History

• On Nov. 7, 2006, 76 percent of Missouri voters approved an immediate statewide increase in the minimum wage as well as an automatic annual increase linked to the Consumer Price Index to assure that the new minimum wage would keep pace with inflation. The Missouri minimum wage law took effect Jan. 1, 2007, raising the state minimum from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour. In January 2008, the minimum wage rose to $6.65, and in January 2009, to $7.05. In July of that same year, it went up to $7.25.
  
  

Exceptions

• Retail or service employers whose businesses gross less than $500,000 annually are not legally required to pay the state minimum wage. Those employers may pay their workers at their own discretion. Federally-covered employment is also exempt from the Missouri minimum wage law. Employees who receive tips, such as hosts and waitresses, must only be paid $3.625 an hour, or half the state minimum wage. But if those employees do not make up the other half of their compensation in tips, their employers are required to pay the difference.
  
  

Overtime

• Employers are required to pay their workers time-and-a-half for all hours worked per week worked beyond 40 hours. As of April 2010, the Missouri overtime wage was $10.88 an hour.
  
  

Federal Minimum Wage

• As of April 2010, the federal minimum wage was $7.25, the same as Missouri's minimum wage.
  
  

Legal Implications

• Employers are required to keep detailed records of their employees' names, addresses, job descriptions, rates of pay, hours worked and wages paid. These records must be kept for at least three years and made available upon request to the Missouri Division of Labor Standards.
  
  If an employer fails to pay a worker the legally mandated minimum wage, she is liable under the law for the full amount of wages owed and an additional equal amount for damages. She may also be liable for the plaintiff's legal fees, as determined by the court.