also “Budget Day” in Pennsylvania, which is akin to the Commonwealth’s political Super Bowl with all of the pomp and circumstance included.

Gov. Josh Shapiro dusted off some of his greatest hits as he delivered his fourth budget address in front of the Pennsylvania General Assembly on Tuesday. He renewed calls to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, legalize adult-use cannabis, and continue narrowing the funding gap between poorer and wealthier school districts.

Sean Kitchen,

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

With Pennsylvanians getting ready to feel the brunt of President Donald Trump’s budget cuts, Gov. Josh Shapiro is taking a new approach to raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour in his latest budget address.

During his speech Shapiro points out that raising the minimum wage will save the commonwealth hundreds of millions on entitlement programs such as Medicaid and raise the wage for thousands of residents who rely on the program for health care coverage.

“Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will save this Commonwealth $300 million a year on entitlement programs like Medicaid,” Shapiro said during his speech, adding, “not by adding arbitrary and cumbersome requirements that push people who still need help off the rolls but by literally raising the wages of nearly 61,000 people who currently rely on Medicaid and make less than $15 an hour.”

Other key aspects of Shapiro’s budget include:

An additional $585 million in adequacy funding to close the gap between poorer and wealthier school districts
A $50 million increase in basic education funding
Legalizing adult-use cannabis, which would generate $200 million annually
Regulations around data centers and how they generate power

Even though Shapiro boasted about not raising taxes and cutting corporate net income tax rates in his budget address, that hasn’t stopped Democratic lawmakers from pushing for a billionaires tax.

It could potentially raise $7 billion to backfill programs cut by the Trump administration.

A recent report from Americans for Tax Fairness shows that Pennsylvania billionaires made $18 billion in 2025 with $16 billion going to Pennsylvania’s richest billionaire, Jeffrey Yass alone.

“ Because of our flat tax rates, because of things like the corporate loophole, working people bare the larger brunt of funding our public goods in Pennsylvania, and it’s long overdue for us to do something about that,” State Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia) told The Keystone.

Looking to combat NIMBYism, a bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers are looking to incentivize pro-housing communities, per the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
Politico dubs Bob Brooks, President of the Pennsylvania Firefighters Association and potential challenger to US House Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, as the candidate you’d like to have a beer with.
Calls to reject cooperating with ICE continue to grow across the commonwealth after the recent Minnesota killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, according to Pennlive.

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

With ICE tactics under the spotlight following the deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis, support for unmasking federal immigration officials has been growing among the public.

A recent Pew poll found that 61% of Americans support unmasking ICE agents in order to curb abuses of power and prevent them from acting like a secret, paramilitary police force.

However, that didn’t stop US Sen. John Fetterman from bucking the approach taken by most Democrats and defending ICE agents covering their faces while on Fox News on Sunday. Fetterman argued that ICE agents fear having their identities exposed and being doxed.

“The ICE agents wearing masks, I think primarily, that’s driven by people who are going to dox those people. That’s a serious concern too,” Fetterman said.