Editorial: Fix income ceilings for property tax and rent rebates — permanently

The Pennsylvania Legislature has done a great job of streaming things that matter to lawmakers — namely their raises.

The lawmakers have made sure those increases are simple and efficient. A cost of living adjustment has not just been optional; since 1995, it’s been the law. For almost 30 years, the state’s legislators have understood enough about inflation to build in a mechanism that keeps pace and automatically boosts their pay to match. They only have to take action if they don’t want that to happen, as they did once during the pandemic.

When it comes to other people, however, that understanding is missing.

Take the program that gives rebates to qualifying low-income applicants. The state’s ceiling for property tax rebates is $35,000 for a family. That number has been the same for 15 years. For the rent rebate, it has been even lower for ever longer; you can’t make more than $15,000. The needle there hasn’t moved for 35 years.

In 1987, you could get a decent apartment in a Pennsylvania city for $350. Today, it’s $1,000 or more.

But more importantly, the money many of the poorest residents make also has gone up. The minimum wage was $3.35 per hour back then. Today, it’s $7.25 per hour, meaning that people who qualified for the rebate at the time probably wouldn’t now.

By doing nothing about changing the income levels for eligibility, the lawmakers have grown the number of people who fall into an unfortunate category: people who should benefit by government programs but fall just outside the lines.

For some, the immediacy is the issue at hand. Lawmakers should take steps to fix the issue by adopting some level of cost of living adjustment. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says that $15,000 in 1987 is equivalent to $39,951.12 today. If lawmakers did make a change, it seems unlikely they would move it by more than $24,000.

That brings us to the issue that is easier to fix. Make the cost of living adjustment for the program ceilings automatic, just like the legislative pay raises.

Instead of allowing the poor — including a large number of seniors on fixed incomes — to suffer from neglect as lawmakers simply don’t get around to making an increase, change the narrative. Legislators still would be able to stop the annual move from happening, just as they did with the pause on their own increase in 2020. But it would require action on their part.

They would have to go on the record, stepping up and voting to the change that would keep the working poor or seniors on Social Security from qualifying for programs meant to help them.