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the best start to a year since 1998 - and again, it's more jobs than any of our Midwest states," he added.
In July, the governor announced that Illinois led the nation in new jobs created, more than 31,000, Ross said. "And
Illinois also created more jobs than any other state in the nation in April. Illinois has never led the nation in job growth
in two months in one year ever before in recorded history."
But Greg Blankenship, director of the Illinois Policy Institute, disagrees. He points to a May 2006 report by Chad Shafer
of the institute entitled "Minimum Wage Increase Equals Maximum Damage for Illinois' Low-Income Workers." The report claims
that 53 percent of minimum wage workers are students who live in middle class households and that the minimum wage has been
found to reduce employment, increase joblessness among teenagers and to disproportionately increase unemployment among black
teenage males. Moreover, the report claims, it has been found to punish low-wage workers, hurt the unskilled, increase job
turnover and reduce the average earnings of younger workers.
"I think what we do is we end up hurting the very people we claim to be helping by raising the minimum wage," said
Blankenship. "It's a softhearted thing to do, but because you have a soft heart doesn't mean you have to have a soft head as
well."
However, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics entitled "Characteristics of
Minimum Wage Workers: 2005," 60 percent of minimum wage earners are working in restaurants and bars; two-thirds are women;
73 percent are white and 70 percent of them have a high school diploma.
Only 26 percent of minimum wage earners are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19, while 47 percent are age 25 or
older.
Six states, including Missouri, are expected to have an initiative on the ballot this November to raise the minimum wage.
If successful, Missouri's minimum wage would increase to $6.50 per hour on Jan. 1, 2007 and would be indexed to inflation
thereafter.
According to a recent report authored by Liana Fox and Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, increasing
Missouri's minimum wage to $6.50 would raise the pay of more than a quarter of a million Missourians - 10 percent of the
state's workforce.
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Blankenship says raising the minimum wage doesn't have much impact on businesses like fast food restaurants because
they're already paying higher wages in order to attract workers. He points, however, to a hidden cost that he says most
people don't realize.
"Where minimum wage does have an impact is with union contracts that are based on minimum wage," Blankenship said. "There
are union contracts where they tie the wage scale to a percentage of the minimum wage. For example, it might be an
entry-level position, maybe 115 percent, 120 percent or 200 percent of the minimum wage, so if you hike the minimum wage,
you're basically raising the scale for a lot of union workers - and that is one of the reasons why politicians continue to
go back to the well on that particular issue. It's a way of buying off union support. That's something that not a lot of
people bring up, but I'm always quick to do that."
Dale Stewart, executive secretary of the Southwestern Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council, says, however,
that's just not true. The SWIBCTC represents many of the building trades including the carpenters, electricians, plumbers
and pipefitters.
Generally speaking, he said, union contracts are tied to prevailing wage -not minimum wage - with entry level set at
about 50 percent to 60 percent of the prevailing wage. Stewart said that the prevailing wage has nothing to do with the
minimum wage.
Blankenship discounts the job creation claims of the Blagojevich Administration. While he admits that Illinois did well
in April and May, Blankenship says that it's due, in part, to Illinois' poor performance for several years prior.
"That's just two months in the early part of this year when you started to see the benefits of the economic growth in the
national economy," he said. "It has finally caught on in Illinois. But if you look at the entire Blagojevich Administration,
you'll see state unemployment figures that are above the national average."
Ross agrees that it has taken awhile for Illinois' unemployment rate to come down, but he says that is because it was so
high when Blagojevich took office.
"The unemployment rate in January of 2003 was 6.7 percent," said Ross. "Now it's down to 4.7 percent for August of 2006
and the Illinois unemployment rate has been below or the same as the U.S. unemployment rate since May of 2006. That's the
first time that this has happened in seven years.
"This governor (Blagojevich) has been committed to helping our families build better lives, and he's committed to helping
our economy continue to grow and to expand," Ross added. "He's certainly going to do everything he can to help in both of
those areas."
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