Missouri Ballot Victory Proves It Pays to be Bold

Taney County, Missouri sits at the southern tip of the state and counts fewer than 100,000 residents within its borders. The rural county had never supported a ballot measure of its kind before organizers in support of Prop A — a pro-worker ballot initiative — invested in the county in 2024.

Our grantee, Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement (MOVE), alongside Missouri Jobs with Justice and the Missouri Workers Center showed their commitment to making lasting change in rural Missouri. They organized drive-thru signature-gathering events, placed opinion pieces and letters to the editor in local news outlets, knocked on numerous doors, mailed postcards, presented at union meetings and church fish fries, and tabled at county parades and festivals. In the end, Taney was among 21 rural Missouri counties that voted in support of Prop A, helping the measure to secure passage with a definitive 15 points.

Workers Went Big

With the passage of Prop A, Missouri workers raised the minimum wage to $13.75 in 2025 and to $15 an hour in 2026. They also secured paid sick leave protections for the first time, allowing employees to earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

Opponents of the worker movement cautioned MOVE and partners against asking for too much at once. But the workers went all in, packaging both ambitious worker priorities into the single ballot initiative.

They knew from years of organizing and listening to communities that economic populist, worker-first policy had broad appeal. And the success of Prop A, which eclipsed all of the statewide candidates in popularity at the ballots, demonstrated the strength of the Missouri model.

"When rural people have a seat at the policy-making table," wrote Executive Director Sarah Jaynes of the ballot initiative victory, "we build an economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down."

Ready for the Next Round

The fight to fairly treat workers in Missouri isn't over. When state policymakers voted to repeal the paid sick portion of the measure in August 2025, the base that MOVE and others had built throughout the ballot initiative campaign pushed back in a powerful way. Thousands of Missourians poured into the State Capitol on September 10, 2025 to oppose an insidious new effort to redistrict and hamper ballot measures.

Theirs was a meaningful illustration of the power of economic policy that uplifts all of us. Missouri workers are empowered knowing they have already won, and they're prepared to double down on this popular platform again. In the Show Me State, workers showed the country that going big and bold is an approach that works.

[Story originally published in the Rural Policy Action Report]