SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a measure Tuesday gradually hiking the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, an early victory for the Democrat on the eve of his first annual budget proposal.
Fulfilling one of his top campaign promises just five weeks into the job, Pritzker declared that Illinois “welcomes working families, setting a high standard for workers’ rights, economic opportunity and economic justice.”
Pritzker signed the law at the Governor’s Mansion, packed with supporters in a party-like atmosphere. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to deliver a proposed annual budget amid forecasts that the financially troubled state faces a $3.2 billion deficit in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Illinois employs thousands of minimum-wage workers, many at universities and health care institutions funded by Medicaid. The new law means the state would have to pay more, including $230 million in additional costs in 2021 when the hourly pay floor rises to $10.
Illinois is on track to be the first state in the Midwest to push its base wage to $15. The state’s pay floor, currently $8.25, increases to $9.25 on Jan. 1; it jump to $10 on July 1, 2020, and then increases $1 each Jan. 1 until 2025.
“It was just a few years ago that a $15-an-hour minimum wage seemed like a pipe dream,” said Rep. Will Guzzardi, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the measure on House floor. “It has gone in that time from a bold ideal to a national movement to today, it becomes the law of the land in the state of Illinois.”
Business groups opposed the plan. They wanted a longer phase-in and a regionalized approach with lower minimum wage levels for areas outside Chicago. Chicago has its own minimum wage, which increases to $13 in July.
“The right to a fair wage does not end at Chicago’s border,” Pritzker said. “Workers in East St. Louis, in Peoria, and in Springfield deserve that same fair pay.”
Pritzker noted there are payroll tax credits in the law to ease the transition for employers.
Ieshia Townsend, who works at a McDonald’s restaurant on Chicago’s South Side and is a member of the Fight for $15 movement, said she supplements the $12-an-hour she currently makes with two other jobs to support her two sons.
“Millions of workers have worked hard to get paid enough by giant corporations like McDonald’s to provide for our families,” Townsend said. “I don’t get paid enough to meet the requirements for my children. … I should be able to stand on my two feet and provide for my children without food stamps or Medicaid.”
Lots of restaurants in Thompsonville, Alton, and other small towns downstate will be closing. You can’t run a restaurant in a small town where you have to pay the dishwasher $30,000/year.
6 years from now, it’ll be time for another hike.
No one hould have to work 60 or 70 hours per week to make a reasonable living. $30,000 today is working poor. A livable wage in my area has been computed at around $19.00 per hour or $38,000 or enough to pay for child support and have a little disposable income. They recently raised the minimum wage in this area to $10.00 from 7.25. McDonald’s raised their prices by about 10%. I’m ok with that. I used this as a reference and a google search turns up a lot of links for living wage calculators. I’m here to tell you that $24,000 around here is not enough for one person, let alone 4. Rent alone for a 1 bedroom in this area would eat up 3 weeks of take home pay at $10.00 per hour and the latest round of tax cuts are a tax increase for those of us in the northeast.
“Versus Poverty Level. In 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services set the federal poverty level at $24,600 for a family of four. That’s equivalent to $11.83 per hour for a full-time worker. A worker making the minimum wage of $7.20 per hour would be below the poverty level.” https://www.thebalance.com/living-wage-3305771 and also http://livingwage.mit.edu
Cheers
So get a fucking better job. The problem with these fast food jobs is that they destroy the restaurant economy. Small towns down state, near Peoria, Kankakee, Cairo, cannot pay a dishwasher $30K. That min wage is TWICE the current minimum. In 5 years. It’s going to destroy a lot of small businesses. But MO, IN, WI, KY, and IA love this law, because no one in their sane mind would open a business in IL now. I am SOOOOO glad I left 10 years ago.
Newsflash: If you can’t fucking pay employees enough to live on and expect the rest of the taxpayers to subsidize their ability to survive in order to subsidize YOUR PROFITS, then your business was a failure from the get-go and it’s not the fault of minimum wage laws. That goes for everything from small town restaurants to fucking Walmart’s business practices, which have resulted in the Waltons sucking off the gov’t teat BY PROXY for decades to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars…all while people like you blame the employees left with no choice because Walmart moving into town destroyed much of the other employment.