Low income Illinois families will get bigger tax refunds under legislation signed into law Tuesday.

Gov. Pat Quinn put his signature on a bill helping poor, working families. Single parents working a minimum wage job earning about $12,800 annually will save about $150 on their taxes next year. A married couple with three children earning $30,000 a year will save about $199 on their taxes.

The new law will help people like Rhonda Jones, who has three kids in college and two in high school.

“I use the money for practical things like paying down bills and/or getting ahead of my bills or to make repairs to, or purchase, a new used vehicle to get the kids around — or maybe get the kids a couple of new outfits or to fill up the deep freezer,” she said at a Tuesday press conference where Quinn signed the legislation.

Jones is a single mother who works in a school counseling office. She is one of nearly a million Illinois workers eligible for the expanded earned income tax credit. The tax credit was the counterpart to a bill Quinn signed in December giving tax breaks to two businesses, Sears Corp. and CME Group.