{"id":10597,"date":"2015-03-12T16:40:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=10597"},"modified":"2015-03-12T16:40:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:40:38","slug":"chicago-workers-show-concern-over-wages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-workers-show-concern-over-wages\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago workers show concern over wages"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lucy Ren<\/p>\n

The U.S. labor market is showing great momentum for recovery as the unemployment rate dipped to a seven-year low of 5.5 percent <\/a>in February. Nevertheless, wages remain stagnant, and that is a concern for a sampling of working people in downtown Chicago.<\/p>\n

Evelina Juarez, sales manager at the Fannie May candy store in the Loop, declared, \u201cpeople have been saying that wages will go up for the longest, but I don\u2019t think it will actually happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Niki Desai, who works at the newsstand at Clark and Adams streets, said he heard people talk about the recovery of the labor market, but he has not seen any change yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers are not paying as much wages because they have other sources of labor, illegal cheap labors,\u201d Desai expressed. \u201cAs I understand, there are 200 to 300 thousand illegal immigrants entering America every year. They don\u2019t want status but they want work. And they are ready to work at very low wages. So if somebody is willing to work at $6 per hour, why choose people that work for $12 an hour?\u201d<\/p>\n

Desai insisted that this \u201ctroubling situation\u201d should be solved by constitutional changes. \u201cMake these immigrants legal, give them Social Security and ask them to pay taxes,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinimum wage is way too low now,\u201d declared Wintry Simmons, chef at the fast food restaurant Vault. \u201cMinimum wage should be $20 an hour,\u201d her co-worker Lito Johnston added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think wages are going up soon,\u201d said Dan Esboldt, client consultant at the bankruptcy law firm UpRight Law LLC, \u201c\u2019cause I don\u2019t think Congress will ever let that pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacky Doherty, customer service representative at a BMO Harris Bank branch, said, \u201cI\u2019ve been in the bank for 20 years. Our wages go by a bracket, and I haven\u2019t got a raise since I reached that bracket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doherty is not optimistic about getting a boost anytime soon. \u201cI\u2019d like to see a wage increase if I am here for another 10 or 15 years until I retire.\u201d<\/p>\n

[field name=”chart”]<\/p>\n

City Council approved an ordinance to raise the minimum wage in Chicago to $13 per hour by 2019, increasing the earnings of approximately 410,000 Chicago workers. (Lucy Ren\/Medill)<\/div>\n

The Chicago City Council has approved an ordinance<\/a> calling for the minimum hourly wage to rise from $8.25 to $10 this year, and to $13 by 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard people are not going to have a minimum wage increase if they are work for companies outside the city of Chicago,\u201d Doherty stated, \u201clike my daughter, she works in Bedford Park, which is two blocks away from the city. So she\u2019s not going to get a raise at her job, but people down the street are going to get it because they work in the city. I don\u2019t understand that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Frank Calabrese, attorney at the law firm Loevy & Loevy, has a more positive view about wage growth. \u201cThe economy is doing pretty well, and the Dow and Nasdaq have been soaring high,\u201d he said. \u201cHigher income earners are gaining faster than lower income earners, but I think that will level out pretty soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at Top: Chicago workers will see a boost in the minimum wage starting this year. (Lucy Ren\/Medill)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lucy Ren The U.S. labor market is showing great momentum for recovery as the unemployment rate dipped to a seven-year low of 5.5 percent in February. Nevertheless, wages remain stagnant, and that is a concern for a sampling of working people in downtown Chicago. Evelina Juarez, sales manager at the Fannie May candy store […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":10600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,30,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-public-affairs","category-winter-2015"],"yoast_head":"\nChicago workers show concern over wages - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-workers-show-concern-over-wages\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago workers show concern over wages - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Lucy Ren The U.S. labor market is showing great momentum for recovery as the unemployment rate dipped to a seven-year low of 5.5 percent in February. 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