Minimum wage in Missouri

The minimum wage in Missouri is currently $5.15 per hour and has no current minimum wage law containing dollar minimums. Instead Missouri adopts the Federal minimum wage rate by reference. Retail or service businesses with gross annual sales or business of less than $500,000 are exempt from the minimum wage rate as well as agricultural employees or employers.

However, in May of this year a broad coalition named “Give Missourian a Raise” led by the AFL-CIO in Missouri delivered more than 200,000 signatures from state voters to put a ballot on the November election that would increase the minimum wage. These signatures were more than twice the number needed to get a ballot issue on for the November election. The ballot proposes an increase to the minimum wage in Missouri from $5.15 per hour to $6.50 per hour. This measure would also index the minimum wage to the cost of living thus ensuring inflation doesn’t diminish the increase.

Because Missouri references the Federal minimum wage they have not raised their minimum wage in ten years. Experts have calculated the current minimum wage rate to be at the lowest rate as a percentage of the average wage since 1949. This gives a full-time minimum wage worker $10,712 per year which is below poverty level of $16,090 per year for one parent with two children. According to Missouri state figures there are approximately 56,000 people in Missouri that would be directly affected and who are working currently for minimum wage or slightly above the minimum wage. Nationally seventy-two percent adults are being paid minimum wage.

Currently, the U.S. Congress is debating whether to increase the federal minimum wage rate to $7.25 per hour. But just like other states throughout the country, Missouri has taken the initiative to bring the minimum wage rate increase to its voters.