RELEASE: As Labor Day approaches, candidates continue to turn their backs on working families

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024
Contact: liz@progressmo.org

Where Missouri candidates stand issues important to working families

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – While many Missourians plan to celebrate Labor Day with barbecues and enjoy the last few days of Summer, for working families Labor Day is a reminder of the ways candidates have ignored them.

In the past 20 years, Missouri legislators have sold out working families by siding with large corporations and extreme CEOs. Missourians have been forced to raise their own wages, protect the state from so-called “Right to Work” laws, and fight back against corporate greed. 

Here are a few ways that candidates running for the Missouri State Senate have turned their backs on working families: 

Jerry Nolte, candidate for State Senate District 17 in North Kansas City, voted to lower Missouri’s minimum wage, overturning the will of the voters in 2008. With a minimum wage increase on the ballot again this year, voters are afraid of history repeating itself.

In 2015, the City of St. Louis passed an ordinance to raise the minimum wage; however, David Gregory, running for State Senate District 15 in west St. Louis County, voted to preempt that law lowering the minimum wage for City employees and taking money out of their pockets. 

James Coyne, running for State Senate District 19 in Boone County, openly mocks working families and families demanding higher wages implying they are freeloaders and dig through the trash. 

Adam Schnelting, candidate for State Senate District 23 in St. Charles, voted against the Federal Reimbursement Allowance (FRA), SB784, to assist local hospitals in providing care for low income families. WIthout the FRA, Missouri would face a $1.5 billion budget deficit leaving thousands of families struggling to find health care. 

Working families keep our state running. A full-time minimum wage worker in Missouri currently makes less than $25,000 a year. Our economy and legislators should reward hard work and not punish people by making it impossible to pay for food, housing and other basics.

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