CHICAGO – In the first six months of his term, Illinois' new Governor J.B. Pritzker says he plans to implement to work with the Illinois legislature to enact a $15 statewide minimum wage. The city of Chicago's current minimum wage is $12 per hour, and the state's is $8.25.
With a like-minded Democrat super-majority in both Capitol chambers, Pritzker's effort would make Illinois have the highest minimum wage in the Midwest.
But even if it passes, there may be more expected in the days ahead. A columnist opined in the New York Times earlier this month that New York's $15 minimum wage isn't high enough. She's calling for $33 per hour.
Ginia Bellafante writes,
… A single parent with two school-age children, for example would need to make nearly $69,427 a year, according to City Harvest’s Self-Sufficiency calculator. That amounts to an hourly wage of just under $33.
So to live comfortably enough in all but the most expensive quarters in Brooklyn, a two-parent family with two children would need to make about $70,000 a year, which would mean that each parent would need to earn just over $16 an hour. That figure accounts for the $433 the family would receive in child-related tax credits. All across the city, the cost of basic needs is rising faster for low-income families that conventional inflation metrics actually indicate. Also dispiriting is the fact that nearly a quarter of households that fall below the self-sufficiency standard include an adult with a bachelor’s degree.
What this tells us is that the arrival of a $15 hourly minimum wage cannot be considered the end of something …
Evidently, in the future, the Illinois legislature and employers may be dealing with not only the $15 minimum wage hike, but more.
