Pennsylvania restaurant raises wages using state COVID-19 aid
(The Center Square) – A restaurant owner in Lancaster County said this week he used grant funding from the state’s COVID-19 relief fund to raise wages for his workers.
And starting Aug. 1, Silantra Asian Street Kitchen owner Sam Guo said his current employees and new hires will receive $15 an hour, plus tips.
“That’s something in the food industry that’s not known typically,” he said during a news conference at his restaurant on East King Street in the city of Lancaster.
Guo received a $15,000 grant from the COVID-19 Hospitality Industry Recovery Program (CHIRP), created by transferring $145 million from Workers’ Compensation Security Fund in January.
The program offered grants worth between $5,000 and $50,000 to establishments that had not already received loans from the state or federal government; were subject to closure mandates implemented through disaster declarations; and demonstrated a revenue reduction of at least 50% for the affected time period.
“This program provided critical support to local small businesses this spring,” said Lisa Riggs, president of Economic Development Company of Lancaster County. “Being able to deploy these resources at a local level, given our knowledge of our small business landscape here in Lancaster, helped get these funds out the door and to businesses in need efficiently.”
Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday he “found” the money after scouring the state’s finances in search of a lifeline for bars and restaurants struggling under pandemic restrictions.
“The hospitality industry was especially hard hit by COVID-19 and we needed to do something to step in,” he said. “I think every county had an application in within 28 hours and within a week, it [money] was all out.”
Lancaster County received more than $6 million from the fund that went out to 316 businesses.
“It allowed us to raise our wages to compete with companies that are paying more,” Guo said.
Tipped workers in Pennsylvania receive a minimum of $2.83 an hour, plus tips. Wolf and others have supported doubling this rate, as well as the state’s $7.25 minimum wage, as a way to lift 1.1 million workers out of poverty and boost economic activity.
But a labor shortage has forced businesses to increase wages and offer sign-on bonuses, among other perks, just to attract workers. Owners in southwestern Pennsylvania told a Republican policy committee last week that increasing minimum wage has grown necessary, though not to the $15 rate Wolf supports.
The restaurant industry employs more than 500,000 residents statewide, though federal data shows that number shrank 29.4 percent over the course of 2020.
“Pennsylvania has made significant progress rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, but our hospitality industry still needs support,” Wolf said. “I applaud our small business owners for their courage, tenacity, and creativity during the past year and a half, and my administration stands firm in our commitment to continuing to support them as they move forward in recovery.”
Three in 10 businesses shut down, at least temporarily, at the height of the pandemic in March and April, according to federal data, after the Wolf administration enacted some of the strictest mitigation efforts nationwide.
Wolf said Monday he won’t reinstate shut downs, even as COVID-19 cases caused by variants rise in the state. That’s why he said vaccination remains a priority – and on that front, Pennsylvania “is making good progress.”
About 62.5% of all residents are fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Health. It also ranks 8th in the nation for total amount of doses administered and first for immunizations given to residents 65 and older.
“I think what we need to do is redouble our efforts on vaccines so we make sure we never have to go through what we went through that forced us to come up with this money in the first place,” Wolf said.
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