Missouri votes to raise minimum wage, enshrine paid sick leave

Missouri voters approved a statewide ballot initiative to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and require private employers to provide paid sick leave.

Proposition A had about 58% of the vote as of 1:18 a.m., according to the Associated Press. Supporters of the measure declared victory Tuesday night.

This is the third time Missouri voters have raised the minimum wage, following hikes in 2006 and 2018.

Under Proposition AMissouri’s minimum wage will increase in January 2025 from $12.30 an hour to $13.75. It will reach $15 per hour in January 2026 and will be adjusted annually thereafter for inflation.

Fran Marion has been in the fast food industry for over 20 years. At the Prop A party in downtown Kansas City, she said the initiative’s passage represents the decade “Fight for 15 inches movement.

“$15 is just the minimum price,” Marion said. “This will help us get to a point where we can survive a little more. Paid sick leave allows us not to have to choose between going to work sick or not working. Before I become an employee, I am a human being and should be treated as such.”

Missouri Previously Didn’t Require Employers to Provide Sick Leave—Now It’s Joined 18 other states and Washington, D.C. at the same time.

Paid sick leave will be available to existing employees beginning May 1, 2025. Employers must provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

Employees of companies with fewer than 15 employees can earn up to five days a year while those who work in businesses with more than 15 employees can earn up to seven days a year.

Government agencies, school districts and educational institutions are exempt from the new minimum wage. The sick leave law also does not apply to government employees, retail or service workers who work in a business earning less than $500,000 a year, nannies and others.

Proposal A was placed on the Missouri ballot through an initiative petition process and with support from the group Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages.

Terrence Wise organized with Stand up copa coalition of low-wage workers that has been pushing for higher wages for more than a decade. He says the initiative petition process saved the $15 minimum wage after Missouri lawmakers forestalled a similar wage increase in 2018.

“We showed the rest of the world, the rest of the country, that no matter what happens outside of our state, we are capable of coming together and winning,” Wise said. “We, as everyday Missourians, felt like we had the power to come together and make our lives better.”

Opponents of this measure, such as Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industryargued that Proposition A would make it difficult to pay wages and keep employees on board.

Supporters of the ballot measure said raising the minimum wage and sick days would benefit thousands of low-wage workers across the state and lift them out of poverty.

Jeanie Kastrup, president of the Service Employees International Union (Local 1), said the victory will change the lives of thousands of union workers in Missouri.

“No worker should have to choose between their health and getting paid,” Kastrup said at a party in Kansas City. “This is long overdue, but I am so proud of those who never stopped fighting.”

A full-time employee earning Missouri’s previous minimum wage of $12.30 would bring in $492 per week before taxes. Once Proposition A takes effect and reaches $15 per hour in 2026, that same employee will earn $600 per week before taxes.