By Kacen Bayless
Kansas City Star, August 22, 2024. Also Yahoo News
While other business owners have complained about finding people who want to work, Mike Schroeder says he has not had that problem. Schroeder co-owns Oddly Correct, a 20-employee coffee shop along Troost Avenue. He pays his employees $19 an hour or more — well above the state’s minimum wage of $12.30 an hour.
“If we think that every person actually has value, then we need to, at the very least, provide people who are working a full time job with the means to support themselves and their family without having to have multiple jobs,” he said.
Schroeder is now one of dozens of Kansas City area business owners lining up behind an effort to raise the state’s minimum wage and guarantee paid sick leave for workers even as some lawmakers criticize the proposal.
Missouri voters will decide on the measure, called Proposition A, on Nov. 5 ... It would gradually raise the minimum wage from $12.30 an hour to $15 an hour in 2026.
More than 450 small businesses across the state have backed the effort, including more than 100 from Kansas City, Raytown, Independence, Gladstone, Platte City, Liberty and Belton. Supporters say the measure would provide workers with livable wages and boost the area’s economy. A national network of businesses called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage is supporting the campaign with signatures ranging from Kansas City-based clothing store Charlie Hustle to Schroeder’s Oddly Correct. ...
For Schroeder, with Oddly Correct, stability for workers means stability for businesses. Instead of blaming young people for not wanting to work, he said there needs to be an environment for people to actually invest themselves into.
“When employees have more purchasing power, they’re going to be spending it, you know, locally within their own communities and bolstering that local economy even more,” he said.
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