Minimum Wage Increases Upheld in Missouri, Arizona
April 2017 - In two unanimous decisions, the Supreme Courts in Missouri and Arizona have upheld recent voter-approved increases in minimum wage laws and dismissed challenges to those laws by various business and conservative organizations.
In St. Louis, voters approved a 2015 measure that would incrementally raise the city's minimum wage to $11 an hour by 2018. Business groups opposed implementation of the law, arguing that the state's minimum wage law, now set at $7.65 an hour,
could not be superseded by that of a local jurisdiction. They also argued that the possibility of hundreds of differing minimum wages throughout the state could lead to confusion. The Missouri high court unanimously disagreed, saying the state's law set a floor, not a ceiling for minimum wages.
(Missouri Supreme Court Justices - image from ktrs.com)
Unfortunately, the far right, who largely opposes even the concept of a minimum wage and who now controls the Missouri state legislature, is crafting new legislation to try and overturn the St. Louis minimum wage increase. With former Democratic Governor Jay Nixon term-limited and a new Republican Governor
in office (pro-gun Democrat Chris Koster having been defeated last fall), the legislature probably will get their bill signed into law. We'll then have to see how the courts view that one.
In Arizona, voters passed Proposition 206 last November, which raised the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour starting the beginning of this year and mandated paid sick leave for most businesses by the middle of the year. Business groups also opposed implementation of
this law. They argued that, because the state would have to pay the higher minimum wage to its Medicaid contractors, the law needed to have specified where that funding would come from. In a brief opinion, the Arizona Supreme Court said no to this argument and let the law stand. It promised more details on its thinking in the future.
|
