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* Tribune…
As Illinois considers raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from the current $8.25, advocates say the changing face of the low-wage worker is a reason why the minimum wage must be a living wage.
But some businesses insist a hike could kill them, causing more harm to workers and communities than good.
Ed Schubert, whose family owns the Dairy Queen franchise where Simpson works, said he can’t imagine how he’d keep his shop afloat with a $15 minimum wage, a rate he thinks shouldn’t apply to his largely teenage staff. […]
One survey found Illinoisans to be skeptical. TSheets, a time-tracking software, polled 500 Illinois residents and found two-thirds said they believed the $15 proposal would fail and nearly half said they did not support it; another 20 percent were indifferent. But they didn’t support the status quo, either. Only 6.5 percent of those surveyed believed the minimum wage should stay at $8.25. A raise to $12 was the most popular choice.
That wasn’t really a poll. It was a Google Survey. Click here for the results. Note the partisan breakdown. It leans Democratic by just 2 points. That’s not your usual Illinois result.
* Illinois Review…
There’s a state budget plan circulating Springfield circles that is 1. balanced, 2. hides no tax hikes, and 3. actually makes budget cuts.
We’re calling it the “McPlan” budget prescription. Too good to be true, you say?
Republican State Senators Kyle McCarter and Dan McConchie (the Mc’s - get it?) are staking their stellar political reputations on what they’re calling the “Taxpayer Bargain Budget Plan” in response to Senator Bill Brady’s “Grand Bargain Budget” that features an income tax hike to pay bills that are stacking up.
“The plan is very strong medicine for a very sick state,” McCarter and McConchie said last week in an op-ed about their proposal. “It forces the Legislature to make tough decisions between needs and wants. The ‘Taxpayer Bargain’ requires lower spending, with 10% across-the-board cuts at state agencies and departments. It simply asks for a dime of savings for every dollar spent.”
From the op-ed mentioned above…
Contact your senator and representative and ask them to sign on as a sponsor to one of the 15 bills that are needed to deliver a no-tax-increase-balanced-budget to the governor.
Except, the package of bills hasn’t even been introduced yet. Right now, the “plan” is a press release.
* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…
In the wake of a publicly funded Illinois university trying to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a graduation speaker in the midst of a fiscal crisis, a state lawmaker is reintroducing a bill that would ban the practice.
Local control! Except when we don’t like local control!
* Sun-Times…
State Sen. Jacqueline Collins wants to bar insurance companies from using a person’s ZIP code when setting auto insurance premiums.
The Chicago Democrat said Monday she’ll add the ZIP code rule to her pending bill that would block insurers from considering a person’s credit rating. […]
A recent report published by ProPublica and Consumer Reports that focused in Illinois and three other states concluded 33 of 34 insurance companies analyzed in Illinois charged at least 10 percent more in ZIP codes where a majority of the residents are minorities. Additionally, six Illinois insurers charged rates as high as 30 percent higher in minority ZIP codes, the report showed.
The Insurance Information Institute trade group disputed the report’s findings after hiring an independent expert to review the data it’s based on.
A good friend of mine moved from her Chicago home east of Western Ave. in the Beverly neighborhood a few blocks west to the Mount Greenwood neighborhood and every one of her insurance bills went down.
* Wanna bet that a bill gets filed to address this issue?…
You may be sweating through the annual race to file your income tax returns on time, but the state of Illinois is still trying to get tax returns that were due two years ago from hundreds of the very state employees whose salaries you pay.
Two incumbent state lawmakers are among the 312 people who the Department of Revenue determined are getting state checks but still haven’t filed returns for calendar year 2014, which were due two springs ago.
Each has already been assessed a $250 penalty for delinquency and faces an additional penalty equivalent to 10 percent of any taxes owed.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:15 pm
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10% across the board cuts….unrealistic when most of these agencies have already been cut beyond the bone. Try again!
Comment by Passive Agressive Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:29 pm
Education and social services have been cut much more
Comment by il annoyed Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:32 pm
There is a reason the “Mc” plan hasn’t been introduced in LRB form. Both Senators know that the bill would not get 20 votes.. it is time to ‘Drain the McSwamp”!!!
Comment by Not Rich Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:33 pm
The insurance thing, I get that in part. Years ago Riverdale moved to have the first three digits of it’s zip code moved to 604 so their rates would go down.
However assuming (not a bit stretch) that there is variation in risk based off of location. Some areas may have higher accident rates due to more traffic, or more claims because more people have to street park, etc. How do you bill for that risk unless you use a decent sized area to define the risk, otherwise you would likely just charge more to people in a smaller ’sector’, let’s say census tract or perhaps city block. Your other option I suppose is to say there is no ‘geographic risk’ and spread it across the state, that doesn’t seem fair either.
The question on this is IMHO, if you allow billing based in part by the risks (or lower risks) based off of location, how do you then define location if not by zip code?
Comment by Oneman Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:35 pm
Location has to be part of the risk equation.
Comment by dr. reason a, goodwin Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:52 pm
My McPlan Senator - McCarter is indeed trying to be relevant if only in his attempt to appear fairly “reasonable” in his feeble ploy to raise his profile.
And I was not aware of the fact that he had a “stellar political reputation”. And this is based on exactly what criteria?
And he is getting some “free” press out of this.
Expect more of this posturing as he prepares to challenge Shimkus once again in the Primary.
