BFMW In the News

By Leah Thorsen
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 22, 2018

Missouri voters will decide in a couple weeks whether to boost the state’s minimum wage, a proposal that comes as several large retailers already are committing to pay employees more, but that advocates say is necessary to improve the lives of thousands of hourly workers who won’t see such raises. ...

If the minimum wage measure passes Nov. 6, Missouri estimates that state and local government tax revenue could increase as much as $214 million. ...

Op-Ed By Blake Ralston, Owner, Ralston Agency
... Raising the minimum wage is an important type of insurance for businesses as well as workers. ...

By Steve Brawner, Talk Business & Politics
KUAR NPR, Little Rock, Oct 18, 2018

Voters will not get to weigh in on a proposed amendment to limit lawsuit damages but will vote on raising the state’s minimum wage after the Arkansas Supreme Court released two decisions Thursday

By Gloria Lloyd, News Editor
with Stephanie Sandoval, Columbia Missourian
Call Newspapers (MO), Oct 18, 2018

... The minimum-wage measure, called Proposition B on the ballot, would gradually increase the lowest hourly pay in the state to $12 an hour in five years. ... When Raise Up [Missouri] submitted its signatures last spring, it showcased stories of struggling low-income workers trying to raise families to emphasize the need for a higher living wage. ...

Fox 16, Little Rock, Oct 18, 2018. Also KARK NBC, Little Rock (Nexstar Broadcasting).

The Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled that a minimum wage issue will remain on the November ballot. Click here to read the full court opinion on Issue 5. ...

By Bethany Budde-Cohen, Owner, SqWires Restaurant & Annex
Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct 16, 2018

The commentary “Minimum wage hike will lead to unintended consequences” (Oct. 8) by a fellow at the Show-Me Institute tries to mask hostility to a minimum wage law, which it calls “an artificially imposed floor price,” by claiming that raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2023 under Proposition B will cost jobs and “harm the very people” it’s “supposed to benefit.” As a business owner, I can tell you that’s not true.

United Press International (UPI), Oct. 16, 2018

From marijuana in the Midwest to abortion and minimum wage in the South, voters across the United States have more than just hotly contested congressional races to consider in next month’s midterm election. ... Here are some of the highlights. ...

Minimum wage

While there are nationwide campaigns to raise the United States’ minimum wage to $15, two states in the South have ballot measures to raise theirs to a shorter extent.

By Philip Joens
Jefferson City News Tribune, October 11, 2018

A proposal to raise Missouri's minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2023 is dividing businesses. ...

Not all businesses oppose Proposition B. More than 450 business representatives signed a list supporting Proposition B, according to Businesses For a Fair Minimum Wage, a group of business owners that support the measure.

By Andrea Tudhope
KCUR 89.3 (NPR), Oct 10, 2018

... A study from MIT suggests a single adult in Kansas City needs to make $11.05 an hour to get by. The same calculation says an adult with one child needs to make $24.06. But at $7.85, a full-time minimum wage worker in Missouri takes home only about $16,000 a year. ...

CNBC, Oct 2, 2018

CNBC's Kate Rogers reports on the minimum wage impact Amazon is having on small businesses after it raised its minimum wages for U.S. workers. 

Quotes Business for a Fair Minimum Wage Statement: "All businesses, big and small, should pay a wage that workers can live on. It's way past time to raise the impoverishing $7.25 federal minimum wage, strengthen consumer demand, and help level the playing field among businesses."

Op-Ed By Bob Goodrich
Jefferson City News Tribune, Oct 2, 2018. Also in the Fulton Sun.

Movie theaters have been our family business since my father opened a single-screen theater in 1930 with a showing of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” I bought my father’s theater in 1967, and expanded Goodrich Quality Theaters to five states, including Capital 8 in Jefferson City. We couldn’t have done it without great employees and generations of moviegoers coming through our doors.

By Daniel J. Munoz
NJBIZ, October 2, 2018

The increase of a minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023 could inject $3.9 billion in the state’s economy through a rise of the consumption power for over 1 million residents, according to a report by the advocacy group New Jersey Policy Perspective.

By Rich Sugg and Allison Kite
Kansas City Star, Oct 1, 2018

The Rieger restaurant owner Howard Hanna talks about Missouri minimum wage vote and his restaurant's protocol of paying well above the minimum wage.

WATCH VIDEO

By Allison Kite
Kansas City Star, Missouri Influencer Series, Oct 1, 2018

It’s been years since Desiree Saunders earned the minimum wage...but the child nutrition worker at Kansas City Public Schools said she constantly sees students whose families struggle because their parents earn Missouri’s minimum wage. ... Missouri’s minimum wage is $7.85 per hour, but an initiative petition on the November ballot would raise it to $12 per hour. ...

By Michael R. Wickline
Arkansas Democrat Gazette, September 26, 2018

Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin said Tuesday they plan to vote against a proposed initiated act that would raise the state's minimum wage by $2.50 an hour to $11 an hour by 2021. These two Republicans signaled their opposition to Issue 5 on the Nov. 6 general election ballot in separate written statements, after supporters of the proposed ballot measure held a news conference Tuesday morning at Trio's restaurant in Little Rock as a kick-off event.