Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Mayor, Supports $13-An-Hour Minimum Wage Raise Proposal

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel recently expressed his support for a proposal that will raise the city’ minimum wage to $13 per hour by 2018. The proposal was sent in by The Minimum Wage Working Group, who was assigned by Emanuel to research and investigate the city’s current labor settings, particularly the possibility of raising minimum wage in Chicago.

The minimum wage raise will boost Chicago’s economy by $800 million and provide better living wages for 410,000 Chicago residents, enabling them to adjust to the ever-increasing costs of living in the city, according to The Minimum Wage Working Group. As much as 31 percent of Chicago’s working force will benefit from the raise, according to the group’s official findings.

The Sun Times reports about mayor Rahm Emanuel’s satisfaction over the Working Group’s final output. Kelley Quinn, Emanuel’s spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday that the mayor “fully supports the group’s balanced proposal”.

“Mayor Emanuel met with the Working Group at their final meeting this afternoon and was impressed by the thoroughness of their work.”

The Working Group’s research proposes a four-year phasing period to allow businesses to adjust themselves financially to the increase. Although proposals of raising the minimum wage have lead to speculations of potential massive lay-offs across the country, Chicago business owners have yet to release their comment regarding the proposal.

A downside to the proposal, according to the Working Group findings, is the possible 2 percent increase in costs of food, health care, retail and hospitality over the course of four years.

According to Chicago Tribune, Emanuel has faced external pressures to prioritize minimum wage issues as the Democratic Party intends to focus on income disparity later this year. Currently, Chicago’s minimum wage is at $8.25 an hour. City Hall has been encouraged to postpone pushing forward the proposal until Illinois makes its move regarding the same issue on November 4.

Recent efforts to increase the minimum wage have met opposition from some GOP lawmakers, who expressed concerns that the wage raise might inevitably lead to lay-offs and unemployment. In 2012, Forbeswriter William Dunkelberg described minimum wage as an “anti-jobs policy”, adding that raising the minimum wage is like “killing flies with a shotgun, not very well targeted”.

In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has long pushed for the minimum wage raise in Illinois, lamented that the proposed policies have become a “bipartisan issue”:

“In years gone by, this was a bipartisan issue,”

“Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan raised the minimum wage. It was just considered to be the right thing to do after a period of time. But now, it’s become very partisan. And unfortunately, Republicans in the Senate — as well as Republican statewide candidates — are opposed to raising the minimum wage in Illinois.”

[Image from Steven Vance via Flickr]