If Gov. Tom Wolf has his way, some 1 million Pennsylvanians could be seeing a big raise.

Wolf, in one of the most aggressive planks of his 2017-18 state budget proposal, called for taking Pennsylvania's minimum wage from the federally-established $7.25 per hour to $12 per hour.

Pennsylvania's minimum wage has been at $7.25 per hour since 2009 ,when the federal minimum was last changed. It is one of 20 states currently at that level.

"It's long overdue in Pennsylvania, and we think $12 is the right rate to catch up and provide a fair wage to those employees and their families," Wolf's Budget Secretary, Randy Albright, said Tuesday.

Wolf's office has projected that its plan - taking the current minimum up by 65 percent - would provide as many as one million Pennsylvania workers with total additional income of $3.5 billion annually.

That infusion into the economy, the administration added, would yield $33.9 million in new personal income tax collections, and an additional $61.4 million in sales tax collections.

On the other hand, the Independent Fiscal Office in 2015 studied Wolf's earlier proposal of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 and determined it could result in the loss of more than 30,000 jobs throughout Pennsylvania.

State business leaders recoiled Tuesday at what many saw as a de facto tax on small businesses.

Kevin Shivers, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said for many of his members, raising the minimum wage only means one of three bad outcomes: less income for the business owner, higher prices for consumers or less hours for staff.

And many small business owners, Shivers contended, don't make more than $50,000.

According to data from the Keystone Research Center, a labor-supported economic think tank, businesses most affected by minimum wage policy are in the education and health services, retail, or leisure and hospitality industries.

About half of minimum wage workers, meanwhile, work 34 hours per week or less.

Shivers appealed to Wolf and lawmakers Tuesday to look for other ways to grow Pennsylvania's economy, like lessening regulations, simplifying the tax code or ending tax breaks for large companies.

Republican legislative leaders were sympathetic to those pleas, and it seemed as if Wolf's plan was a non-starter at $12 per hour.

House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana County, said an important barometer for him is where our neighboring states are. If Pennsylvania jumped immediately to $12 per hour it would exceed them all.

"It's just not realistic in today's economic times," Reed said, adding "We think it would actually push a lot of folks off of payrolls and into the unemployment lines because folks could just not afford a $12 minimum wage."

In fact, at current levels, Pennsylvania's neighbors' minimums range from $8.15, in Ohio, to $9.70 in New York.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, R-Red Lion, agreed with Reed, saying he's more interested in trying to create new jobs to see more Pennsylvanians working and moving up the ladder than "creating more hassles for small business people."

Senate leaders weren't much more enthusiastic.

"If the governor puts that on the table that's certainly something that we talk about, but I believe the federal minimum wage issue is a much much better approach to take than state by state," said Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County.

Legislative Democrats, however, said they are ready to make this fight with Wolf, if only to get some movement on the issue after eight years.

"Other states' experiences is employment increased with the (higher) minimum wage," said House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny County.

"I think it makes to increase the minimum wage. People right now on minimum wage get food stamps and other assistance from the government, so we can hopefully get them off that and they can pay taxes. I think it makes sense and we ought to seriously consider it."

Wolf made raising the wage a major theme of his gubernatorial campaign in 2014, and earlier this year he signed an executive order that increased the minimum for state government employees under his jurisdiction and employees of organizations that receive state contracts to $10.15 per hour.