Community Renewal Society

If you live in Colorado, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada or Vermont and work a minimum wage job, you'll get a little extra in your paycheck come 2012. Illinois workers won't be so lucky.

Those ten states will all increase their minimum wages, either through a direct hike or an inflation adjustment come next year. A similar effort was put forth in our state this year - SB 1565 -- which would have pushed Illinois' lowest wage, currently $8.25, up by 50 cents a year plus inflation. If it had passed, workers now would be making a minimum of $8.90 an hour, and next year, $9.50. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage would have reached approximately $10.65 by 2014, labor activists estimate.

Even though the bill didn't pass this year, the fight isn't over. A coalition of advocacy groups, Raise Illinois, is trying again to get that bill passed during the upcoming legislative session. Next week, a group of minimum wage workers are traveling to Springfield to talk to their legislators about what it's like to earn the minimum wage and how their lives would change if they earned more. The bill would also... Read More at Chicago Muckrakers