Comment by illini Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 2:53 pm
Anyone who doubts that increases in minimum wages results in lost jobs isn’t paying attention to what is happening around them. Labor gets replaced by machines (including computers) when the cost of labor exceeds the cost of the machines, and higher-cost labor gets replaced by lower-cost labor, and the lowest cost labor is making the customer do it himself. Why do you think there are self check-out lines in stores now, and when was the last time anyone pumped your gas, washed your windows and checked your air and oil at the gas station? The businesses that couldn’t or wouldn’t make the substitutions lose business and close down if they can’t increase their prices. Thinks for a few minutes, and you’ll come up with more examples.
This does not mean that, on balance, increasing the minimum wage won’t make people better off than they are now, but it is not guaranteed that hiking it by any particular amount will help much or even at all.
Comment by Whatever Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:04 pm
“Location has to be part of risk equation.” Why??! When I moved to significantly poorer zip code- my car insurance went up. Talk about a war on the poor. No wonder there are so many poor people in this country… Isn’t the point of insurance to put everyone in a big pool and share the risk?? If there are mini pools within insurance pools that’s wrong.
Comment by Longsummer Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:12 pm
“It simply asks for a dime of savings for every dollar spent.”
Are you kidding me? Talking about adding insult to injury. This may or may not be needed but to speak so condescendingly about drastic cuts, billions of dollars, is unconscionable. It suggests he has no grasp of the damage it would do. And yes spending more than we take in is also damaging, I more than admit that, but this guy is pretending that this is easy. come on.
Comment by Perrid Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:15 pm
“Your other option I suppose is to say there is no ‘geographic risk’ and spread it across the state, …..”
That is the real goal at least when it supports the goals of Collin’s constituency.
Comment by Federalist Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:23 pm
Back 20 years ago when I lived in Lincoln Park I was told 60614 zip code had the highest car insurance rates in the city due to traffic, population density and theft. Not sure what the case is today.
Comment by Chicago Barb Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:55 pm
==If there are mini pools within insurance pools that’s wrong.==
So you agree that smokers should pay the same health insurance rates as nonsmokers, us senior citizens should pay the same rates as 20-year-olds?
Comment by Whatever Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 3:58 pm
You put everyone in a big pool, but you evaluate risk as part of the pricing. It is the same reason why I pay more for life insurance (my size) than someone who is at a healthier weight, because statistically I have a higher risk of death than someone else my age who weighs less. Just because you may have a large pool it doesn’t mean everyone pays the same price for insurance.
I worked for a small software company that had good insurance and occasionally I would have lunch with our office manager who dealt with our program. She told me our costs were going up at the company in part due to the average age going up (and as she put it, everyone having babies) and our claims were increasing due in part the increased birth rate. I would suspect we were paying less than if the average age of the staff was in it’s 50s.
Same thing with car insurance, if you live in an area with a higher rate of uninsured motorists then there is a higher risk you will be involved in an accident with an uninsured driver. Not everyone in a risk pool has the same risk (otherwise you wouldn’t be able to insure everyone) but you don’t charge the same for everyone in the pool.
Using this logic
Then they shouldn’t charge based off of the age of the car you drive, be it a Tesla, BMW or 7 year old Ford Fusion they should be all be treated the same, even though the Fusion is worth much less. Perhaps using that logic I should pay the same for my 16 year old driving as I do for me.
Heck State Farm (I suspect one of the biggest auto-insurance outfits in Illinois) is a mutual company, no shareholders besides it’s customers.
Comment by Oneman Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 4:11 pm
Rich’s Beverly to Mt. Greenwood anecdote is telling. Both are city neighborhoods right next to each other. Beverly has a higher property values, higher median income, and more college grads — it also has black residents, about a third of the population. Mt. Greenwood is nearly all white. Why else would your insurance premiums fluctuate based on which side of California Ave. you live on?
Comment by Tim R. Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 4:52 pm
Like insurance, minimum wage should have a location component. If I budget 12 summer help positions at $10 per hour, going to $15 is going to mean a reduction of 4 kids. Money doesn’t magically appear. And $10 goes a lot farther downstate than it does in the metros.
Comment by Shemp Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 5:00 pm
I work for the state. In spirit of the speaker, I will call that a good place to start and then go from there.
Insurance companies figure your premium based on loss experience in your zip code. There is no racial component. It is statistics. Get over it.
The Harvard Business School reports that every $1 increase in the minimum wage increases the exit ratio for restaurants by 4-10%. And it similarly decreased the number of new restaurant start ups. So if you want to put more restaurants out of business and have fewer open, raise away! I imagine that other types of businesses will be similarly impacted.
Comment by Captain Obvious Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 5:04 pm
I thought a non binding referendum was passed two years ago in favor. Why are we relying on a Google Survey?
Comment by LibertyvilleNick Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 5:24 pm
Perhaps looking at the amount of cars stolen in Beverly would be enlightening. Lots of car thefts/ damaged cars and thefts from vehicles in Beverly. The metro parking lots skew the numbers.
Comment by 22 Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 7:43 pm
I’m in McCarter’s district and he hasn’t done anything noteworthy since is replaced Frank Watson. Nothing. You can’t fix this mess with cuts alone, and that is all he’s offered since day one. He’s as inept as the Governor. And in case you’re wondering, I’m a disappointed registered Republican of four decades.
Comment by McClueless's District Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 8:21 pm
People’s incomes affect their likelihood of filing claims. People with higher incomes are more likely (and ABLE) to pay out of pocket for minor accidents to avoid rate increases
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 8:59 pm
Also, zip codes are basically irrelevant to insurance rates, which are more likely affected by census tract data as a geographic analytical criterion.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Apr 17, 17 @ 9:02 pm
Any budget plan that doesn’t include some sort of revenue increase is not a serious plan.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Apr 18, 17 @ 7:37 am
The descriptiom of the plan says “hides no tax hikes,” doesnt say “includes no tax hikes”
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 18, 17 @ 8:56 am