The other night I received a telephone call from a person (remarkable, I know) asking my opinion of a higher state minimum wage in Illinois. It’s something that incumbent Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has made an important plank in his re-election campaign. She was audibly crestfallen when I replied that I didn’t support a higher state minimum wage here.
I think there’s a tenuous argument to be made in favor of an increase in the national minimum wage. It has too many misconceptions and makes too many unfounded assumptions for my comfort but I can see the argument. The argument in favor of an increase in the state minimum wage is much weaker.
Illinois’s geographical and economic configuration is that most of its population lives within thirty miles of the state border. Chicago adjoins both Wisconsin and Indiana. East St. Louis is just across the river from Missouri. Rock Island and Moline are just across the Mississippi from Davenport, Iowa. And so on. The states that border Illinois—Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin—all have lower minimum wages than Illinois. The taxes are higher here and if you think that the standards of living in the adjoining areas of our neighboring states are lower than the nearby areas of Illinois you’re living in a fool’s paradise.
A higher minimum wage for Illinois is likely to drive even more businesses out of the state, something Illinois, a state with a very high rate of business flight, can ill afford as it is. And then there are the employment effects.
I find this one, and maybe all of the other referenda, too “stuntish” to support just on optics alone.
If I understand the dynamics, a minimum wage increase couldn’t pass the Democratic caucus because of concerns about the weakness of the economy and possible job losses. I don’t think there was a fear of political consequences, such that there is a need to demonstrate that they wouldn’t be punished by their voters.