St. Louis Post Dispatch Editorial, Oct 25, 2011

Wonder why the folks occupying Wall Street and Kiener Plaza are angry? It's this kind of thing:

Last week, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, the state's biggest business lobby, cheered because the Missouri economy was so weak that the minimum wage would not be raised.

By Holly Sklar

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service, July 22, 2011 

Big company CEOs got a 23 percent raise last year and corporate profits are at record highs. But the minimum wage has less buying power now than in 1956 – the year Elvis Presley first topped the charts, videotape was breakthrough technology and the Dow closed above 500 for the very first time.

By Megan Cottrell
Chicago Reporter, June 30, 2011

For the first time in five years, the state minimum wage won't go up today. From 2006 until 2009, the lowest wage that employers can pay their employees went from $6.50 to $8.25. And low-wage workers won't see their paychecks increase unless the Senate moves on a bill, SB 1565, that's currently stalled in committee.

"If I were selecting a businessperson to be Citizen of the Year, I'd go with somebody like Lew Prince." Lew is a longtime BSP member. 

By Bill McClellan
St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 2, 2011

The great Motivational Seminar has come and gone — my 70 tickets never arrived — and it was, by all accounts, well-attended. Perhaps this means that our region will soon be surging forward. Thousands of motivated St. Louisans will be a mighty force for change!

Or maybe not.

By Dave Jamieson
Huffington Post, April 28, 2011 

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this year, Missouri business leaders presented lawmakers with a six-point plan they said would bring jobs to the state during tough economic times. Since then, state Republicans have aggressively pushed the agenda and added their own legislative tweaks. Critics say the business-friendly platform is currently one of the most aggressive attacks on low-wage workers.

By Lorraine Mirabella
The Baltimore Sun, April 10, 2011

Bridget Highkin works as hard now as she did two years ago. But then she brought home $800 a week from her waitressing job and today she's lucky to clear $300.

For now — until she completes a part-time nursing program and can find a job as a nurse — financial relief for her family hinges on a proposal to increase Maryland's hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.75 over three years. A few more dollars an hour would allow her to stop receiving assistance for day care and food, Highkin says.

By John Shepley
Op-Ed, Gazette (MD), April 8, 2011

As a small business owner, I support increasing Maryland's inadequate minimum wage because it makes good business sense. It's important for our economic recovery and progress.

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.

More than 60 Maryland business owners, executives and organizations signed a petition to endorse legislation to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.75 by 2013.

“There is room to improve the minimum wage,” Berna Rodman said.

Rodman started Antiochia her home-based business December 2007 in Crofton. The wholesaler sells traditional Turkish bath towels and soaps just off Johns Hopkins Road.

By Nicholas Sohr
Daily Record, Eye on Annapolis, March 29, 2011 

Four dozen business owners and executives signed on to a petition Tuesday urging the passage of legislation in Annapolis that would bump the state’s minimum wage to $9.75 an hour in 2013.