Missouri voters on Wednesday moved one step closer to deciding whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. The organization supporting the initiative announced that it has collected nearly twice the number of signatures needed.
The ballot measure supported by Missouri Jobs with Justice would raise the minimum wage from the current $12.30 an hour to $13.75 an hour next year and then to $15 an hour in 2026.
The citizen-led Missouri law reform requires more than 100,000 voter signatures on the ballot, but Missouri Jobs with Justice said it has submitted about 210,000 signatures. Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office must next determine whether at least 115,000 or so are valid.
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“We are confident voters have the opportunity to pass this important initiative this fall,” Caitlin Adams, executive director of Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action, said in a statement.
Missouri voters have historically supported raising the minimum wage.
The moon rises over the Missouri State Capitol Building in the afternoon sun in Jefferson City, Missouri. (Education Images/Universal Images Group, Getty Images)
Voters approved a statewide minimum wage increase in 2018 after Republican-led legislatures blocked increases in St. Louis and Kansas City in 2017.
Under the plan, the wage floor (then $7.85 an hour) would rise by 85 cents a year until it reached $12 in 2023. Wages rose again this year due to automatic increases in line with inflation.
The latest proposal also includes a requirement that workers receive paid sick leave.
Under this measure, employees who currently do not have guaranteed sick leave would earn one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked.
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Companies with a small number of employees will be required to provide at least five days of paid sick leave per year, and large companies will be required to provide at least seven paid sick days.
