We’ve probably all grown tired of the legislative back and forth over the state’s minimum wage.

A proposal that passed the state House of Representatives recently is better than some that have been proposed by state Democrats, with a tiered minimum wage that rises to $15 an hour in populous areas and increases to $12 an hour in more rural locations. Philadelphia County’s minimum wage would hit $15 on Jan. 1 of next year if the bill is adopted by the state Senate while phasing in through 2028 in the rest of the state.

As we said, it’s an improvement over past bills that didn’t recognize the fact that the cost of living in urban areas is much different than it is in rural areas like ours. But it’s not perfect. Indexing the minimum wage to inflation sounds like a good idea on its face, but it becomes an administrative burden and a pain for small businesses who can’t achieve any sense of cost certainty with the minimum wage rising each year. We would also prefer a phase-in for small businesses that may not be paying their employees the $7.25 minimum but may not be able to jump to $12 an hour in one move without hurting the business financially.

Rather than start over from scratch, we think Democratic lawmakers are on the right track. It’s time for Republicans to actually negotiate rather than simply return to their fallback position that there should be no minimum wage increase, ever. We all know that hardly any business can get a new employee to start for $7.25 an hour, a fact that makes the state’s existing minimum wage useless for anyone.

Pennsylvania needs a realistic minimum wage for workers and for businesses. The bill sent to the Senate isn’t perfect, but it’s one of the better starting points we’ve seen in years. Give Democrats credit, the bill passed by the House is a compromise from past positions. Democrats have heard Republicans’ criticisms – particularly of using an urban area minimum wage in rural areas.

The ball is in Republicans’ court. We’d prefer they hit the ball back with a counterproposal rather than simply letting the ball drop and kick the minimum wage into yet another year with no legislative action taken.