Lots of restaurants in Thompsonville, Alton, and other small towns downstate will be closing. You can’t run a restaurant in a small town where you have to pay the dishwasher $30,000/year.
6 years from now, it’ll be time for another hike.
No one hould have to work 60 or 70 hours per week to make a reasonable living. $30,000 today is working poor. A livable wage in my area has been computed at around $19.00 per hour or $38,000 or enough to pay for child support and have a little disposable income. They recently raised the minimum wage in this area to $10.00 from 7.25. McDonald’s raised their prices by about 10%. I’m ok with that. I used this as a reference and a google search turns up a lot of links for living wage calculators. I’m here to tell you that $24,000 around here is not enough for one person, let alone 4. Rent alone for a 1 bedroom in this area would eat up 3 weeks of take home pay at $10.00 per hour and the latest round of tax cuts are a tax increase for those of us in the northeast.
“Versus Poverty Level. In 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services set the federal poverty level at $24,600 for a family of four. That’s equivalent to $11.83 per hour for a full-time worker. A worker making the minimum wage of $7.20 per hour would be below the poverty level.” https://www.thebalance.com/living-wage-3305771 and also http://livingwage.mit.edu
Cheers
So get a fucking better job. The problem with these fast food jobs is that they destroy the restaurant economy. Small towns down state, near Peoria, Kankakee, Cairo, cannot pay a dishwasher $30K. That min wage is TWICE the current minimum. In 5 years. It’s going to destroy a lot of small businesses. But MO, IN, WI, KY, and IA love this law, because no one in their sane mind would open a business in IL now. I am SOOOOO glad I left 10 years ago.
Newsflash: If you can’t fucking pay employees enough to live on and expect the rest of the taxpayers to subsidize their ability to survive in order to subsidize YOUR PROFITS, then your business was a failure from the get-go and it’s not the fault of minimum wage laws. That goes for everything from small town restaurants to fucking Walmart’s business practices, which have resulted in the Waltons sucking off the gov’t teat BY PROXY for decades to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars…all while people like you blame the employees left with no choice because Walmart moving into town destroyed much of the other employment.
Why this is important is that I am tired of subsidizing companies that do not pay a living wage. That is America, even under Donald Trump, will not let hard working people starve to death or live on the streets. What this means today is that companies not paying living wages are being subsidized by the Government by taking/taxing from those of us who are making a living wage to pay the difference between Walmart wages and living wages. As a Capitalist, I believe Walmart and other companies should be required to pay their employees enough so they do not need government aid taken from my pay check to live.
Trump’s tax cuts/shift well blowing up the deficit gave almost nothing to the bottom 75%, significantly raised taxes on most people in the 75% to 99% and greatly cut taxes on those in the top 1%. In fact Trump’s biggest change in the tax code was almost halving the tax paid on pass through or unearned income. That is under Trump the working stiff in most cases has a higher tax rate than the guy who inherited Walmat. It seems to me Republicans should make what they say come true and not let business do what it is doing, sitting and not using in higher wages all the extra money they got from Trump’s tax shift.
I live in Illinois, and gradually increasing the minimum wage over 6 years is not disruptive at all. No restaurants will close in Illinois solely due to the slowly increasing minimum wage.
So run a f*cking better business. You can’t pay employees a living wage - go on welfare.
In July 2020, it’ll be$10.00 whole dollars. Life as we know it will cease.
In Illinois.
People who disparage minimum wages increases never get that the extra money will be spent, most likely in local businesses.
Somewhat off topic, mainly because I’ve been drinking, but one of my major thoughts, man people in the US need to lose weight!
Well the owner can’t get rich while the rest struggle, that is for sure.
That runs counter to the available evidence of similar wage increases in other cities and states. If you have anything other than mindless prejudice to offer to support your views, by all means share it.
That min wage is TWICE the current minimum. In 5 years.
It’s less than 50% more than the minimum wage at its peak, adjusted for inflation.
15% per year is not slow. It is hugely inflationary.
All experience with minimum wage increases is one increase of 12% in a year, followed by a period of stabilization. In this case, there will be no stabilization. It’s incredibly stupid. Chicago and the collars are one thing. The rest of the state is totally different. The small towns like Alton, Cairo (already a basketcase where NO ONE has any money) will be devastated by this. It’s a moronic and stupid idea. It will be horribly inflationary.
There has NEVER been 6 increases of 15% in 6 years. There have been cases where 1 increase of 15% has been put into place. But there is NO experience for this wild experiment.
Illinois is a fucking basket case. I lived in the Metro East from 1997-2009, and property taxes were high. They are going to go higher. IL is in terrible shape due to pension system stupidity BY THE DEMS. This is a very bad idea.
Well, to lose weight, you probably need to consider not drinking. My wife and I are in a paleo period of eating very carefully. Part of the diet is not drinking, although I cheat some and sneak a scotch late at night occasionally.
The travel belief is that you can always tell a tourist from the USA - they are bigger than everyone else. And that’s the rear view.
I invite you to read histories of the crisis and the roles Govs. Thompson, Edgar, and Ryan --Republicans all–played in aggravating the situation. The problem’s roots go way back.
Yes, I agree that the hands of everyone are on this. However, there is one constant in the State of IL or is that Ill - Michael Madigan is the Speaker of the House, and has been so for many years. The manner in which the IL Legislature works is that 4 people control the entire legislative process.
You may or may not know that Chicago is floating bonds (30 year bonds) to cover operating expenses. Here is a story about that:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/chicago’s-debt-dereliction-15497.html
That’s a Dem fuck-up from top to bottom