Chicago has passed a "Living Wage Act" which they state will help pull people out of poverty by requiring all big-box retailers operating within the city limits to pay their employees a minimum of $10/hour. Sounds great doesn't it? Especially in a place like Chicago, where prices are higher anyway!
Wrong. Wal-Mart doesn't have any stores within the city of Chicago, and the are in the process of building their first one. Now that this law has been passed, they've announced they may not build any more in the city, but instead "redirect our focus on our suburban strategy and see how we could better serve our city of Chicago residents from suburban Chicagoland" (source: Washington Post. In that same complex that Wal-Mart was being built, on the poor West Side of Chicago, another big box retailer, Menards Hardware, was going to build a store to share space with Wal-Mart. They're now announcing they may not build in Chicago after all. (source: NPR's All Things Considered - Audio Clip
Some of the residents in the area said they don't like the law because it drives the stores away. One gentleman said "A low-paying job is better than a no-paying job". How right you are sir. The alderman who sponsored the bill said that it's terrible that people can work all day and still not lift themselves out of poverty, and NO ONE likes poverty, but what they've done is say to these businesses that they're not welcome. It sounds callous and terrible, but businesses exist to make money, and if they can make the same amount of money sitting in the suburbs paying $3/hour less, they're going to do it, and take those 450 or more jobs with them.
I think it's a shame what Chicago has done. Hopefully Richard Daley will veto this bill as promised.
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