Becoming governor of Illinois has created a whole new world for multibillionaire businessman J.B. Pritzker. Here’s why:

For the first time in his life, this poor little rich guy doesn’t have enough ready cash.

Ald. Edward M. Burke — who’s in the re-election fight of his life as he faces a criminal charge that he tried to extort a fast-food franchise owner — got property tax breaks on his house and political offices that saved him nearly 6 percent of what he otherwise would have had to pay last year.

How did he do it? Just by asking.

The Illinois Senate voted Thursday to raise the state’s minimum wage to $9.25 per hour next year and to $15 per hour by 2025, a big step toward giving Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker an early victory in the opening days of his term.

Illinois’ minimum wage of $8.25 has stood since 2010, even as Chicago and Cook County have raised theirs. Now the bill to raise the statewide wage moves to the House, where Democrats led by Speaker Michael Madigan could change the proposal before it lands on Pritzker’s desk. But top Democrats including the new governor said Thursday that they do not believe changes are needed.

A Democratic state lawmaker has filed a bill to legalize recreational marijuana in Illinois that likely goes further than other legislators prefer, but it has officially started the debate over complex legislation that will need to serve many interests.

The bill, introduced Jan. 25 by Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana, would allow licensed businesses to grow and sell pot, and residents to grow up to 24 plants at home.

Each month, 1,000 struggling Chicagoans would get $1,000, no strings attached, to help break the cycle of poverty, under a trail-blazing pilot program proposed Thursday by a mayoral task force.

Days after choosing political retirement over the uphill battle for a third term, Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked retiring Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), who has championed the cause of income inequality, to chair a task force to consider universal basic income in Chicago.

Chicago is in the middle of another strike at a charter school.

More than 2,000 students and about 175 educators at four Chicago International Charter School campuses are affected. This comes just two months after Chicago made history when Acero charter school teachers staged a four-day strike.

After Gretchen Rakowicz paid nearly $1.3 million for a five-bedroom home in southeast Winnetka last year, she assumed her kindergarten-aged son would attend nearby Greeley Elementary School, less than a mile away.

But Rakowicz, a single mom who moved to the North Shore from Chicago in April 2018, said she was shocked to discover that the school district boundaries included her small neighborhood in Winnetka among those in Wilmette, Northfield and Glenview assigned to Avoca School District 37, not Winnetka School District 36.

McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks is angling to refund $15 million from Valley Hi Nursing Home reserves to eligible residents.

Siphoning $15 million from Valley Hi’s $40 million surplus would leave the county-operated nursing home in Woodstock more than two years of reserve funding, Franks said.

Economic growth in the region helped the Rockford housing market reach sales milestones in 2018 not seen in more than a decade.

Single-family home sales rose 3 percent in 2018 from 2017, according to the Rockford Area Association of Realtors. It’s the fourth consecutive year of increased sales.