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minimum wage
Living Wage, Affordability Platforms Like Mamdani and Platner’s Have 'Major Electoral Advantage': Polls
Democratic leaders in recent months have refused to throw their support behind candidates who are centering affordability in their campaigns.
Oct 09, 2025
As One Fair Wage launched a new political action committee focused on electing candidates who will push for a true living wage that makes it possible for working people across the US to thrive, the coalition said two new surveys provide a "roadmap for 2026" for candidates and Democratic leaders who are willing to follow it.
The polls were conducted by Democratic polling firm Lake Research Partners on behalf of One Fair Wage (OFW) and the Living Wage for All Coalition, and found "overwhelming support for living wage policies in competitive swing districts and in major cities."
In 18 competitive congressional districts across the country, the first survey found that 55% of respondents supported raising the minimum wage for all workers to $25 per hour, even after being exposed to opposition messaging.
Latino voters showed the strongest support at 72%, along with people of color overall at 64%, women at 60%, and people under age 40 at 59%.
With grocery prices harder to afford than they were one year ago in many swing districts, as another poll showed last week, 56% of people said raising the minimum wage is a high or medium priority for them, including 71% of Democratic voters.
The firm also asked voters in major cities with high costs of living, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, whether they supported raising the minimum wage to $30 in those areas, and found similar results.
Two-thirds said they backed gradually raising the minimum wage for all workers to $30 per hour.
"Support is strongest among the very voters Democrats must mobilize to win in 2026 and 2028: Black voters (80%), Latino voters (73%), young voters under 40 (72%), and women (72%) all back the proposal," Lake Research Partners said.
"If Democrats don’t deliver, the right will continue to exploit the affordability crisis to divide working people. Delivering real affordability is how we restore trust—and how we save democracy.”
Support for the proposal was highest in New York City, where Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (D-36) has included a $30 minimum wage proposal as part of his mayoral campaign platform—one that's heavily focused on making the city more affordable for all New Yorkers.
Seventy-two percent of New Yorkers said they supported the proposal.
The polling comes as endorsements from lawmakers and advocacy groups that have long been aligned with the Democratic Party have piled up for Mamdani—and as powerful party leaders in New York including US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have continued to refuse to publicly support the democratic socialist.
Saru Jayaraman, president of OFW, warned that a failure to deliver on affordability and living wages before the midterm elections next year will make "saving democracy" from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party impossible.
"We represent 13.6 million restaurant workers in America," Jayaraman told Common Dreams. "And over the last nine months, they've repeatedly asked us: 'You want us to come to a rally on a Saturday to save democracy? I work three jobs and I earn $3 [an hour]. What has democracy done for me lately? Nothing.'"
Along with electing candidates who center living wages and affordability, Jayaraman said in a statement that delivering on the issue "means passing Living Wage for All legislation in every blue state next spring and ensuring no one is left behind."
"If Democrats don’t deliver, the right will continue to exploit the affordability crisis to divide working people," she said. "Delivering real affordability is how we restore trust—and how we save democracy.”
Joining OFW in launching the Make America Affordable Now PAC on Thursday are Democratic candidates who are centering affordability and living wages in their campaigns, including Minnesota state Sen. Omar Fateh (D-62), who is running for mayor of Minneapolis; Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson; and US Senate candidate Graham Platner of Maine.
Like Mamdani, Platner's candidacy has elicited excitement from progressives as he's spoken out against US support for Israel's assault on Gaza and the oligarchy that has seen billionaires like Trump megadonor Elon Musk amass more political power as working people struggle to afford healthcare, groceries, and other essentials. He has put forward a platform that calls to raise the federal minimum wage and index it to inflation.
But Democratic leaders have shown little enthusiasm for Platner's embrace of policies that would make life more affordable for Mainers—despite polls showing that such proposals could help him win a seat that's been held by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) since 1997.
Schumer has led a push for Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to enter the race instead of backing Platner, who in addition to backing broadly popular policies, has shown to be a formidable fundraiser—bringing in more than $4 million since announcing his candidacy in August.
On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who has endorsed Platner—denounced Democratic leaders for meddling in the race.
"It’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Gov. Mills to run," said Sanders. "We need to focus on winning that seat and not waste millions on an unnecessary and divisive primary."
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Report Details a Doubling of GOP-Led Attacks on Democracy in 2025
"While citizens are rightfully focused on the horror unfolding in Washington, extremist politicians are taking advantage of the moment," said the head of the Fairness Project.
