Dive Brief:
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Chicago’s City Council Tuesday 44 to 5 approved a bill to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13 per hour in incremental raises by the middle of 2019. After that, the hourly wage minimum will be pegged to the local consumer price index.
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel backed the plan, saying that it’s an important way to ensure that Chicago is an affordable place in which to live, work, and raise families. Retailers and other business groups opposed it, while unions were pushing for $15 per hour.
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A statewide minimum wage bill being considered by the Illinois legislature, which would raise minimum hourly pay to $11 in mid-2017, faces a much less clear fate.
Dive Insight:
Chicago joins several cities in the country that are boosting their minimum wages, including Seattle and San Francisco. A higher minimum wage gained surprising support during the mid-term elections as well, despite otherwise bringing up Republican candidates who often oppose such measures.
Economists continue to cite the country’s income gap as a reason that the economy has not had a full-fledged recovery. It's also blamed in part for continued consumer reluctance to spend, and the issue seems to be gaining political traction among politicians of many stripes.
While Gap Inc. and other retailers who are major employers of hourly workers have taken unilateral steps to increase their own minimum wages, these measures for the most part go beyond those minimums.
