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Fact check: What you need to know about the ad critical of Rauner’s position on minimum wage

“Eliminate Minimum Wage” is a 30-second commercial aired by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. It targets Republican opponent Bruce Rauner on his position on ...

by Ed Tibbetts, Quad-City Times

"Eliminate Minimum Wage" is a 30-second commercial aired by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. It targets Republican opponent Bruce Rauner on his position on the minimum wage.

When and where it is running: It started airing earlier this month, and it's running statewide.

Watch the ad - click here.

The claim: This ad begins with a Rauner himself saying he is "adamantly, adamantly against raising the minimum wage," with a narrator then saying that "now billionaire Bruce Rauner was caught saying he wants to eliminate the minimum wage completely."

What you should know: Rauner has made a number of statements about the minimum wage since launching his campaign. The one in which he says he "adamantly" opposes increasing the minimum wage came last September in Ford County, during the Republican Party primary — and it's pretty unambiguous.

Two months later, in the Quad-Cities, Rauner said he favored working to lower the state's minimum wage of $8.25 per hour to the federal level, $7.25 per hour.

Quinn, on the other hand, has proposed raising the state's minimum wage to $10 per hour.

A few weeks later, Rauner wrote an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune, saying his remarks were an oversimplification of a complex issue, and he would favor an increase if it came along with "creative solutions to avoid further damage to our state's already shattered business climate." Among them, he said, was changing worker compensation rules.

The Quinn ad's statement about Rauner wanting to eliminate the minimum wage stems from an interview he gave to WJBC radio in central Illinois in January.

In the interview, Rauner acknowledged, "I have said on a number of occasions that we could have a lower minimum wage or no minimum wage as part of increasing Illinois' competitiveness."

Then he added, it was "a mistake for me to focus on lowering the minimum wage or eliminating it because there are better ways to increase Illinois' competitiveness." He said one way would be to raise the federal minimum wage, which would put Illinois and surrounding states on an equal footing. (Iowa's minimum wage, at $7.25 per hour, is currently a dollar lower than Illinois', for example.)

The Quinn campaign says eliminating the minimum wage is Rauner's real position.

What's next: We'll fact check a Bruce Rauner ad.

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WQAD News 8 reporter Brittany Lewis and the Quad-City Times reporter Ed Tibbetts have partnered to check the facts behind political ads.

Watch for our Political Ad Fact Check reports Sunday nights on News 8 at 10 p.m.

Check out our continuing Political Fact Check coverage, click here.

Fact check: What you need to know about the ad critical of Rauner’s position on minimum wage

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