$15 Minimum Wage Approved by Illinois House of Representatives

SPRINGFIELD, IL — Illinois is one step closer to a statewide $15 minimum wage after the Illinois House of Representatives approved the measure Tuesday. Illinois representatives approved the minimum wage hike by a vote of 61 to 53.

Senate Bill 81, which proposes the increase would first have to be approved by the Senate and then signed by Governor Bruce Rauner. Even then, workers in Illinois will not see an increase in pay overnight. Lawmakers have approved the minimum wage to increase to $15 over a five-year period.

Currently, the minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 an hour, which many residents and elected officials feel is not a living wage.

Greg Kelley, President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois said in a statement,

“While corporations are enjoying record profits, workers in Illinois are suffering. Today, the House of Representatives took a historic step to reversing this course and building our economy from the bottom-up, instead of placing our faith in the misguided hope that prosperity will trickle down.”

The House approval of a $15 an hour minimum wage comes nearly a week after Fight for $15 took to the headquarters of McDonald’s in Oak Brook to rally for higher wages. Fast food and retail companies continue to push back against the proposal for fear of job loss and overall economic harm.

Related: Illinois Senate Approves $15 Hourly Minimum Wage

The Illinois Retail Merchants Association fired back against the House’s decision. In a statement, they said, “The political campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour has already resulted in reduced hours and eliminated positions in major cities where this has been enacted, including the City of Chicago. In fact, we have seen automation and self-service alternatives replace jobs due to continued efforts to artificially increase wages through government actions instead of working with employers.”

Kelley called these types of objections “the same old stale and discredited scare claims,” adding that he believes the main outcome of hiking the minimum wage to $15 is “giving workers a living wage.”

Image credit: Éovart Caçeir at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons