KCK Raises Minimum Wage

Kansas City, KS – Many employees in Kansas City, Kansas can expect an increase in their paychecks next week. Wyandotte County Commissioners unanimously approved a citywide minimum wage hike at a board meeting last night.

The ordinance raises the minimum wage to $6.55 an hour. It also indexes it, so that it's always the same as the federal minimum wage. Reverend Mark Holland is one of the Wyandotte County Commissioners who submitted the ordinance. He says the board started considering it after the state failed to raise its minimum wage earlier this year.

Holland: The Kansas minimum wage, of the 45 states who have a minimum wage, is the lowest at 2.65 an hour, which by any estimation is an embarrassment.

Holland also says the majority of employees in Kansas City, Kansas already fall under federal minimum wage guidelines. But he says the new ordinance will affect some 1700 residents who currently make state minimum wage.