On May 14, 2025, the Missouri Senate voted 22-11 to repeal portions of Proposition A, the voter-approved initiative that increases the state’s minimum wage and requires employers to provide earned paid sick leave.
The legislation repeals two key pieces of Proposition A:
- The earned paid sick time requirement, which requires employers to provide employees with one hour of earned paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, took effect on May 1.
- The increase to the state’s minimum wage based on inflation and a rise in the cost of living.
Employers who implemented policy changes to meet the paid sick leave requirements now will face the choice of rolling those changes back or leaving them in place.
Although Missouri’s minimum wage increased on January 1 of this year and will again increase at the beginning of 2026, these minimum wage increases were not set to increase based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) until 2027. Accordingly, the increases to minimum wage this year and again in 2026 remain unchanged.
Proposition A passed in November 2024 but has faced significant legislative and legal challenges. For instance, several entities brought a lawsuit, alleging the statute violated the Missouri Constitution, among other things. However, on April 29, 2025, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled to uphold Proposition A in Raymond McCarty, et al. v. Missouri Secretary of State, et al., Case No. SC100876. See our earlier blogs on these issues here and here.
In the wake of the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling, Senate Republicans used a rare procedural move to force a vote on the legislation. The bill, passing unchanged through the Senate from the House, will now advance to Governor Kehoe’s desk, and he is expected to sign the legislation into law. If signed, the repeal will become effective on August 28, 2025. Until then, employers must continue to abide by the law as currently written.
