March 28, 2024
Local News | Bureau County Republican


Local News

What happened to the minimum wage hike?

Here we go again ...

Just more than a year ago, the topic of the day was an increase in the Illinois minimum wage. On Feb. 5, 2014, HB 4733 was introduced to the Illinois House of Representatives. It would raise the state’s minimum wage throughout the course of the next five years to $11 an hour from the current $8.25 an hour.

The measure appeared in a non-binding vote on the November 2014 ballot where Illinois voters were in favor of the proposal at a 2-1 ratio.

Yet, a year after the introduction of the bill, it has yet to be passed, and is essentially back at Square 1.

According to the status page at the Illinois General Assembly website for HB 4733, the minimum wage hike was approved by the House of Representatives on April 1 by an 89 to 24 vote. From there, it went to the Senate on April 2 for its first reading — a bill is read in each house three times before it is passed or dropped — then went to the assignments committee.

The bill was passed between the assignments and the executive committees for the next two months a total of six times before disappearing. The bill resurfaced once on July 1 before disappearing again until Nov. 18, when it was passed to the Committee on State Government and Veterans Affairs.

The bill received its second reading on Nov. 19, more than seven months after it was introduced to the Senate. Two weeks and a few amendments later, HB 4733 was passed by the Senate on Dec. 4, 2014, with a vote of 39 to 18.

However, just because both houses passed it does not make the bill a law. By Illinois law, the bill goes back to its originating body — in this case, the House of Representatives — for a chance to review the amendments tacked on by the other voting body. If the House doesn’t like the amendments, changes are made, and it goes back to the Senate and so on and so forth until both houses agree, and it goes to the governor.

But the bill never went any further. Shortly after the bill was reintroduced to the House, House Speaker Michael Madigan banged the gavel and the 98th Illinois General Assembly called it a day and went home. Madigan declined to bring the board back to hear the bill despite then-Gov. Pat Quinn’s requests; the subject now passes to Gov. Bruce Rauner and the 99th General Assembly.

For the matter to be discussed, it will now have to introduced as a new bill. That means all the committee sessions and voting from last year are null and void; it’s a brand new bill. What happened during 2014 can be included in the wording of the new bill, but the process still starts all over again.

“It will most likely be in the final round of negotiations,” State Rep. Frank Mautino said. “Negotiations are underway for several topics with the governor. The senate currently has a bill that raises the minimum wage to $11. Gov. Rauner wants a $10 wage spread out over 7 years. Both the senate chairman and the governor will sit down and work out details.”

Meanwhile, the city of Chicago took its own action. On the same day the 98th Illinois General Assembly closed, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution backed by Mayor Rohm Emanuel raising the minimum wage to $13 by 2019. The final vote was 44 to 5.

Illinois’ minimum wage of $8.25 an hour is already the highest in the Midwest.