As the economic climate around the state and country continues to slide deeper into a recession, student workers across the country can use all the help they can get to make ends meet.
Luckily for the approximate 4,000 student employees working at SIUC, a 25-cent pay raise should help.
As part of an initiative launched by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in December 2006, the Illinois minimum wage increased from $7.75 per hour to $8 per hour on July 1.
The increase marks the third year in a row there has been a boost in the Illinois minimum wage — an effort that will raise the state’s minimum hourly salary from $6.50 to $8.25 by July 2010.
For the average student working 15 hours per week, the raise means an extra $19 per month or $247 per year.
“I won’t have a whole lot more money on my checks, but just a bit extra helps and doesn’t make it a struggle,” said Chelsea Walker, a senior studying criminology from Herrin. “Even if it’s just an extra gallon of gas, it will be worth it.”
The increase gives Walker a raise she wouldn’t have otherwise earned for more than a year and a half on the job — student workers receive a 10-cent raise for every 500 hours worked.
By the time the 2010 increase rolls around, the average student worker will have received a $1.75 pay raise that normally would have taken them more than 10 years to procure.
But while the hike could help students put a little extra cash in their pockets, it could cost the university and large-scale employers.
With the university paying roughly $15,000 extra dollars per week to student employees and a budget that has stayed relatively flat for the last few years, the university will have to come up with the money from somewhere.
According to a DAILY EGYPTIAN report in June 2007, the university employed 6,000 students annually, 2,000 students fewer than this year’s tally.
Toni Vagner, a Financial Aid Student Employment Services specialist, said the minimum wage increase has not affected the number of student employees on campus, but some economists agree a minimum wage increase can have a negative effect.
“In a university setting, if we have to pay all of our student employees more money but yet our budget is not any bigger, than something has to give,” said Richard Grabowski, chairman of the Department of Economics, in the 2007 report. “Will that mean a loss of jobs? It’s probably likely.”
But Lori Stettler, director of the Student Center, said the Student Center has avoided getting rid of student positions for a number of reasons.
“We are a service that has to be open because students expect it to be there,” Stettler said. “We are one of those facilities like the library that has to remain open and have student workers.”
Stettler said the Student Center plans its budget a year in advance, similar to most university departments, and was accounting for the wage increase.
She said in efforts to offset student layoffs, the Student Center began cross-training its workers to perform a variety of tasks.
“The students who work in the ID office are also cross-trained to work in the info center if we are really busy,” she said. “We can move labor in a supply and demand type way. There is a lot of crossover.”
According to an Illinois Department of Labor Press Release, raising the minimum wage to $8 an hour generates an additional $520 in annual wages for full-time minimum wage workers and will ensure state workers will stay above the 2008 federal poverty level of $10,400 a year.
Approximately 99,000 of the workers who would directly benefit from the minimum wage increase are working parents, and nearly 60 percent are women, the release said.
“Workers across Illinois are struggling every day to provide their children with food and health care,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Chicago) in the release. “The increased minimum wage will go a long way toward easing the burden on these families by enabling them to better afford basic necessities.”
