HARRISBURG — New York and California have just enacted $15 an hour minimum wage laws.

Pennsylvania is not ready to follow in their tracks.

The debate in Harrisburg for a second year in a row is over whether the state's current $7.25 an hour minimum wage should be increased to $10.15 an hour, as proposed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

Wolf has stumped across Pennsylvania in recent weeks calling for action on his proposal as a way to achieve economic fairness for low-income workers, but it has not seen any movement in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Wolf took a limited unilateral action on the minimum wage issue last month. He signed an executive order to provide a minimum wage of $10.15 an hour for some 450 state employees — mainly part-time and seasonal workers in clerical and maintenance — and the employees of more than 100 companies with contracts or leases to do business with the state.

The order covers a small percentage of the 79,000 state employees.

A law is needed to apply a minimum wage hike for all employees in the public and private sectors of Pennsylvania's economy.

Sen. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Township, is a key player in this debate as chairwoman of the Senate Labor and Industry Committee. She said a wage hike on the magnitude of $15 an hour is not being considered by the Senate.

Rather, discussions in the Senate have focused on an undetermined gradual increase in the wage above the $7.25-an-hour floor and ways to protect teenagers and young adults from being priced out of the workforce, Baker said.

The senator said she has no plans to call a vote on a minimum wage bill since she sees no consensus among committee members on the matter.

However, Baker said she is interested in having a committee hearing on the impact of Wolf's executive order on state costs and firms doing business with the state.

Members of Raise the Wage PA, an advocacy group, picketed last month outside Baker's office in Dallas calling on her to act on minimum wage legislation.

"Legislation has been held hostage in committee for over two years, with the Republican leadership refusing to move the process forward and raise wages for 1.2 million Pennsylvanians," the group said. "It has been 10 years since the Legislature voted on a minimum wage increase."

Wolf made a stop in Wilkes-Barre last week as part of his "Jobs that Pay" tour seeking action to hike the minimum wage. Wolf would tie future increases in the minimum wage above a $10.15 an hour level to inflation.

GOP lawmakers have a different philosophical approach to helping low-pay workers, Stephen Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-62, Indiana, said.

"We think the legislative energies should be spent to transition people from minimum wage jobs to better paying jobs with benefits," Miskin said. "Changing the minimum wage is not going to eradicate poverty. It's mind-boggling all the energy trying to keep people at these minimum wage jobs."