Montgomery County increases minimum wage for county employees

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Montgomery County commissioners voted last week to increase the minimum starting wage for county employees from $16 to $20.52 an hour. The county now has the highest minimum wage of any local government in Pennsylvania.

“After years of record inflation, the cost of everything from rent to gas to a gallon of milk have gone up,” Chair of the Board of Commissioners Neil Makhija said at a commissioners meeting Wednesday. “Wages haven’t kept pace, and there are people working very hard, including for the county, doing things that they love to make a difference in public service, who are struggling to make ends meet. And in Montco, we want to be able to help and make a difference in that.”

The increase will immediately impact more than 100 people in the county’s workforce of roughly 3,000.

“This vote says to our employees, we see your work and we believe that you deserve better,” Commissioner Jamila Winder said at Wednesday’s meeting. “We are also sending a clear message to business leaders: Good business means investing in your people. It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. Fair wages lead to better retention, stronger morale and better services for our public. This is how we make county government not just functional, but exceptional.”

Makhija said the increase was possible thanks to cost-saving strategies led by the county’s new Office of Innovation Strategy and Performance, as well as the Department of Finance. The county identified $2.5 million in savings through cost-reduction measures.

Makhija and Winder said they hope the county’s action will serve as an example to the state Legislature in Harrisburg, where a bill to increase the minimum wage on a tiered county basis statewide recently passed the Democratic-controlled House and is now with the Republican-led Senate.

“It’s really important to see that Pennsylvania is way behind,” Makhija said. “Our minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation, certainly not kept pace with productivity, and we want our legislature to be able to take action and raise the wage across the state, like all of our neighbors. So we’re hoping that by showing that we can take the steps as a county, as an organization, that the state can do the same across the board.”

Pennsylvania is the only state in the region that has kept the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum set in 2009. Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and West Virginia all have higher state minimum wages.

“Pennsylvania’s workers have long deserved a raise and we applaud the Montgomery County Commissioners for raising the County’s minimum wage to $20 an hour,” said Steve Catanese, president of Service Employees International Union Local 668, in a statement. The union represents 20,000 state, county, local government and private sector workers in Pennsylvania.

“It’s past time that politicians in Harrisburg take the hint and give all Pennsylvania a raise, no matter where they work,” Catanese said.

Makhija touted other moves the county has made to improve employee retention and satisfaction by investing in new benefits and conducting a compensation study that led to more than 88% of eligible employees receiving a salary increase in 2024.

In 2024, the county doubled paid parental leave for its employees from six weeks to 12 weeks, making it the most extensive paid parental leave policy for government employees in Pennsylvania.