$25,480.80 / hr. Rauner seeks minimum wage cut

 By Walt Zlotow 

Last month GOP gubernatorial candidate, billionaire Bruce Rauner, advocated rolling back Illinois' $8.25 minimum wage to the federal minimum of $7.25. He spoke these words at a Quad Cities business group candidate forum:

   "I will advocate moving the Illinois minimum wage back to the national minimum".

Since the national minimum is just $7.25 per hour, Rauner officially went on record advocating a rollback of one dollar per hour. In the 25 days since that very specific policy position, Rauner never qualified or rescinded his stance. But when faced with a firestorm of criticism over the heartlessness of further impoverishing Illinois' many thousands of minimum wage workers just trying to survive on what are rightly called starvation wages, Rauner skirted the truth.  Instead of being forthright, he said he really wants to raise the Illinois minimum wage to $10 per hour. I'm not going to describe how Rauner twisted himself into a mammoth pretzel getting from "moving the Illinois minimum wage BACK to the national minimum" of  $7.25 / hr,   to raising the Illinois wage to $10 / hr. Suffice to say his explanation doesn't pass the political smell test.

Last year Rauner earned a cool 53 mill. Based an a normal work year of 2,080 hours, that amounts to $25,480.80 an hour. Billionaire Bruce has enough 'walkin around' money to purchase nine  luxury homes and have a financial interest in three professional sports teams (Bulls, Red Sox, Steelers). He's now spending millions of his financial empire to acquire the only toy that has so far eluded him: the governorship. Unfortunately for BB, this is one toy the workin' folk of Illinois ain't selling.