A clarification on minimum wage law

The federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25 per hour. Our Missouri minimum wage is adjusted based on the Consumer Price Index, and now stands at $7.70 per hour.

This week, the House dealt with a minimum wage issue not regarding the amount of the minimum wage, but whether individual towns and cities could set their own minimum wages different from the state’s minimum wage.

Recently, a Missouri Supreme Court decision invalidated part of Missouri’s minimum wage law which had been passed in 1998. In response, to keep life consistent for employers and employees, the House moved quickly to implement a fix that would provide a consistent wage in municipalities throughout the state.

Through HB1194, House members approved legislation this week that would reaffirm the state’s minimum wage is applied throughout Missouri, and keep the decision to raise wages in the hands of the employer and employee.

In the period of recent months when the law was murky, St. Louis had recently passed an ordinance to raise its minimum wage to $10 an hour this year and $11 an hour by 2018. The legislation approved by the House would preempt and nullify the minimum wage enacted by St. Louis, and provide that other municipalities cannot enact a minimum wage that exceeds the one established by state law.

Supporters say the bill will ensure it is not illegal for an employer to hire someone in accordance with the state minimum wage. They say the legislation approved by the House will protect job creators from being turned into criminals.

They also note that a mandated increase in payroll would force businesses to either raise prices or cut costs by reducing the size of their workforce. In addition, they say it’s important to have a consistent minimum wage across the state rather than an inconsistent patchwork of wages that vary from municipality to municipality.

We spent more floor debate time on this one bill than any other so far this year. The discussion drew long because those against the bill frequently steered the debate to what the minimum wage should be set.

Arguments were offered on both sides of that issue, one stating that raising the minimum wage would put more money in the pockets of low end workers, and another stating that raising the minimum wage would increase costs on employers forcing them to lay off the least skilled of the low-skilled workers, and raise prices on customers.

Eventually though, the debate was redirected back to the real language of the bill, which established that our state will have only one minimum wage rate. The total debate time over two days was about four hours.

Lastly, normally bills will officially become law on Aug. 28 of the year they are passed. But due to the time sensitive nature of the issue, and the potential disruption and confusion both businesses and workers would suffer without immediate action, HB1194 was passed with an Emergency Clause, which means it will go into effect immediately after it is passed in the Senate and signed by the governor.