This is an article giving an update on the Illinois minimum wage increase situation. Apparently, the bill had been approved by the House and Senate and was on its way to the governor when a senator said she would like to make changes to the bill.
The Senate also created a supplemental spending bill that contains money to give lawmakers and other state officials a 15.6% pay raise, but this won't have the opportunity to be approved until January. This bill will most likely go through quietly and quickly, not garnering nearly as much media attention as the minimum wage.
Senator Kimberly Lightford was the main sponsor of the minimum wage bill, and is recalling it, so to speak, in order to tweak a provision that allows employers to pay their teenage workers .50¢ below the minimum wage. I happen to think this is a great provision, especially if the arguments given supporters have been about the wages needed to take care of a family and stay out of poverty. Teenagers working minimum wage jobs are probably not often concerned about staying above the poverty line.
Lightford removed the provision when the Senate first passed the bill, but Madigan put it back in when the House approved of the bill. Madigan was hoping to appease those businesses upset about the minimum wage hike, and I understand his logic there but I don't agree with another provision that allows employers to pay .50¢ below the minimum wage for a worker's first three months at a job. It is, after all, a minimum, and if they are eligible for a raise after three months, pay them more than the minimum wage. This could also cause a loophole where employers fire workers after their first three months, but I am not sure how likely this is because wasting that time to train would decrease productivity and likely be bad for business. Lightford is hoping to work on amendments during the spring session.
With the sudden last-minute change made by a Senator, the House now needs to look over the bill again. This back and forth may keep the increase from passing until after a federal increase occurs, a plan of action that a Republican senator voiced support for in the article. Lightford is a Democrat and her motives for stalling the legislation probably do not have to do with waiting for a federal bill; her moral sticking points and, in my opinion, pickiness is making it difficult to pass the bill. I hope that someone proposes the compromise of allowing the teenager provision and getting rid of the three-month provision.
The article made no mention of Chicago's struggles with the Big Box Ordinance just a few months ago, and I wonder what impact that may have had on the passing or perhaps expediting of this legislation. If my theory about inaction when it affects such a small group of people applies at all here, it would seem like the larger state government is taking on an issue that couldn't gather enough steam on a city level. That's not to say the big box issue didn't pack a punch, because they did establish quite a movement, but Mayor Daley's comments about handing it over to larger government bodies to deal with may have inspired those bodies to take action.
