Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is lobbying for a raise to her $216,000 salary, despite the city’s crime problem worsening considerably under her leadership.
Not to mention, Lightfoot might be the worst mayor in America, particularly since former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio left office. So how bad is Lightfoot? Even Democrat lawmakers are calling out Lightfoot as Chicago’s murder rate continues to skyrocket.
As the violent streets of Chicago’s Southside continue to run red with blood, the embattled mayor has proposed a city ordinance to give herself a hefty raise. A five percent pay hike would raise the mayor’s salary by $10,810, to $227,020.
As reported by Chicago’s NBC News affiliate, Fox News, the catch-all “management ordinance” introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting and tied to Lightfoot’s $16.4 billion budget proposes tying the mayor’s future salary to the rate of inflation or five percent, whichever is less.
The change would take effect on January 1, 2024, with the stipulation that Lightfoot and future mayors could opt out of the raise.
Chicago’s crime problem has worsened since Lightfoot took office in January 2019: the city saw a 40% spike in crime from 2021 to 2022, including a 56% rise in sexual assault reports, a 15% rise in robberies, a 52% rise in thefts and a 132% rise in motor vehicle thefts. The jump from 2019 to 2020 was even starker, with a 53% murder rate spike, from 18.9 homicides per 100,000 residents to 28.9, according to Brookings.
Several major corporations have announced plans to relocate from Chicago this year amid the crime surge, and while McDonald’s hasn’t announced any plans to leave, CEO Chris Kempczinski has been vocal about public safety issues in the city.
The fast-food giant’s CEO Chris Kempczinski blasted the city during a speech in September:
“We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants … we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants. So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what’s happening in society at large.”
