Kansas City workers might soon see their wages go up.
On Thursday, the Kansas City Council voted 8-4 in favor of raising the city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2023.
“It is a victory,” said Reverend Sam Mann.
Since 2015, Mann has helped lead a grassroots movement to raise the city’s minimum wage.
“We feel very good about this, though the wages are still woefully inadequate for families to live off of. Imagine living off $20,000 a year for a family of four. There is no way to do that, not in this economy,” he said.
The ordinance, sponsored by councilman Quinton Lucas, will raise the city’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour by Sept. 18. Afterward, the minimum wage will gradually increase over time.
Minimum Wage in Kansas City
Current: $7.65
September 18, 2017: $8.50
January 1, 2019: $9.82
January 1, 2020: $10.96
January 1, 2021: $11.98
January 1, 2023: $13.00
“We had to settle for less than $15 an hour, but we successfully got an ordinance passed in city council that gets us ahead of what the state is trying to do,” said Mann. “Now we are on record. We have an ordinance here in Kansas City, Missouri that we are ready to challenge the state with.”
As city council debated and voted on raising the minimum wage, state lawmakers in Jefferson City quickly passed a bill in the House of Representatives that would prohibit cities from adopting minimum wages higher than what the state sets.
The bill passed the House Thursday with a 112-46 vote. It now goes to the Senate, whose leadership has vowed to make this bill their top priority. According an ‘emergency clause’ in the bill, if also passed by the Senate and signed by the governor the measure will take effect immediately.
"It certainly does create a little bit of chaos if [businesses] establish themselves in a city, and the city increases the minimum wage and there is an incentive to leave,” said Patrick Tuohey of the Show-Me Institute.
Like many state lawmakers, Tuohey told 41 Action News the Show-Me Institute believes raising the minimum wage will create “unintended consequences.”
"Hiking it so dramatically over a period of time, almost doubling it, will mean businesses in Kansas City may go to Kansas where the wage will be much lower or closer. The businesses that stay in Missouri will offer higher wages to fewer people,” he said.
Lawmakers against cities, like Kansas City, adopting their own ordinances have also argued it will create confusion within the state.
Still, Mann and his group believe there is more work to be done and are prepared to fight the state should it pass the bill. The group still plans on having its citizen-driven petition to raise the minimum wage to $15 on the August ballot.
"We are ready now and prepared,” said Mann.
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Ariel Rothfield can be reached at Ariel.Rothfield@KSHB.com.
