Illinois House approves $15 minimum wage

The House sponsor of Senate Bill 81, Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, said Illinois residents should have a wage they can live on. He said that if a person works a full-time, minimum-wage job at $8.25 an hour, the employee earns around $16,000 a year.

“At its core, this is a bill about the dignity of work. I think we can all agree that that’s a substandard wage; that is not an amount that you could take care of yourself on, let alone provide for a family,” Guzzardi said. “Many low-wage workers are in fact parents, grandparents who are providing for children and grandchildren. Those folks deserve a decent living wage.”

“Our perspective on our side of the aisle on how to grow the economy is different. We believe that when you invest in working people, when you put money into people’s pockets, they go out and spend,” Guzzardi said. “That stimulates business growth that stimulates economic development. We believe in lifting people from the bottom up, growing the economy from the middle out. That is what we as a party stand for and that is what this bill reflects. We simply ask for basic dignity.”