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Oct. 31, 2024 |  By: Chrystal Blair - Public News Service

500+ MO businesses back Prop A, $15 minimum wage

minimum wage

By Chrystal Blair - Public News Service

More than 500 Missouri businesses are rallying for Proposition A, pushing for a $15 per hour minimum wage and paid sick leave by 2026.

Backed by the group Missouri Business for a Healthy Economy, Proposition A plans to raise the minimum wage to $13.75 an hour next year and $15 by 2026, with additional annual cost-of-living adjustments. Tipped workers must earn at least half the minimum rate, plus tips.

Andi Montee, owner of the Mokaska Coffee Shop in St. Joseph, believes the wage increase would enhance Missouri's appeal.

"Having that standard and that security is just really important for people to look at Missouri for one as a place where they could live, where they could stay," Montee asserted. "Especially for young people who often times want to kind of move outside of the places they might have grown up in."

Not everyone is on board with the increase. Business groups like the Missouri Chamber of Commerce warned higher wages and required paid sick leave could increase costs, leading some businesses to cut staff, reduce hours or raise prices.

Despite the concerns, Missouri's minimum wage keeps rising, set at $12 in 2023 and adjusted to $12.30 in 2024. Montee believes higher wages for employees benefit employers as well.

"We will fight tooth and nail to keep our staff kind of working there, because training somebody is difficult, it costs money and it has all kinds of things that pop up in the long term," Montee outlined. "We feel pretty strongly that having that higher minimum wage is really a mutually beneficial thing."

Still, critics of the increase do not believe employers will benefit at all, contending it could harm young and entry-level workers, who might see fewer job openings as businesses face rising costs.