in these outlying areas. No jobs, no decent standard of living, and just plain hard to make it. Take it from a life long Missourian. There are lots to recommend about Missouri, but there's still a lot of work to do in these rural areas. Thing is, w/ the lack of jobs and training for skills in needed areas, a lot of rural areas in MO kind of ask for these problems of drugs and so forth. They are not offering their younger populations anything, who can't make it on the wages offered flipping hamburgers (if they are any such places open anymore).
We have unparalleled natural resources and scenic forests, note Branson is in this area. But the pitfalls are a republican controlled legislature that fights efforts to increase the minimum wage, evidenced by the legislature's successful efforts to roll back minimum wage increases in both KCMO and STLMO. Low wages hurt the state in many efforts to gain meaningful wages in a constantly uphill battle to not slide into bankruptcy or worse, and live on the fringes of society. I blame a lot of factory workers and lots of places that require lots of minimum wage employees to make it, such as Branson, and other attractions that could only survive if they paid only minimum wages.
One thing, that resulted as a result of the legislature rolling back higher minimum wages is that proposition B has been placed on the upcoming Nov. 2018 Missouri elections to pass a higher state minimum wage by the year 2023.
A shame and disgrace by republican Missouri legislators to help the state's workers out. Also, blame should not fall on the legislators. Lots of retirees move to MO for the low cost of living. Thus, efforts to ensure higher wages are constantly being fought against. If you can't get good wages, you can't attract good workers and thus, it gets to be a never ending cycle. And it is coming back to bite these retirees. They constantly complain that they can't find workers, especially in the health field (and of course other areas are impacted too), and thus retirees can't find any workers to mow their yards, to clean their houses, to help w/ chores around the house and/or farm, or anything else.
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