Posts tagged Minimum wage
Trump’s Labor Department proposes more than 60 rule changes in a push to deregulate workplaces
July 22, 2025 // The U.S. Department of Labor is aiming to rewrite or repeal more than 60 “obsolete” workplace regulations, ranging from minimum wage requirements for home health care workers and people with disabilities to standards governing exposure to harmful substances.
Commentary California’s $20 Minimum Wage Is a Cautionary Tale for Los Angeles’ Olympic-Sized Wage Hike
July 22, 2025 // In a classic case of central planning, lawmakers in Los Angeles passed a bill in May to bring the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 by 2028, while also imposing a new $8.25 per hour mandatory health care contribution. Implementation of that bill is currently on hold as the city clerk reviews the signatures of a referendum petition that would bring the bill to a public vote in June 2026. Los Angeles’ sector-specific wage hike follows on the heels of California’s statewide $20 minimum wage mandate for fast-food workers that went into effect in April 2024. The consequences of that wage hike on the fast-food industry should be a warning sign to Los Angeles, especially as it prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. Crucial to the success of those Olympic games will be the capability of the city’s hotels and its Los Angeles International Airport to serve an estimated 15 million visitors.
California’s fast-food minimum wage is super-sizing job losses
July 15, 2025 // The damage for California doesn’t stop at job losses, as CEI has noted previously. The vast majority of California’s fast-food workers, 89 percent, have had their work hours reduced. Another 35 percent have seen their supplemental benefits reduced. Customers suffer as well. Menu prices for Golden State restaurants rose 14.5 percent between September 2023 and December 2024, nearly double the national rate of 8.2 percent for restaurants. Prices jumped 3 percent in the month after the minimum wage hike went into effect. Americans across all income groups eat fast food, but the core consumers are low-income families according to the Morning Consult. Any price increase is going to hit them the hardest.
Los Angeles tourism industry and labor unions brawl ahead of 2028 Olympics
July 1, 2025 // After the city council passed a $30 minimum wage law in late May for workers in the airline, hotel and hospitality industries, a group of business interests — signed by players in the local hospitality industry and funded by major airlines and industry groups like Delta, United and the American Hotel & Lodging Association — launched a referendum effort to challenge the new law. “We’re giving everything we have to make this business work, to claw out of the hole that was created by COVID,” said Greg Plummer, a referendum proponent who runs a 250-employee concession company at LAX. “Our airports are still down substantially in traffic. Tourism is completely down, and the fires didn’t help … it gets to a point where it’s going to crumble a lot of small businesses.”
$30 Minimum Wage Has L.A. Hotel Owners in Revolt
June 24, 2025 // Now, hotel owners have to contend with what local union leaders say will be the highest minimum wage in the country. The city council voted last month to boost the wage for workers in hotels with 60 rooms or more. Hourly pay, currently $20.32, will increase every year until it reaches $30 in 2028. The industry is mounting an effort to roll back the new minimum-wage law. Los Angeles hotel owners are petitioning to suspend the city’s new ordinance, and several hotel owners have also threatened to pull out of agreements to provide blocks of rooms during the Olympic Games. Some hoteliers say they were already eager to exit L.A., if only they could find an offramp. “We would love to sell” our L.A. hotels, said Jon Bortz, chief executive of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, which owns two hotels in the city and seven more in the L.A. area. “But nobody will buy them.”
Wisconsin gig workers could become independent contractors under bill headed to governor’s desk
June 19, 2025 // Drivers for transit apps like Uber or DoorDash would be given more flexibility, but they'd also be exempt from worker's compensation or minimum wage requirements
Florida’s minimum wage will soon go up
June 18, 2025 // The state minimum wage set to rise from $13 per hour to $14 per hour in September. It will go up to $15 per hour in September 2026. This comes amid a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. That bipartisan proposal is gaining traction in Washington. Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is working on the legislation with Democratic U.S. Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont.
Sen. Hawley Introduces Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $15
June 10, 2025 // Some business advocacy groups still oppose minimum rate hikes, including Hawley's proposed bill. "This proposal would more than double the minimum wage and slash over 800,000 jobs," Rebekah Paxton, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, said in a statement to The Hill. "An overwhelming majority of economists agree that drastic minimum wage hikes cut employment, limit opportunities for workers and shutter businesses."
LA lost 11K hotel jobs in 2024, new $38.35 minimum wage risks more, group says
June 6, 2025 // According to an April report from the American Hotel and Lodging Association, LA ranks last among major U.S. cities in post-COVID recovery, and with current visitor levels at just 79% of what they were in 2019. A CUF analysis of state data found the city lost 11,000 hotel jobs in 2024 as a result, and warned in a full-page advertisement on Thursday, the day before an anticipated final vote approving the new wage and benefit ordinance, that “this new proposal will kill more jobs and raise costs for visitors.”
Restaurant owners, workers hold competing rallies over potential repeal of Initiative 82
June 5, 2025 // Wednesday, business owners and workers held competing rallies outside the Wilson Building, as the D.C. Council considers the fate of Initiative 82. Initiative 82 was passed in November of 2022 and implemented the following Spring. The voter-backed law eliminates the tipped minimum wage by gradually raising wages over the next several years. But that law is now in question, as Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing I-82 under her 2026 budget.