Lawmakers: Minimum wage increase will cost taxpayers in all levels of government – IL Watchdog

While Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans a budget address hoping to tout a minimum wage hike for eworkers, his administration couldn’t immediately say when the increased taxpayer costs would be calculated. The Chicago Tribune reports the additional taxpayer cost for state government employee minimum wage hikes in the last half of Fiscal 2020, if the proposed increase from $8.25 to $9.25 kicks in next January, would be more than $80 million. The following year’s taxpayer cost would be nearly $270 million. That does not include the additional cost to taxpayers of minimum wage hikes for local government employees, or the cost to consumers of private sector pay hikes.