By Rudi Keller
Columbia Daily Tribune, March 30, 2011

JEFFERSON CITY — The House-passed bill to permanently link Missouri’s minimum wage to the federal minimum is corporate welfare that hurts low-income workers and small businesses, a St. Louis record store owner told a Senate committee yesterday.

Tom Ray, owner of Vintage Vinyl in Del Mar, said the bill, which would end the possibility that the state minimum wage could exceed the federal minimum, means fewer sales at his store.

“You are shooting the economy of this state in the foot,” Ray told the Senate Small Business, Insurance and Industry Committee.

But the main lobbying arm of small business, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, or NFIB, sees the bill as an important measure to help the economy recover, said Brad Jones, state director for the group.

Eighty percent of the businesses in Missouri have fewer than 10 workers, Jones said, and many of those businesses pay at or near the minimum wage. Having a law that allows the minimum wage to rise with inflation, he said, puts additional pressure on companies already facing stiff competition from national stores and restaurants.

In 2006, Missouri voters in every county passed Proposition B, which set the state minimum wage at $6.50 an hour — $1.35 higher than the federal minimum wage at the time. Proposition B required an annual adjustment, up or down, based on changes in prices. It also required employers pay the federal minimum wage if it was higher than the level set by state law.

Under the bill heard yesterday, Missouri’s minimum wage could never be higher than the federal minimum.

As part of a package of business-friendly bills dubbed “Fix the Six” for the number of changes in state law being proposed, the minimum wage bill easily passed the Republican-dominated House.

Some inflation projections, made before the recent rapid rise in fuel prices, showed that Missouri’s minimum wage is unlikely to be more than the federal minimum until 2015. That’s not a reason to wait, Jones said.

“The ironclad reason to do it this year is we have got to look at some of these economic issues and take care of it now,” he said.

Lara Granich, executive director of Missouri Jobs With Justice, said the cost of living adjustment will make increases easier on business and stabilize wages.

Reach Rudi Keller at 573-815-1709 or e-mail rkeller@columbiatribune.com.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/mar/30/senate-takes-up-wage-bill/

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