The Missouri minimum wage rate increased January 1, 2021, from $9.45 per hour to $10.30 per hour. On a forty hour work week, this is an additional $34 per week and $147 per month. Missouri law currently increases the minimum wage annually. The minimum wage hits $12.00 per hour on January 1, 2023. The statute requires that the Missouri minimum to be higher than the Federal minimum wage rate. The minimum wage increase does not apply to public employees. Further, the the increase does not apply to retail and service businesses with annual gross sales of less than $500,000. Finally, employees who receive tips must make $5.15 per hour plus any additional amount needed to equal at least $10.30 per hour. 

Minimum Wage Rate Study

In 2019, the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics published a study on minimum wage jobs in the United States for 2017. The following are highlights from the 2019 data:

Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about two-fifths of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 6 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 1 percent of workers age 25 and older. 

Gender. Among workers who were paid hourly rates in 2019, about 3 percent of women and about 1 percent of men had wages at or below the prevailing federal minimum.

Race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. The percentage of hourly paid workers with wages at or below the federal minimum differed little among the major race and ethnicity groups. About 2 percent of White, Asian, Black, and Hispanic workers earned the federal minimum wage or less. 

Education. Among hourly paid workers age 16 and older, about 3 percent of those without a high school diploma earned the federal minimum wage or less, compared with 2 percent of those who had a high school diploma (with no college), 2 percent of those with some college or an associate degree, and about 1 percent of college graduates. 

Marital status. Among workers paid an hourly wage, those who were never married (who tend to be young) were more likely than married workers to earn the federal minimum wage or less (about 3 percent versus 1 percent). 

Full- and part-time status. About 5 percent of part-time workers (people who usually work fewer than 35 hours per week) were paid the federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 1 percent of full-time workers.

Occupation. Among major occupational groups, service occupations had the highest percentage of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage, at about 6 percent. Just under three-fourths of workers earning the minimum wage or less in 2019 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and serving related jobs. 

Industry. The industry with the highest percentage of workers earning hourly wages at or below the federal minimum wage was leisure and hospitality (about 10 percent). About three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, almost entirely in restaurants and other food services. For many of these workers, tips may supplement the hourly wages received.

State of residence. The states with the highest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the minimum wage were in the South: South Carolina (about 5 percent), Louisiana (about 5 percent), and Mississippi (4 percent). The states with the lowest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage were in the West or Midwest: California, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, and Washington (all were less than 1 percent). It should be noted that more than half of states have minimum wages that exceed the federal minimum. 

Business Law Lawyers

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