Gov. Edward Rendell supported an increase in the state’s minimum wage at Pittsburgh’s United… Gov. Edward Rendell supported an increase in the state’s minimum wage at Pittsburgh’s United Steelworkers Building last week.

Under Rendell’s new plan, the minimum wage – currently set at $5.15 an hour – would raise to $6.25 an hour in January 2006, and then to $7.15 in January 2007.

State legislators will tackle the issue when they reconvene in late September, but some have already started the debate.

“There is a definite need to increase the minimum wage in Pennsylvania,” state Rep. Paul Costa, D-Allegheny said. “I was hoping the state would raise the wage to $7.15 right away, instead of waiting two years, that is my only criticism. This is definitely long overdue.”

When Rendell campaigned for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2002, he did not support a state increase in pay, but rather called on Congress to increase the national minimum wage.

The governor feared an increase at the state level would scare away new businesses in Pennsylvania.

A spokesman for the governor said that the shift in his position reflects actions by Congress and other state governments.

The federal government hasn’t increased the national minimum wage since 1997, and an increasing number of states that surround Pennsylvania have already passed legislation to raise the minimum wage above the federal level.

“The governor changed his position because the federal government isn’t going to act on this matter in the near or far future,” spokesman Chuck Ardo said. “Seventeen states have increased the minimum wage over the federal limit of $5.15 an hour, and that is hurting Pennsylvania’s ability to compete with those surrounding states.”

Paulette Watts, a shuttle driver for Pitt, said that she knows the significance of a rising minimum wage.

“I know a lot of young people that have been forced to take minimum wage jobs because they didn’t go to college,” she said. “These are people trying to make it on their own for the first time. How do you do that earning $5.15 an hour?”

Rendell said that he would not support a pay raise for state legislators – already a point of contention for some – if they do not endorse his minimum wage plan.

Ardo said that the governor’s approval of the legislative pay raise in early July was made with assurances that the legislators would support his minimum wage plan.

Republicans in the state legislature, and fiscal conservatives elsewhere, are expected to resist the plan for the same reason Rendell opposed the idea in 2002. They fear a wage increase would hurt Pennsylvania’s economy.

Mike Devinney, president of Pitt’s College Libertarians, is skeptical of the idea.

“Studies have shown that raising the minimum wage will not produce a direct effect,” he said. “It would eliminate lower paying jobs, typically held by teenagers or minorities.”

Costa argued that if the wages do rise, there would be more money to spend, in turn helping the economy and businesses alike.

Freshman Amanda Yonich thinks the economy would benefit from the wage increase.

“A minimum wage increase would give workers more of an income, which means more money to spend,” she said. “In turn, that would help the economy.”

The U.S. Senate rejected two proposals in March that would have increased the minimum wage.

Sen. Edward Kennedy’s plan would have increased the national wage by $2.10, while Sen. Rick Santorum’s proposal would have hiked it by $1.10 an hour.

Neither plan even came close to the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.