Chicago City Council hikes minimum wage to $13

In a 44-5 vote, the Chicago City Council approved a plan Tuesday to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13 per hour by 2019, signaling a victory for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is running for re-election next year. A similar effort to raise the state minimum wage for Illinois to $11 per hour by 2019 failed in the statehouse Tuesday, as House Speaker Michael Madigan pulled a bill that would have set that statewide wage floor. The Democrat’s proposed measure also would have capped Chicago’s minimum wage from further increases past the $13-per-hour level and would have included tax credits to restaurants and retailers, many of which lobbied against all minimum-wage proposals. The National Restaurant Association released a report projecting the loss of 11,600 hospitality jobs in the city of Chicago if the $13-per-hour wage were enacted. The NRA forecasts as many as 80,000 jobs lost statewide at that wage level. “A 13-an-hour starting wage may be well-intentioned, but it would harm Chicago’s vibrant hospitality industry, including its restaurant, tourism and convention business,” Scott DeFife, the NRA’s executive vice president of policy and government affairs, said in a statement. “The hospitality industry led Illinois’ job creation throughout the recession and continues to play a crucial role in youth employment. Elected leaders should focus on common-sense solutions that promote opportunities for people of all experience levels.” In Chicago, Emanuel said during a press conference Tuesday that the plan to raise the minimum wage was aimed at helping the city’s parents lift themselves and their children out of poverty. “The minimum wage is speaking to making sure that nobody who works raises a child in poverty,” he said. “The minimum wage … really comes down to making sure that your child does not go to school on an empty stomach or making sure that you don’t pick between medicine or school supplies.” Two of Emanuel’s rivals in the Democratic primary for mayor said they would push for a higher level, $15 per hour, if elected. According to the ordinance, the minimum-wage increase in Chicago would be rolled out in phases, with the first increase scheduled for next July, taking the rate from $8.25 per hour to $10 per hour. After that, it will increase by 50 cents in July 2016 and July 2017, then by $1 in July 2018 and July 2019. Republican Governor-elect Bruce Rauner told the Chicago Tribune Tuesday that he would support a minimum-wage increase for the state of Illinois, but only if it were coupled with pro-business changes to worker’s compensation, tort reform and corporate taxes. “Raising the minimum wage doesn’t help somebody who is unemployed,” Rauner said, “and it doesn’t help somebody who’s employed today and could get unemployed because of the lack of competitiveness that raising the minimum wage could engender.” Read more by clicking: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/chi-chicago-minimum-wage-increase-13-20141202-story.html