By Diane Stafford
Kansas City Star, Dec 27, 2016
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since mid-2009, the last time that part of the Fair Labor Standards Act was amended. The national law has no provision for automatic increases because of time or inflation. ...
“It’s too often forgotten that employees are also consumers,” said Mike Draper, owner of Raygun LLC in Kansas City and a member of a national business leadership group that supports minimum wage increases. “When they earn more, demand for products goes up” — an overall benefit to the national economy. ...
The U.S. Department of Labor says that “in cases where an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages.”
In Missouri, for example, an inflation adjustment built into state law will give covered workers an automatic increase to $7.70 an hour from $7.65 on Jan. 1. ...
Draper said Missouri’s nickel increase will help a bit, but “it’s not enough to make ends meet,” and that’s why he lists himself among business representatives who have signed a Business for a Fair Minimum Wage statement that calls for raising the federal minimum to at least $12 an hour by 2020. ...