President Obama, in his State of the Union address, expressed his support for raising the national minimum wage to $9 and Governor Quinn said in his State of the State speech that he supported raising the Illinois minimum wage to $10 an hour to “honor the productivity of our workers”!
This is very encouraging and shows that our hard work is paying off! The media is also starting to catch on that the evidence is behind us as well. As the Chicago Tribune recently reported:
“A now-famous case study published in 1994 by labor economists David Card and Alan Krueger began to change conventional wisdom. They compared employment trends in fast-food restaurants in New Jersey, which had just hiked its minimum wage, with trends in neighboring Pennsylvania, and found little impact on low-wage workers.
Berkeley’s Reich, along with two economists from the universities of Massachusetts Amherst and North Carolina, expanded on the research by examining restaurant employment in neighboring counties in different states with different minimum wage levels. They studied 16 years’ worth of data and found no negative effects on low-wage employment.
Instead, they found that higher wages reduced employee turnover, which saves business money.”
The Tribune also reported that, “Senate President John Cullerton and House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie quickly embraced a possible wage hike. Cullerton flatly predicted, ‘We’ll be able to pass a minimum wage bill.’”
Please send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and call your legislators to tell them why you support raising the minimum wage. They need to hear from Illinois workers and not just big business! Let your voice be heard. IMPORTANT: The bill number to raise the minimum wage has been changed to SENATE BILL 68 (It used to be SB 1565). When you talk about the bill to politicians of reporters, please use the updated bill number. Thank you!
Click below for recent news coverage:
Chicago Tribune, “Minimum wage hikes: Job killer or economic helper? Quinn rekindles debate”
New York Times, “Obama Pushes for Increase in Federal Minimum Wage”
The Guardian, “Denying minimum-wage workers a raise is craven and grotesque”
Huffington Post, “Obama: Minimum Wage Increase Will Boost ‘Rising, Thriving Middle Class’”
