Skip to main content

Anchorage Daily News: Ballot Measure 1: Alaskans vote on increasing the minimum wage and guaranteed sick leave

By Iris Samuels
Anchorage Daily News, November 3, 2024. Also Yahoo News, Kansas City Star, Miami Herald, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Wichita Eagle, Sacramento Bee, Raleigh News and Observer, many more

A ballot measure before Alaska voters seeks to increase the state’s minimum wage, provide guaranteed sick leave to most workers and ban employers from engaging in some activities that can dissuade unionizing ...

The measure is backed by a broad coalition of Alaska labor leaders, chaired by Ed Flanagan, former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor under Gov. Tony Knowles. It is also...

KMOV-TV: While some business owners support Missouri efforts to raise minimum wage, others worry

By Hannah Falcon
KMOV-TV (First Alert 4) Jefferson City, Oct 28, 2024. Also KY3-TV (Springfield), KFVS-TV (Cape Girardeau), WGEM-TV (Quincy, IL), KAIT-TV (Jonesboro, AR).

There is only one week left for Missourians to vote on whether or not to increase the minimum wage and require paid sick leave.

If you walk into Pasta La Fata in Columbia, you’d hear Italian music over the speakers, smell the sauce cooking, and see a young worker making fresh noodles. This brick-and-mortar restaurant is the dream come true of owner Michelle La Fata. Her team of employees is important...

Springfield News-Leader: Erik Milan: Proposition A — boosting minimum wage, sick time — is good for business

Op-Ed By Erik Milan
Springfield News-Leader, October 27, 2024. Also in the Joplin Globe.

As a local business owner, I’m invested in my business and our community. I’m invested in my employees and our customers.

I support Proposition A because it will help us thrive together. It would help people make a living by raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2026. It would ensure that working people can earn some paid sick time and aren’t penalized for being sick.

If we didn’t have happy employees at our music store, we wouldn’t have happy customers...

Columbia Daily Tribune: Joseph Chevalier: Missouri's Proposition A is good for small businesses

Op-Ed By Joseph Chevalier
Columbia Daily Tribune, October 26, 2024

My favorite coffee mug is a gift from my wife, Kelsey. It has an image of a typewriter and the words “write your own story.”

We wrote our own story when we opened Yellow Dog Bookshop in 2013. From the beginning, we wanted our shop to be a welcoming place that could brighten people’s lives and encourage them to write their own story.

We all have a great opportunity now to help Missourians write their own stories by voting Yes on Proposition A.

By raising...

St. Louis Record: Missouri business owners rally behind ballot initiative to raise minimum wage, implement paid sick leave

By Kyla Asbury
St. Louis Record, Oct 25, 2024

As early voting kicks off in Missouri, a broad coalition of business owners is standing firmly behind a ballot initiative that aims to raise the minimum wage and establish paid sick leave for workers.

The business owners argue that these changes will not only benefit employees but also enhance local economies by reducing turnover, increasing productivity and fostering stronger customer service.

In Missouri, more than 500 businesses have joined the Missouri Business for a Healthy Economy coalition, backing Proposition A. 

The initiative seeks to raise the...

Missouri Business Alert: 'Not a uniform impact': Effects of $15 minimum wage could vary across Missouri

By Kelly Dereuck
Missouri Business Alert, Oct 25, 2024

As a small business owner, Joe Chevalier believes in passing along the profits he earns to his staff in the form of higher wages. Employees at his store, Yellow Dog Bookshop in downtown Columbia, make more than the current state minimum wage of $12.30 an hour, and Chevalier feels that has helped with employee retention.

“It's good to have a staff that's going to stay with you, and if they're paid more, then they're more likely to stay there,” Chevalier said. “You're not going to have...

CBS News: In some battleground states, low-wage workers keep losing ground

By Aimee Picchi
CBS News MoneyWatch, October 24,2024

Half of the eight battleground states in this year's U.S. presidential election use the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a rate that hasn't changed since 2009 despite a 47% surge in the cost of living since then.  ...

"It's ridiculous that Pennsylvania has a lower minimum wage than its neighbors as well as states like Arkansas, Florida and Nebraska, where voters had a chance to pass raises through ballot initiatives," Holly Sklar, CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a group that advocates for higher...

