Photo courtesy of Rep. Darren Bailey’s Office.
SPRINGFIELD, IL-(Effingham Radio)- February 14, 2019: State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville), voted no today and opposed legislation that mandates a minimum wage of $15/hour by the year 2025.
Senate Bill 1 passed the House Labor & Commerce Committee on a partisan roll call vote and came to the full House for consideration.
“This minimum wage proposal mandates the same wages everywhere in Illinois which does not take into consideration the regional economic differences around our state,” commented Rep. Darren Bailey, a farmer in Clay County. “The cost of doing business is not the same in all parts of the state and this inflationary mandate will cause prices to go up on all goods and services. That will hurt families and seniors on fixed incomes the most on things like milk and bread, as well as energy costs to heat their homes.”
Senate Bill 1 mandates that the minimum hourly wage in Illinois will be $15 by the year 2025.
This proposal would increase the current $8.25-an-hour base wage by $1 on January 1, 2020.
After a 75-cent increase July 1, 2020, it would increase $1 each January 1 until 2025, which is an 82% increase in labor costs.
Illinois already has a higher minimum wage than most of our surrounding states including, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, and Wisconsin: all at $7.25 an hour.
Missouri is currently at $8.60.
Illinois’ current minimum wage is a dollar above the federal level.
If SB 1 becomes law, Illinois would join New York and California with the highest minimum wage in the nation.
“If the goal is to have more money in peoples’ pockets, then we need to roll back the high taxes we already pay and let everyone keep more of their money that they already earn, not put more money in and take even more out,” concluded Rep. Bailey.
