Chicago Increased Their Minimum Wage to $12

Chicago increased their minimum wage to $12 yesterday.

If you looking to earn more money per hour with your job you might want to turn your direction to Chicago.

WGN shares that on Sunday the city continued on it's plan to increase the minimum wage until they reach $13 an hour.

This plan was made by the city council in 2014 to "to raise Chicago’s minimum wage incrementally to $13 per hour by 2019". The target date for this to happen is set for July 1, 2019.

Just think, four years ago minimum wage was $8.25 now it's $12 and soon in about another year will cap out at $13. According to Mayor Emanuel it's a "45 percent increase since 2015."

Wow!

I have a few questions about this raise, even if it's done in increments, will this hurt smaller 'Mom and Pop' type stores.

They might have to cut staff in order to afford paying their employees $13. That could hurt their profit having less staff to work with in promoting their products or helping customers.

The other question is, how long will it be before the rest of the state follows suit?

If this wage increase came to Rockford, could businesses survive?