By Suzanne Potter
Missouri News Service, Nov 8, 2018
(Springfield) -- Supporters of a higher minimum wage, clean elections and medical marijuana are looking at the next steps to implement the ballot initiatives, while warning politicians not to try to undermine them.
The minimum wage will now rise from $7.85 to $8.60 an hour starting Jan. 1, and will go up 85 cents a year until 2023, when it hits $12 an hour, with cost-of-living increases kicking in annually after that.
Lewis Prince, state coordinator for Missouri Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, says Proposition B is nonpartisan, winning a majority among Republican, independent and Democratic voters.
"When citizens have a clear issue in front of them that has both a moral and an economic imperative, they can see it and they can vote for it," he states. "This is a very big victory and a unifying victory in a really purple state."
Prince contends that the ballot measure's passage is a real rebuke to conservatives in the legislature, who argue that raising the minimum wage could hurt employment when they voted to prevent the city of St. Louis from raising its minimum wage a few years ago. ...
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