Minimum Wage Headed for Missouri Ballot

by Mike Hall, May 8, 2006

This weekend, a broad coalition led by the AFL-CIO in Missouri delivered more than 200,000 signatures from state voters who want to put a minimum wage raise before the voters in November. That’s more than twice the number needed to get on the ballot.

The “Give Missourians a Raise” coalition turned those signatures into the secretary of state May 7, a move that officially claimed a ballot spot for a measure to boost the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50 an hour. The measure also would index the wage to the cost of living, ensuring inflation doesn’t diminish the increase.

Says Hugh McVey, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO:

It’s not right that some hard-working Missourians can’t get ahead because their paycheck isn’t enough to live on. It’s common sense. If we are truly going to value work and the workers who keep our economy going, we need to reward that work with a wage that they can support their families on.

State figures show there are approximately 42,000 people in Missouri who work for the current minimum wage and would be directly affected by this measure—as would tens of thousands of others who are paid slightly above the minimum wage.

“There are too many families in Missouri who are living in poverty, struggling just to put food on the table,” says the Rev. Jack Schuler of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in St. Louis County. “Raising the minimum wage will make a profound difference in the lives of these families and our community as a whole.”

Eight million people in the United States are working at or below the hourly $5.15 federal minimum wage. Congress hasn’t raised it since 1997—while giving itself nine pay raises in that time.

So the AFL-CIO union movement is working state by state to urge lawmakers to increase their states’ minimum wage—or, if necessary, mobilizing to get enough signatures for ballot initiatives that would take the case for raising the minimum wage directly to voters.

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says if Democrats win control of the Congress this fall, one of the first items on their agenda will be raising the minimum wage.

Until then, House Democrats are moving to bring a minimum wage bill to the floor that Republican leaders repeatedly have blocked. The legislation (H.R. 2429) introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) would raise the rate to $7.25 an hour over two years. Because the bill has been blocked, backers need a “discharge petition,” which requires the signatures of 218 House members.

Click here to urge your representative to sign the petition.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced the Senate version (S. 1062), and you can click here to become a citizen co-sponsor.

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