This is a guest post by Mike Louis of the Missouri AFL-CIO and Sean Soendker Nicholson of Progress Missouri. 

Ever wondered what keeps payday lenders and the CEOs who pay poverty wages up at night? It’s not the 1,950% interest rates they’re allowed to charge Missourians on payday loans, or how the employees who make them rich are able to survive on $290 a week.  

Here in Missouri, we know what terrifies the payday lending companies and corporations who want to keep paying poverty wages: It’s the convergence of faith, community, student and labor organizations who collected 350,000 signatures in the past 18 months to cap the rate on predatory loans and give minimum wage-earning workers a raise.