Missouri voters will get to decide whether the state’s minimum wage should be higher and whether all employers should offer paid sick leave.
Proposition A is one of three citizen-led initiatives that made it onto the November ballot. Richard von Glahn, campaign manager for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, said Missouri’s current minimum wage of $12.30 an hour is not enough to live on.
“A full-time minimum wage worker would make just $492 a week, which is just not enough,” von Glahn told Missourinet. “We have seen prices increase at a rate faster than the minimum wage. Missouri is home to some of the largest increases in housing prices and rent.”
If passed, Missouri’s minimum wage would be gradually increased to $15 an hour by the year 2026 and would mandate that all employers provide one hour of paid sick leave to their employees for every 30 hours worked. Alejandro Gallardo is a restaurant worker in central Missouri’s Columbia and a volunteer for the campaign for Proposition A.
“I have one coworker who was recently sick, and he had to come into work anyways, because, you know, he had bills to pay,” Gallardo said. “As he’s told me, his body was telling him he should stay home. His wallet was telling him he had to come into work.”
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents numerous small businesses across the state, is opposed to Prop A. Interim CEO Kara Corches said the measure would increase costs and liability for businesses and could force some of them to reduce hiring.
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