The state will gradually increase the minimum wage starting in 2020 until it hits $15 by 2025
By NACS Online // February 22, 2019
CHICAGO – This week Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a higher state minimum wage, CBSreports. Starting in 2020, the minimum wage will increase every year until it hits $15 in 2025.
“Today is a victory for the cause of economic justice,” said Pritzker at the signing ceremony. “This will improve the lives of families across Illinois, and it will lift people out of poverty.”
On January 1, 2020, the minimum wage will rise from $8.25 an hour to $9.25 an hour, then to $10 an hour on July 1, 2020. Starting in 2021, the minimum wage will jump $1 each January 1 through 2025, when it will reach $15 an hour.
Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said that the governor consulted with businesses to develop a “reasonable, balanced approach” to increasing the state’s minimum wage. “I appreciate that the state is not making these changes overnight, and it’s not leaving businesses without some of the crucial tools they needed to succeed,” Toia said.
The new law gives businesses with 50 or fewer workers a tax credit of 25% of the higher wage cost next year, with that percentage declining over the next few years before eventually reaching zero. Companies can also give those under the age of 18 a lower minimum wage, provided those workers do not exceed 650 hours annually.
Illinois, which joins New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts with setting a $15 an hour minimum wage, hasn’t raised its minimum wage in nearly a decade. Chicago had already begun to increase the minimum wage above the state minimum wage.