Mayor ordered contractors to pay a minimum wage of $13 an hour

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has ordered city contractors to pay a minimum wage of at least $13 an hour, up from the current $8.25.

While Emanuel’s executive order is expected to affect only 1,000 workers, the symbolism adds momentum to a proposed ordinance that would raise the minimum to that level by 2018 for the estimated 400,000 people who work in the nation’s third most-populous city.

The move comes as US President Barack Obama renewed his September 1st call for the US Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25 after cities from Seattle to New York have begun acting on their own.

“A higher minimum wage is essential to putting a financial floor beneath our hard-working families,” Emanuel said in a statement.

“With this executive action, we’ll help ensure that nobody who is contracted to do work with the city of Chicago will ever have to raise their children in poverty.”

Emanuel, acting on a recommendation from a task force, asked the city council on July 30th to raise the wage to $9.50 next year and gradually increase it until it reaches $13 in 2018.

– Bloomberg