Illinois doesn't have the highest minimum wage in the country, but it also doesn't rank at the bottom of the pack when it comes to earnings.
With a minimum wage of $8.25 per hour, Illinois actually ranks above average when compared to the other 49 states and the District of Columbia. The minimum wage in the Prairie State is a full dollar above the federally mandated minimum wage that is used by 21 states currently. But it is lower than 11 other states, which have set their minimum wages as much as $2.25 per hour above Illinois'.
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Besides the District of Columbia — where the minimum wage is the highest in the country at $10.50 an hour — states that pay a higher minimum wage than Illinois include California ($9), Connecticut ($9.15), Massachusetts ($9) and South Dakota ($8.50).
But while many states have only one minimum wage, in Illinois a higher minimum is mandatory in Chicago. In the Windy City, employers are required to pay a minimum wage of $10 per hour, and this wage is set to keep rising incrementally until at least 2019, when it reaches $13 an hour. Beginning in 2020, the minimum wage in Chicago will then rise by a percentage point each year, as long as the unemployment rate is below 8.5 percent that year.
There are no plans to raise the state minimum wage, however, despite President Barack Obama's challenge to all states to raise minimum wages to $10.10, which would let the lowest income earners work less overtime to make ends meet. So far, only three states have pledged to adopt this new statewide minimum.
The minimum wage in both Chicago and Illinois, however, remains below the living wage for Prairie State residents, which is $11.08 per hour for one adult, and $22.96 per hour for one adult raising one child,
according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's living wage calculator.
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