The Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, a union of restaurant and retail workers, started a campaign called #FightFor15 on Nov. 15 to raise the minimum wage to $15. To emphasize their argument, WOCC members rallied for their cause on Black Friday near shoppers, according to the union’s website.

Illinois’ minimum wage is currently $8.25 per hour—$1 more than the federal minimum—but still may be too low to live on, especially for large families. Working full time for Illinois’ minimum wage adds up to $17,160 per year before taxes if one worked full time every single week, which many don’t. The federal individual poverty level is $11,170, but the poverty level for households of three or more people starts at $19,090.

The Illinois legislature proposed a more moderate increase in February to $10.55, as reported by The Chronicle Feb. 13. The WOCC’s campaign is noble, but the previously proposed increases to the minimum wage are a good start. The process for determining minimum wage is a bit too complicated to simply demand that it be set at $15 per hour, but Chicago, or Illinois as a whole, should pass legislation requiring the minimum wage to be a living wage that can support an average-sized household living on a single income.

More than 120 municipalities in the U.S. have already passed living wage laws requiring companies that receive government funds to pay their employees a fair wage that is usually much higher than minimum wage, according to a report by the National Employment Law Project.

In 2006, the City Council tried to pass an ordinance that would require large retailers like Wal-Mart to pay their employees a wage that supporters of the ordinance defined as a living wage. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed the bill, which was his first veto while in office, according to a 2006 Associated Press article.

The bill would have required big-box retailers to pay their employees at least $10 per hour. The Illinois minimum wage at the time was $6.50.

The bill was vetoed because of the belief that a higher wage would create fewer jobs, according to a Sept. 11, 2006  press release from Wal-Mart.

Even if a low minimum wage creates more jobs, they will be jobs that barely support the workers.

A living wage for a single adult in Cook County would be $10.48 per hour for those working full time, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator. The federal minimum wage would be $10.55 per hour right now if it paralleled inflation, according to RaiseTheMinimumWage.org. As nice as a $15 per hour minimum wage seems, $10.55 would be a sufficient minimum wage as long as future increases are regularly made to keep up with the cost of living.

Workers will always ask for higher wages, but they should focus on making sure their wages are set at a living wage.