It was one of the highest-profile asks in the newly re-elected Democratic governor’s February budget address: A raise in the state’s $7.25 per hour minimum wage to $12 per hour, effective July 1.

And now, on the cusp of passage of the first budget of Gov. Tom Wolf’s second term, that proposed minimum wage increase is landing with the biggest thud.

As in, it’s not happening.

The reasons are varied, but they demonstrate Wolf’s political capital coming off a landslide re-election win still will only carry him so far in a state Capitol where Republicans still rule the state House and Senate, and conservative Republicans still rule their respective majority caucus rooms.

Wolf came out aggressively on the issue this winter.

He proposed an immediate increase to $12 per hour, followed by year-by-year stepladder increases of 50 cents per hour until the mandatory wage hit $15.

Many thought that would at least seed the ground for discussion that could lead to something smaller.

And in fact, Wolf’s Press Secretary J.J. Abbott said Monday evening that the governor’s negotiators did scale back their demands through the spring. But that compromise was never found.

And that’s a bitter disappointment to some of Wolf’s staunch legislative allies.

“I was incredibly disappointed that the increase in the minimum wage was taken out of the budget,” said Rep. Patty Kim, D-Harrisburg, and the prime sponsor of the House bill to raise the wage. “This should have been a non-negotiable item (for the governor) and it is a terrible message we’re sending out to workers in Pennsylvania.”

Here’s some of the top reasons why this deal did not get done:

House Republican opposition.

While Senate Republican leaders had publicly kept the door at least unlocked to a minimum wage discussion, there was always a sense that too many House Republicans just didn’t think it was the right thing to do, and ultimately their leaders took the issue off the table.

House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, stressed in a floor debate on a foreign trade resolution last week that there are thousands of unfilled jobs in Pennsylvania right now that already pay more than the state’s minimum wage.

The better policy, Cutler argued, is to get those jobs filled so Pennsylvanians’ incomes are growing organically within the economy, rather than telling business owners what they have to do.

His caucus’s priority then, Cutler said, is trying to create the pathways for Pennsylvania’s lowest-earners to get the skills and training they need to become candidates to fill those existing jobs.

Kim said Monday she shares the GOP’s workforce development objectives.

But that doesn’t erase the need for help that working people who are trying to get that training and take that step up have right now, she argued.

“I heard people in this committee say that a minimum wage job isn’t supposed to support a family," Kim said after the no-increase budget was unveiled in the House Appropriations Committee Monday. “At the same time, I don’t believe human services should be needed to support people working 40 hours a week.”

Seeing the stats you like.

Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office this spring backed up Wolf’s claim that a higher minimum wage could be a nearly $170 million budget winner for state government.

A May analysis by the IFO showed an expected gain of $50 million in annual tax revenues from what it predicted would be a $3.5 billion net income transfer to more than one million of the state’s lowest-paid workers.

The research agency also projected, by the 2020-21 budget year, a decrease of $119 million in overall state human service spending on this cohort, fueled by working Pennsylvanians who would be coming off Medicaid rolls.

But many in the GOP focused on a different section of the IFO report: a finding that the proposed increase could actually create a net loss of 34,000 jobs.

Kim and minimum wage supporters said this is the best time to absorb that hit, because overall unemployment is already low.

Noting the heavy skew of those jobs to younger and first-time workers, opponents argued raising the minimum wage would have the effect of making it harder for teens and other first-time workers to get valuable work opportunities.

They also said the increases would be felt the hardest by employers in rural areas, where job opportunities are already hardest to come by.

Ironically, the state’s over-performing tax collections in fiscal 2019 also sapped some of the momentum for the increase, because where the IFO said Wolf’s proposal could help by $170 million in the budget equation, state tax collections were already coming in about $900 million over projection.

Rep. George Dunbar, R-Westmoreland County, took that cover Monday.

Dunbar said since the changes weren’t needed as a part of the budget-balancing equation, it would be better for the General Assembly to take its time and work on such a significant economic issue outside of the rush of three or four session days before summer recess.

Back to the drawing board, or back to the ramparts.

The parties may yet give the minimum wage issue a longer look in the second half of this year.

“We’re probably not going to do it this month, but there are still a lot of discussions around it,” Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County, told reporters during a break in Senate action Monday.

Sources familiar with this spring’s negotiations said there were efforts by both sides to explore a smaller increase, but Republicans’ counters came with no boosts in out-years, exemptions built in for so-called “training wages” for teenagers, and clear language to prevent cities like Philadelphia from going higher than the state’s rate.

None of those went far enough for Wolf, who noted last week that while he’s open to compromise on his plan, “we need to make sure that we’re not embarrassing ourselves. Right now, we’re at seven dollars and twenty-five cents. There is nobody in our region close to that... It’s a black eye for us.”

Finally, there’s still this matter of Capitol politics: As a first-year majority leader, Cutler, even if he personally wanted to, would face a very difficult road pushing through even a smaller increase when the majority of his members are philosophically against it.

If there is no middle ground soon, that could leave this issue back in the cauldron of partisan politics.

Democrats may like that because the minimum wage could be one more banner under which their candidates could run as they try to pick up more seats in the state House and Senate, and possibly flip one of the chambers in 2020.

Republicans, meanwhile can continue to hammer home they are the party of free enterprise that doesn’t tell businesses what to do, engineer local economies or potentially kill jobs in the process.

The voters will take it from there.

What we do know now is that the wage defeat is one of the major reasons that Democrats who plan to vote against this budget Tuesday will do so.

“Number one, we’re going to cut our general cash assistance program, and number two, for those who are working now, we’re not doing anything to lift them out of poverty,” complained Rep. Donna Bullock, D-Philadelphia.

“I don’t think it’s a great recipe for our most vulnerable Pennsylvanians who need help.”

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