The governor has called a special session next week for the legislature to debate the largest income tax cut in Missouri’s history. The governor’s proposal would:  Reduce the top rate of income tax from the current 5.3% to 4.8%. Increase the standard deduction by $2,000 for single filers and $4,000 for joint filers. Eliminate the...Read More

This past spring, as the school year was winding down, nonprofits across the country began working on plans to implement their summer feeding programs for kids. Planning was harder than usual though, as nonprofits were unsure what this summer would look like. The waivers that were put into place in March 2020 in light of...Read More

Empower Missouri is an organization with a storied history and deep roots in Missouri.  Founded in 1901, we’ve been advocating for the people of this state for over 120 years.  The organization has operated under four different names, under at least a dozen Executive Directors, and through the leadership of hundreds of board members and...Read More

Our team is growing!  If you are a regular reader of our newsletter, you may have noticed that we’ve hired a number of new staff members over the course of the last few months– and we haven’t even finished announcing all of our new teammates! This hiring spree is part of our strategic growth plan that...Read More

We knew going into the legislative session that it would be a wild year. Unfortunately, wild years where very little gets done has become the normal legislative process in Missouri. It wasn’t designed to be this way. However, partisan infighting, electoral maps designed to favor one party, distrust in government and an overall breakdown in...Read More

This session, five bills have been filed pertaining to funding for the Kansas City Police Department.  For those who are not familiar with the issue, here’s a quick primer.  The Situation in KC Kansas City is the only municipality in Missouri that doesn’t currently have control of its own police department.  Under Missouri statute, the...Read More

In 2018, Missourians resoundingly passed a phased increase to the minimum wage to $12/hour over five years. When the bill passed, it was estimated that 600,000 Missourians would benefit from an increase in their wages, meaning that around 15 percent of Missouri adults were making the minimum wage.  The plan called for wages to rise...Read More

Beginning in January 2022, Empower Missouri is proud to announce that we’ll be joining The Right Time Initiative as a community mobilization partner.  The Right Time is a multi-year initiative, funded by Missouri Foundation for Health, that is based on the simple belief that everyone should have the opportunity to pursue the future they want,...Read More

Since 1901, the pinnacle of Empower Missouri’s work each year has been its Annual Conference. In fact, for the first decade, that was the bulk of Empower Missouri’s (then called the Missouri State Conference on Charities & Corrections) work. Once a year, advocates gathered together to discuss the state of affairs in Missouri and make...Read More

Last week, the beleaguered Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an opinion piece in reaction to a news story that 200 detainees facing federal charges have been bussed to out-of-state jails following the closure of the St. Louis Medium Security Institution, colloquially known as The Workhouse. The Editorial Board posits that these “inmates”...Read More