9-10 an hour and thats only because illinois raised the minimum wage
now you know why the houses are inexpensive.  and even making 9-10 bucks an hour for 2 people and with a couple of kids you still cant afford much even with housing that low.
a single parent with a couple of kids making 10 bucks an hour will have a hard time buying a house even at 50 or 60k.
I lived in charlote nc back in the 90's and i was making around 65k a year.  had a wife and 3 kids.  I bought my first house for 90k.  really nice 3 bed/2 bath with a pool.  what really was killing me was the damn electricity bill almost 400 bucks a month and that was due to either being too fricking cold or too hot.  had no choice but to either have heater or ac on with 3 small children.  and I dont even have to tell you about the price of food.  it was way higher than where I lived before which was los angeles to be exact.
I live now in southern california  and houses are expensive but that is not all over the place.  I am actually looking for a nice house in a nice neighborhood for around 160k.  and the cost of my expensive house in southern california will be less than what I paid for that cheap 90k house in charlotte once you factor everything in.  that includes electricity/gas taxes etc.
I have lived in ill where you are from and I bet your gas bill is thru the roof if you have gas heater.  I pay around 12 bucks a month.  my electricity is around 100 and it went up mostly due to my computer and having 3 monitors on.  it used to be around 80 and we do have the ac on but not all the time.  as for the heater, i dont think we turned in on many times this year as my computer provides the heat for the whole house free of charge 

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semp