Illinois

It’s been a busy few weeks on the minimum wage front, as policymakers in a slew of states have moved to raise wages for low-paid workers. If you follow our blog, you already know that minimum wage increases are on the agenda in Maryland and New York – and you know that this is especially good news for women, who make up the majority of minimum wage workers in those states and across the country.

While a federal minimum wage increase – like the one proposed in the Fair Minimum Wage Act last year – is needed to boost pay for minimum wage and tipped workers throughout the U.S., it’s great to see momentum building at the state level. Here’s a quick run-down of recent developments:

• California. A bill pending in the Assembly, AB-10, would increase the minimum wage from $8.00 per hour to $8.25 in 2014, $8.75 in 2015, and $9.25 in 2016, then adjust the wage annually for inflation beginning in 2017.
• Connecticut. A bill pending in the Senate, S.B. 387, would raise the minimum wage from $8.25 per hour to $9.00 in July 2013 and $9.75 in July 2014, with annual indexing beginning in July 2015. NWLC’s new fact sheet shows that over 246,000 Connecticut workers would get a raise by 2014 under this proposal – and about six in ten of those workers would be women.

Earlier this week, I reported that the New York Assembly passed a bill to raise the state minimum wage but Illinois postponed a Senate Executive Committee vote on a minimum wage bill. Today, I’m happy to report that I was misinformed about Illinois: the Senate Executive Committee voted on – and passed – a bill that would raise the minimum wage from $8.25 per hour to its historic high, estimated to be at least $10.65 per hour by 2014, then index the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. The bill would also eliminate the tipped minimum cash wage of $4.95 per hour, making tipped employees entitled to the same minimum wage as other workers.

Once again, this is great news for women, who are nearly six in ten minimum wage workers in Illinois. For a mom working full time to support two kids on the minimum wage, a raise to $10.65 per hour would mean an extra $4,800 per year – enough to lift her family out of poverty. Base earnings for tipped workers who make the current minimum cash wage of $4.95 per hour would more than double. Nationally, nearly two-thirds of workers in tipped occupations are women.

A minimum wage increase would also be great news for the Illinois economy. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that raising Illinois’ minimum wage to $10.65 over four years would generate about $2.5 billion in additional economic activity and around 20,000 new jobs. More than one million Illinois workers would get a raise – 56 percent of them women. Read more »

Connecticut’s legislative session ended last night at midnight. Unfortunately, the Senate did not take up the minimum wage bill that passed the House last month, so many workers struggling to get by on $8.25 an hour will have to wait until at least 2013 to get a raise. (The Senate did act at the last minute to approve a bill permitting the keeping of reindeer year-round, though, so to any Connecticut readers who always wished for Rudolph as a pet, you’re in luck!)  

But all is not lost. As I mentioned earlier this week, bills to raise the state minimum wage are still pending in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, and an increase looks likely to be on Missouri’s ballot in November.

And in a very exciting development at the federal level today, Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Bruce Braley (D-IA) just introduced the Rebuild America Act in the House. Like its companion bill introduced by Senator Harkin, the bill would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.80 per hour over three years and then index it for inflation, and would also gradually raise the minimum cash wage for tipped workers from $2.13 per hour to 70 percent of the minimum wage. Read more »

Yesterday we told you about several states in which efforts are underway to raise the minimum wage. Today’s update comes from Illinois, where the Senate Executive Committee will vote next week on a bill that would give minimum wage workers a substantial boost in pay. Nearly six in ten minimum wage workers in Illinois are women.

The Illinois bill (S.B. 1565) would gradually raise the minimum wage from its current level of $8.25 per hour to its estimated historic high, which would be $10.65 per hour, and then index the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. S.B. 1565 also would eliminate the tipped minimum cash wage of $4.95 per hour, making tipped employees – mostly women – entitled to the same minimum wage as other workers.

Increasing the minimum wage to $10.65 per hour, an estimate of its historic high, would increase a worker’s annual earnings by $4,800 per year – enough to lift a mom with two kids out of poverty. Tipped minimum wage workers will see an even bigger increase of $11,400 per year if the bill becomes law. Since the majority of workers who would get a raise are women, S.B. 1565 could also help narrow the gender wage gap in Illinois; in 2011, the typical Illinois woman working full time was paid just 76 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart. Read more »

I hope you saw the new infographic we posted this morning. I think it makes a pretty clear case for raising the minimum wage! Fortunately, in recent months, quite a few states have been getting the message: legislatures in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York are all considering bills to increase the state minimum wage, including the minimum wage for tipped workers. And in Missouri, state advocates just delivered 175,000 signatures in support of a voter initiative that would get a minimum wage increase on the ballot in November.

As of today, the bill in Connecticut (H.B. 5291) – which passed the state House of Representatives last month – is closest to being law. At $8.25 per hour, Connecticut’s minimum wage is higher than the federal level ($7.25 per hour), but still leaves a mother with two kids more than $1,000 below the poverty line if she works full time. H.B. 5291 would raise the state minimum wage to $8.75 per hour over two years and raise the minimum cash wage for tipped workers from $5.69 to $6.04 per hour by 2015. Read more »

The National Women’s Law Center hosted a daylong seminar in Washington, DC welcoming 18 state advocates from 10 states across the country to launch a new project, State of Women. Read more »