Illinois State Workers To Receive $1,300 Pay Raise On July 1

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – While 1 in 4 Illinoisans is out of a job, state workers will see their pay go up effective tomorrow. Illinois is moving forward with $261 million worth of automatic pay raises for AFSCME Council 31 members, who are some of the highest-paid state workers in the nation, earning up to 60% more than their private-sector counterparts.

Despite the COVID-19 shutdown blowing a $6 billion budget hole in state revenues, the average AFSCME-represented employee will see an additional $1,343 increase in base wages on top of any automatic seniority increase for individual employees.

Illinois is an outlier as other states delay or cancel state worker pay increases:

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delayed raises for 80,000 state workers for 90 days and is now considering employee buyouts.
• Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is canceling a 3% pay hike for some state employees and forcing one-day-a-week furloughs on 40,000 others to handle a nearly $9 billion shortfall.
• Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf stopped paying 9,000 state workers in April.
• Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam pushed back state worker raises.

Mailee Smith, director of labor policy for the nonpartisan Illinois Policy Institute, offered the following statement:

“Giving out raises to state workers is unfair at a time when other residents are getting laid off or having their paychecks slashed. Under the current circumstances, the governor should bring public employee unions to the table and negotiate a delay in these pay increases, if only to prevent future furloughs.

"Delaying or canceling these pay increases would help free state funds for relief of vulnerable Illinoisans and those financially devastated by the economic downturn that has accompanied the coronavirus lockdowns. It also could help forestall state worker layoffs or furloughs witnessed in other states.”

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