The City Council on Tuesday voted to raise the minimum wage in Chicago to $13 an hour by 2019.

Minimum wage in the Windy City is currently set at $8.25, however that will change next July when the rate will jump to $10 an hour. It will then increase to $10.50 in 2016, $11 in 2017, $12 in 2018 and $13 by July of 2019.

The Raise Chicago Coalition praised the wage boost, calling it "a major victory."

"The passage of this increase will change the lives of hundreds of thousands of low wage workers and their families. It will have a tangible benefit for our communities, local economies and small businesses," said Ann Marie Cunningham of Jane Addams Senior Caucus, part of the Raise Chicago group, according to the Huffington Post.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel also applauded the city council's 44-5 vote in a statement, saying: "A higher minimum wage ensures that nobody who works in the City of Chicago will ever struggle to reach the middle class or be forced to raise their child in poverty," he said. "Today, Chicago has shown that our City is behind a fair working wage."

The mayor added that the minimum wage increase was "part of an economic strategy to make sure that work pays ... and not only that work pays - simple - but no parent that works should raise a child in poverty."

However, the five aldermen who voted against the ordinance argued that a higher minimum wage in Chicago could potentially hurt city businesses, increase the city unemployment rate and cut the city sales and property tax revenue.

"If we raise the minimum wage in a responsible way, we could very well see an improved quality of life for many residents and a stronger local economy," said Ald. Mary O'Connor, 41st, who owns a deli and catering business, according to the Chicago Tribune. "If we do it wrong, if we decide to arbitrarily raise the wage to a level that hurts our businesses and stops the kind of growth that this city desperately needs, then we will be driving up costs on just about everything that you buy at our small businesses and, worse, bringing job creation to a screeching halt, hurting those individuals an increase in the minimum wage was meant to help."

In addition, the Illinois Restaurant Association, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association also lobbied against the wage hike.

"This ordinance will hit Chicago workers with a double whammy," restaurant association President Sam Toia said Monday. "Fewer jobs will be available, and there will be more competition for those jobs from suburban residents. Those workers will spend their earnings back in their own communities, not Chicago."