St. Louis’ minimum wage is decreasing by 22%

Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly stated that the minimum wage is set to decline by 17%, rather than 22%.

Minimum wages are generally marching higher in states and cities across the U.S., but the wage floor in St. Louis is set to fall from $10 to $7.80 later this summer. That’s after a Republican-controlled state legislature voted to make illegal a city-wide minimum wage law that went into effect 10 weeks ago.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch chats with employers in the city, most of whom say they will cut the pay of workers they had raised just 10 weeks before. But some, even those who opposed the higher minimum initially, can’t bring themselves to do it.

Why it’s unusual: Few ideas poll better than raising the minimum wage, and the issue has had particular success in state and city legislatures and the voting booth in recent years. Watch to see if Missouri is the movement’s high-water market…..

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