After more than three years of service to the Student Center Bowling Alley, Mae Robbins is finally set for her first raise.

Robbins, a 23-year-old senior in the SIUC radio-television program, will be one of millions in the state of Illinois affected by the minimum wage increase that begins July 1.

For her, it couldn’t come at a sooner time.

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The new legislation, passed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in December, will raise the current minimum wage of $6.50 per hour to $7.50 per hour. There will then be 25-cent increases each year until July of 2010 when the wage will top off at $8.25.

The increase represents the second time the minimum wage has climbed in Blagojevich’s four-year tenure – the first raise was in January 2003.

SIU reports employing 6,000 students annually, all of which start out at the minimum wage level. After 500 hours of work put in, employees are given a 10-cent raise.

Needing 10 raises to reach a full dollar, Robbins will get a pay increase that otherwise would have taken her six and a half years to attain by working an average of 16 hours per week, the typical student workload.

Robbins, who also serves as a waitress at Callahan’s just to make ends meet, said she will greet the added income with opens arms, especially because her pay rate has been dormant since she began working at the Student Center.

“This increase will help to pay off a few of the bills I have before I graduate, which will be nice especially since I’ll have to start paying of some of my loans still,” Robbins said. “It will buy a few more beers at the bar and probably help with some gas.”

Kris Johnson, an agro-business major who works at the GNC store in University Mall, said while he is happy to accept the raise, he doesn’t expect to have too much extra spending money laying around.

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“I know [the increase] helps, but the minimum wage going up usually just means increases in other products,” Johnson said. “I know a lot of our stuff is going up right now here in the last couple months, and I am sure that has something to do with this minimum wage going up.”

Johnson, who also earns money off commission, pays for a majority of his education and said he estimates his check being about $40-$50 more a week after the increase, which will go to buy books and other items of necessity.

He thinks the wage increase, which is aimed at helping people in and around the poverty line, is in some ways a lost cause.

“Minimum wage isn’t meant for people to raise a family off of or live off of. It is meant for high school students and college students,” he said. “It will give me some extra money. I don’t think we should make it $12 an hour just so people can feed their kids, but I think those people should go out and get an education to get a job.”

Richard Grabowski, the Chair of SIU’s Department of Economics, said while students may think they are benefiting from getting an extra dollar an hour, the negative effects will surely be noticeable in the future.

Grabowski noted loss of university jobs, deferring maintenance, a slowdown in refurbishing classrooms, scaling back on the number of instructors hired and even a hold on finishing the top two floors of Morris Library as possibilities – all of which harm students indirectly.

“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,” he said. “Will that mean a loss of jobs? It’s probably likely.”

Brian Feldt can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 258 or [email protected]