Alaska Public Media: Alaska businesses are divided over a ballot measure that would raise minimum wage and mandate sick leave

By Ava White
Alaska Public Media, October 24, 2024

David Ottoson has owned Rainbow Foods, a natural grocery store in Juneau for 44 years. Most of his 30 employees already earn more than $15 an hour, but a handful of highschoolers make $14. All of them are eligible to earn paid time off. 

He said his wages are competitive with other grocery stores, and thinks it’s part of the reason he’s able to retain employees. ...

Ottoson said he supports the measure because Alaskans shouldn’t have to choose between being sick and their paycheck. 

“The...

Springfield News Leader: Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce opposes minimum wage increase on election ballot

By Marta Mieze
Springfield News Leader, Oct 22, 2024

The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce is opposed to a statewide proposition on the Nov. 5 ballot that asks voters to raise minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave. ... However, a statewide group of more than 500 businesses is on the other side of the issue. The Missouri Business Coalition expressed its support for Proposition A this week. In a statement, the coalition said increasing wages and enabling workers to earn paid sick leave will ultimately boost spending at local businesses, reduce costly employee turnover...

KSHB-TV (MO): Residents will vote whether or not to increase minimum wage, enforce paid sick leave

By Caroline Hogan
KSHB-TV Kansas City, October 22, 2024

In November, Missourian's will vote on Proposition A, which would raise the state's minimum wage, as well as enforce paid sick leave. ...

KSHB has talked to employers that are in favor of Proposition A, like Oddly Correct.

"The people who are here are the ones that are going to make things happen," said Mike Schroeder, owner of Oddly Correct. "So if they're not feeling stable or invested, the business isn't gonna go anywhere." ...

Read more

Columbia Missourian: Prop A would raise minimum wage, mandate paid sick leave

By Sophia Anderson
Columbia Missourian, Oct 21, 2024

Missourians will vote Nov. 5 on a measure to gradually raise the minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave.

If Proposition A is passed, the minimum wage would increase to $13.75 on Jan. 1, and to $15 by Jan. 1, 2026. Starting in 2027, the state would adjust the minimum wage annually based on the Consumer Price Index. This change would impact about 900,000 workers, or about a third of all workers in Missouri, according to the Economic Policy Institute ...

[M]ore than 500 businesses in the...

Kansas City Star: Missouri minimum wage workers can’t make ends meet. Vote yes on Prop A for dignity

Op-Ed by Bill Thompson
Kansas City Star, October 20, 2024. Also Yahoo News.

The Kansas City Star recently reported that more than 450 businesses across Missouri have pledged their support to a measure that would both raise the minimum wage and allow workers to earn paid sick time off. In November, Missouri voters will have the opportunity to vote on the measure, which is Proposition A on the ballot. Proposition A gives Missouri voters the chance to pass a life-changing measure that would help hardworking parents like me put more food on the table and...

Alaska Beacon: Alaskans to vote on measure raising the minimum wage and mandating paid sick leave

By Yareth Rosen
Alaska Beacon, October 18, 2024. Also in the Juneau Empire, Yahoo News, Sitka Sentinel, Kodiak Daily Mirror, more

Alaska voters will weigh in on a ballot measure that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2027 and require that workers get paid for up to seven days that they are off sick. ...

[T]here are business owners who support the initiative. Some have banded together in a coalition called Alaska Business for Better Jobs.

Among the members is Derrick Green, owner of the Anchorage restaurant Waffles and Whatnot...

KOMU-TV: Proposition A would raise Missouri's minimum wage

Eric Lovelace
KOMU-TV (Columbia), October 18, 2024

Proposition A is the sixth ballot issue on the Missouri Secretary of State's website for this year's general election. Missouri's current minimum wage is $12.30 per hour, and if passed, the proposition would raise Missouri's minimum wage by $1.25 each year to $15 an hour by 2026. ...

Yellow Dog Bookshop, a small business in Columbia, told KOMU 8 it will be voting "yes" on Proposition A.

Joe Chevalier is the owner of the bookshop, and he said the current minimum wage doesn't meet the demands of the economic climate...