February 16, 2019
Dear editor;
So puppet governor JB Pritzker and his puppeteer, Mike Madigan, want to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Madigan said through his puppet that this administration wants to balance the State’s budget, but not on the backs of the working class citizen. How interesting!
Let us look at how they plan to so do. This proposed minimum wage increase is in fact a tax increase on the working class. If a worker is making $9 per hour and it is three percent, and paying 27¢ per hour to Illinois for the privilege to work. Raise that pay to $15, at the same tax rate of three percent, and the worker is paying 45¢ per hour to Illinois for the privilege to work.
How does the employer compensate for this increase in labor costs? History shows us that there are two ways: Reduce the work-force and raise prices. Now when I have to reduce my work-force and raise my prices, in turn my suppliers must do the same, in turn his suppliers must likewise. And so it goes for many layers of suppliers. And who pays for all of these layers of cost increases? The person who just got a pay raise through the new law. That worker, if he or she is lucky enough to have not lost the job due to work-force reductions, now pays more at the grocery store, the utility companies, the drive through fast food joints, the gasoline pump, and every-where else.
So who has gained by this minimum wage increase? Only the politicians who have garnered more votes on the promise of a financial panacea! When I was a child, my father was making $1.85 per hour. A hamburger was 5¢, gasoline was a dime a gallon. Today, I pay my employees an average of $12.50 per hour. A hamburger is as much as four dollars and gasoline is going for $2.45 per gallon. Figure the percentages. Count how many times we have had minimum wage increases in your lifetime. How much has the last minimum wage increase raised your quality of life?
Are we sure we want a vaudeville act running the State’s finances? Yes, I moved out of Illinois, just as have many others. Yet, as long as I still have holdings in Illinois, I am still being robbed by the administration. So are you. If this proposed increase in the minimum wage has you anticipating great financial security in your future, please contact me. I am selling off everything I own in Illinois while it still has some value.
Editor’s note: The minimum wage bill was signed February 19 by Prizker in the Governor’s Mansion.
Tj Johnson
DeMotte, Ind.