To the editor:
Voting Yes for Proposition B on Nov. 6 will reward folks making less than $12/hour. The measure will raise the minimum wage to $8.60 in 2019; $9.45 in 2020; $10.30 in 2021; $11.15 in 2022; and $12.00 in 2023. Lower income workers deserve the raise. The purchasing power of the current $7.85 per hour minimum wage is less than it was in 1968.
In Arkansas the minimum is $8.50 per hour and Walmart didn’t move their headquarters or shut down Supercenters. And do you think minimum wage has anything to do with why big companies raising prices? Companies raise prices because they can. As an example, in September 2018 the small Missouribased drug company Nostrum Laboratories raised the price of a bottle of their nitrofurantoin anti-biotic from $474.75 to $2,392 because their CEO said the company had an obligation to make a bigger profit.
Raising the minimum wage will have a trickle up effect, low-income workers will have more money to spend at local businesses. If Proposition B passes, in 2019 alone, a full-time minimum wage worker will have $1,500 more to spend.
Minimum wage workers and families are struggling, so share this information about Prop B with anyone who would benefit. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 10. Register online at the Missouri secretary of state website. Google “how to register to vote in Missouri.” No internet access? Go to the library. Vote Yes for Prop. B and show that a Missouri worker is valued like in Arkansas.
EARL FULLER, WILLOW SPRINGS