Fast food and other low-wage workers and faith leaders today urged the city council to move forward with a minimum wage increase.
In a rally in front of city hall, workers asked the council to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. A citizen group and the council are studying the matter and the council is expected to vote on July 16.
Speaking at the rally, Rev. Stan Runnels of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church said people can’t live on the current minimum wage and it’s exploitive. At a time when Kansas City is being heralded nationally as a great place to live, he said, “thousands of our citizens exist in the shadows of hopelessness.”
After the event, some local fast food workers headed to Detroit for a convention of cooks and cashiers from across the country.
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