Sometimes, what sounds good on paper doesn’t actually work in reality.
That’s the tough conclusion Missouri governor Eric Greitens came to after the city of St. Louis started increasing the minimum wage — first to $10 per hour, and with a scheduled rise to $11 in 2018. While that might sound great if you’re an entry-level worker in the retail or food service business, the truth of the matter is that wages are a huge cost for employers, and having to pay a higher hourly rate means not as many people can be hired.
As a worker, would you rather have a job that pays a little less money, or no job at all? That’s the reality that many in St. Louis were starting to face, and while cities and states in many other parts of the country are raising their minimum wage (in some cases to as high as $15 per hour), evidence is increasingly showing that this hurts businesses and forces them to make tough hiring decisions and/or decrease benefits to employees.
In Missouri, a new law will force St. Louis to match the rest of the state when it comes to the minimum wage, and believe it or not, this may be a good thing for workers. Find out more about the story in the video below.
