Posts tagged Minimum wage
Commentary: Mamdani Misreads What Gig Workers Want
May 21, 2026 // Arranged scheduling cuts directly against what gig workers value most: flexibility. More than 60 percent cite it as the main reason they chose this work, and few are interested in traditional, prescheduled jobs. They’re also more concerned about the lack of benefits than about wage rates. These realities underscore the wrongheadedness of Mamdani’s anti-gig campaign. A better approach would preserve flexible hours while expanding access to benefits. One promising model is a portable benefits system, in which workers and companies contribute to SEP IRA–style accounts that can be used to purchase health insurance, paid leave, or retirement plans. Numerous states—red and blue alike, from Tennessee to Maryland to Pennsylvania—have enacted portable-benefits systems for gig workers in recent years.
New York City Unions Keep Winning Six-Figure Salaries
May 21, 2026 // Business owners say the wage increases will raise prices for consumers, with higher hotel bills and healthcare costs. In its negotiations, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority argued that the wage increases that Long Island Rail Road unions were asking for would lead to higher fares or increased borrowing. Labor economists and union supporters said union victories in New York City could be hard to replicate elsewhere, but across the country unions have been flexing a bit more muscle in recent years. And other workers, struggling to keep up with rising costs, could take notice.
Employees of DC Paint-Your-Own Pottery Studio Vote to Unionize
May 14, 2026 // The employees of the Cleveland Park paint-your-own pottery studio All Fired Up have voted to unionize. The staffers began a campaign to formally unionize in early April, and they voted to do so during a National Labor Relations Board election Monday. The decision was unanimous, staffer Toni Lewis tells Washingtonian. “Unionization gives us a formal role in shaping policy and process,” the employees’ organizing committee’s members—who said staffers were inspired by similar efforts at Crumbs and Whiskers cat cafe in Georgetown and Aslin Beer Company—wrote in a statement. “As a small business without HR, we need a way to advocate for our needs.”
Unions and billionaires pour cash into SQ 832—and call it ‘compassion’
May 12, 2026 // The National Education Association (NEA), which regularly supports all sorts of left-wing causes, has donated half a million dollars to support SQ 832. This is the same organization that advocated for taxpayer funding of abortion, advised teachers to hide information from parents regarding their students’ sexuality, opposed efforts to protect girls’ sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms from use by the opposite sex, and proposed removing police officers from schools in the name of racial justice. Other financial supporters include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE).
How a $15 minimum wage will regionally affect a diverse and unequal Virginia
April 28, 2026 // The age-old economic debate over minimum wage has been a sticking point between Republicans and Democrats in the Old Dominion, as Youngkin called the $15 minimum wage proposal a "one-size-fits-all mandate" that "ignores the vast economic and geographic differences," in his veto memo last year. "Implementing an arbitrary $15-per-hour wage mandate may not impact Northern Virginia, where economic conditions lead to historically higher wages, but this approach is detrimental for small businesses across the rest of Virginia, especially in Southwest and Southside," Youngkin wrote.
California’s wage experiment offers warning as Oklahoma weighs SQ 832
April 23, 2026 // These outcomes are consistent with broader trends in California, where years of increasing minimum wages have coincided with declining youth employment and rising prices. Similar patterns have emerged in states like Oregon and Washington. Meanwhile, Oklahoma has taken a different path, one that has allowed wages to grow while keeping costs relatively stable, helping position the state in the top 10 in the nation for attracting younger workers. California’s experience should give all Oklahomans pause. What may be a well-intentioned policy doesn’t produce the outcomes anyone wants—fewer hours, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for the very people it is supposed to help.
Thousands of Harvard University graduate students go on strike
April 21, 2026 // Their demands include fair pay and raises that keep up with inflation, protections for non-citizen workers, and external processes with third-party arbitration for cases of harassment, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. HGSU is made up of 4,000 workers.
Op-ed: Chicago’s Minimum-Wage Retreat
March 23, 2026 // Chicago’s distressed dining scene—recently described as “on the brink of collapse”—was bolstered by good news last week, as the City Council voted to halt future increases in the minimum wage for servers and bartenders. This is a setback for progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson, who counts the wage hike as one of his administration’s few accomplishments. But it’s good news for Chicagoans. Chicago’s wage woes date to 2023, when Mr. Johnson made raising the tipped minimum wage an early priority after being elected. It was an unusual choice: Servers and bartenders already earn more than minimum wage, especially in Chicago, where a typical restaurant worker reportedly earns nearly $30 an hour between the lower base wage and tips.
What a possible $25 D.C. minimum wage could mean for the region’s restaurant industry
March 11, 2026 // In D.C., Clower believes a significantly higher minimum wage would have a “net negative impact on employment.” He pointed to factors like federal worker and contractor reductions, immigration actions and waning tourism already hitting the restaurant and hospitality industries hard. “All of these other things have been hitting particularly restaurants and some of the other hospitality sectors who on average pay minimum wage already, and this is just going to be something else that will drive some of them out of business,”
Karen Bass’ $30 per hour mandate for hotel workers sends shockwaves through the industry forcing job cuts and restaurant closures
March 8, 2026 // Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is getting backlash after signing a gradual wage hike for hotel workers into law, with a new report claiming the measure has already begun ravaging the industry. The report found that 650 workers have lost their jobs and restaurants have closed or reduced their operating hours since September when the new wage structure took effect. The law requires hotels in the city to increase the minimum wage for workers to $30 an hour in light of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.