Rep. Camille Lilly, D-Chicago, speaks at a news conference in Springfield last year. She's advocating for a bill this General Assembly that would require businesses to pay tipped workers the standard minimum wage. (Capitol News Illinois file photo)

Sponsor says it is a step out of poverty for millions of working families

Capitol News Illinois
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A bill in the Illinois House would do away with the sub-minimum wage paid to waitresses, bartenders and other tipped service workers.

Rep. Camille Lilly, D-Chicago, introduced House Bill 5139 last month. If the bill becomes law, workers who supplement their wages with tips will receive the state’s minimum wage starting on Jan. 1, 2025, in addition to their tips.

Its passage may be a tall order, however, as the Illinois Restaurant Association successfully lobbied when lawmakers overhauled the minimum wage schedule in 2019 to allow businesses to continue to pay less than minimum wage to employees who earn tips.

Lilly’s bill has currently not received a full committee assignment and has no cosponsors.

In 2019, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation into law providing a path to increase Illinois' minimum wage rate to $15 per hour and $9 for tipped workers by 2025. Servers and bartenders who receive tips are currently subject to a $7.20 an hour minimum wage.

At a bill signing for that 2019 law, Sam Toia, president of the Restaurant Association, appeared alongside Pritzker and praised the law for...

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