Tell Illinois to Raise Minimum Wage
Illinois State Bill 1565 would require minimum wage in Illinois to go up 50 cents a year for four years, guaranteeing a minimum $10.65/hour by 2016. The same bill requires wages to keep pace with inflation thereafter. This bill will ease employers into providing a living wage while helping families contend with the cruelty of inflation.
Unemployment and wage stagnation have been especially cruel to minimum wage workers and children of the working class. Some parents must work multiple jobs to keep food on the table, but their absence makes their kids vulnerable to delinquency, drug use, and teen pregnancy
As the Reverend C.J. Hawking notes in her Huffington Post column, a minimum wage hike will stimulate low-income communities because families in need "will spend that additional income on basic necessities in their local communities," keeping dollars and jobs in the neighborhoods that need them the most.
Tell Illinois' state legislators and Governor Pat Quinn to pass SB 1565.
We the undersigned respectfully ask that you listen to the words of C.J. Hawking when she asks for a minimum wage raise.
By requiring incremental raises of only 50 cents an hour over four years, SB 1565 will ease employers into providing a living wage while helping families contend with the cruelty of inflation. Unemployment and wage stagnation have been especially cruel to minimum wage workers and children of the working class. Some parents must work multiple jobs to keep food on the table, but their absence makes their kids vulnerable to delinquency, drug use, and teen pregnancy. Many of the world's hardest jobs--restaurant kitchens, road construction, and day care, for example, are also the most poorly paid. You have the power to correct this terrible injustice. Raise minimum wage.
