Rep. Roni Green, D-Philadelphia, is pictured during a recent policy briefing in Harrisburg.

The fight for a $15 minimum wage is now a victim of inflation.

State Rep. Roni Green, D-Philadelpia, is drafting legislation attempting to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania to $18 an hour. The state’s current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

“If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to support your family and pay your bills,” Green said in her legislative memorandum. “It is impossible to raise a family on the wage of $7.25 per hour. Even households of one cannot feed themselves, pay rent and utilities, and save for theirfuture on a $7.25 per hour wage. While big corporations are grossing higher profits, the average consumer is burdened withpaying the higher product price. We need to ensure that Pennsylvania’s workers are getting paid a fair and living wage.”

The bill would also increase the minimum wage for tipped employees to $8 an hour and ensure that tipped employees receive the full amount of a tip. Green’s legislation would also give municipalities authority to have a higher minimum wage.

In January Pennsylvania State Senator Wayne D. Fontana, D-Allegheny, said he planned to introduce a bill that would form a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Gov. Josh Shapiro, during his budget address Tuesday, called on the state Legislature to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, echoing the efforts of his predecessor, Tom Wolf.

Green and Fontana are merely the latest in a decades-long fight over the state’s minimum wage. While Democrats have argued in favor of increasing the minimum wage, Republicans have argued few businesses use the minimum wage to set their starting salaries because tighter competition for jobs has forced employers to pay more to keep or hire employees. The plan may stand a better chance in the state Assembly under Democratic Party leadership, but still faces an uphill road in the state Senate.

UPMC officials announced earlier this year a plan to increase minimum starting wages for entry-level positions to $18 an hour by January 2025 at UPMC’s Pittsburgh hospitals and Harrisburg and Williamsport-area hospitals outpatient clinics, ambulatory centers and other facilities and sites. Minimum starting wages for entry-level positions at UPMC’s additional sites in Southwest Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania, Western Maryland and its hospital in Jamestown, N.Y., will reach $18 an hour by January 2026.

“We’re facing a workforce shortage and higher competition in the job market,” Shapiro said. “Businesses get this – that’s why so many of them aren’t sitting back and waiting for us to act – they’re raising wages aggressively from department stores to diners. So I’m asking you, respectfully, to work with me to finally — finally — raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour.”