By Jason Rosenbaum
St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU), Sept 2, 2015
When St. Louis last week started the process to raise its minimum wage to $11 an hour by 2018, some policymakers and activists hoped the move would spur St. Louis County to follow suit. ... But...for weeks, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger has said that the county’s charter doesn’t allow for a minimum wage within its 90 municipalities. And he said while it’s possible to impose a minimum wage hike in unincorporated St. Louis County, he’s said that type of action isn’t practical. ... Stenger emphasized that he is “fully supportive of what the city did,” adding that he supports “all efforts to do the same on the state level.” ...
But at least one former St. Louis County business owner says the county may miss out in other ways by not adopting a corresponding minimum wage hike. Former Vintage Vinyl CEO Lew Prince said that some studies showed that “contiguous areas where the wage is higher in one place and lower in another, the place where it’s higher actually prospers more.”
He then provided the following message to county leaders: “St. Louis County, time to play catch-up!”
“The county will now have to start competing for the best workers and they’re going to lose to the city,” Prince said. “Businesses in the city are going to have their choice of entry-level and lower wage workers – and they’re going to end up with the better labor pool.”
Copyright 2015 St. Louis Public Radio