Good news for Missouri employers. For the first time in four years, the state’s minimum wage will not rise automatically in 2016.
Voters decided in 2006 that the wage floor should be adjusted annually for inflation, and that has meant a modest increase most years. In 2015, Missouri’s minimum wage rose 15 cents to $7.65 an hour.
The adjustment is determined by each July’s reading of the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, or CPI-W for short. The federal Labor Department announced that the CPI-W fell 0.3 percent between July 2014 and July 2015.
Missouri law says the minimum wage can decrease when inflation is negative, but the CPI-W didn’t fall quite enough for that to happen. A 0.3 percent reduction would take the minimum down to $7.627, and rounding to the nearest nickel keeps it at $7.65.
All employers subject to the state minimum wage need to post information about the law and its provisions in a conspicuous place at their business. The Division of Labor Standards has created a poster for that purpose. You can also get a poster in Spanish. Contact the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations at www.DOLIR.com to acquire the posters.
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