Sep 10, 2025
As Missouri House Republicans on Tuesday advanced a congressional map rigged for the GOP and new limits for citizen initiative petitions, an advocacy group that promotes progressive policies via direct democracy revealed that "extremist" legislators across the United States "escalated their efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process in 2025 by 95%."
The Fairness Project has "won 39 ballot measures to raise wages, protect abortion rights, stop predatory payday lenders, expand healthcare access, secure more paid time off, and other life-changing policies for more than 23 million people." The group's new report, Direct Democracy Under Assault, details recent GOP moves to thwart such progress.
"During the 2023 legislative session, 76 bills were introduced that would restrict or undermine the ballot initiative process, which was until then the highest number on record," according to the report. "For further perspective, only 33 ballot measure attack bills were tracked in 2017, and a grand total of 377 bills attacking ballot measure processes were proposed by state legislatures in the 23-year span between 2000 and 2023. To see 148 in a single year, 2025, is an extreme acceleration."
"Lawmakers have not just been toying with the idea of undermining ballot measure processes; they've been passing these attacks into law," the publication emphasizes. "As of June 2025, 51 bills altering the ballot measure process had already passed state houses. For comparison, the annual average of enacted attacks on direct democracy between 2018 and 2023 was 34 enacted bills. Once again, 2025 is a troubling outlier."
"The erosion of our democracy isn't just happening in the Oval Office; it's happening in our home states when politicians attack the ballot measure process."
This year's GOP-led efforts to limit direct democracy at the state level come as Republican US President Donald Trump has returned to power and swiftly engaged in various attacks on democracy, from gutting the federal government—including the voting rights unit at the Department of Justice—to issuing a series of unconstitutional executive orders.
"While citizens are rightfully focused on the horror unfolding in Washington, extremist politicians are taking advantage of the moment and attacking the most powerful tools voters have at their disposal to make their voices heard," said Kelly Hall, the Fairness Project's executive director. "The erosion of our democracy isn't just happening in the Oval Office; it's happening in our home states when politicians attack the ballot measure process and replace the will of the voters with their own political agendas."
State legislators have pursued a range of attacks on the ballot measure process. The report notes that "one common tactic—used in states like Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas—is raising the threshold for passage to a supermajority, making it harder for citizen-led initiatives to succeed."
"Other strategies include increasing signature requirements, imposing strict rules on how and where signatures can be gathered, limiting what issues a ballot measure can address, and imposing high costs on advocates attempting to use their direct democracy rights," the document continues.
Hall stressed that "this isn't reform; it's a calculated effort to strip voters of their constitutional right to shape policy."
While the project tracked bills across 15 states, the report gives special attention to eight "where especially aggressive efforts threaten to significantly erode voters' access to direct democracy." They are Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.
In Arkansas, for example, during the 2025 legislative session alone, state lawmakers imposed burdensome rules on local initiatives, "criminalized small mistakes," passed restrictions on ballot language, gave the attorney general veto power over petitions, and more. The report says that "taken together, these laws represent a coordinated and deeply undemocratic
effort to strip power from Arkansas voters and insulate elected officials from direct public accountability."
The League of Women Voters of Arkansas is fighting back, and in April filed a federal lawsuit against eight new laws that David Couch, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said "weaponize bureaucracy to suppress citizen participation and violate the fundamental rights guaranteed by both the Arkansas and US Constitutions."
There's also litigation in Florida and Oklahoma, while in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah, voters will decide next year whether to raise the threshold for future constitutional amendments or citizen-initiated ballot measures from a simple majority to 60%.
"Every voter should be alarmed that politicians are systematically taking away our rights to make change through the ballot," said Hall. "This isn't a time to back down—in fact, these cowardly attacks only underscore the urgent need to defend ballot measures and, by extension, defend our democracy."
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Why Male Suicide Prevention Requires Policy, Not Just Awareness
On this Suicide Prevention Day, the question is whether we will stop treating male suicide as a seasonal headline and start treating it as a preventable epidemic.
Sep 10, 2025
Today is September 10, World Suicide Prevention Day. The hashtags are already out. Politicians are tweeting about “awareness.” Nonprofits are posting hotline numbers. News outlets will run a few stories, maybe a profile of a grieving family or a segment on rising youth anxiety. Communities will hold vigils and light candles. And then, as happens every September, Congress will return to debating budgets that cut the very services that keep people alive.
Suicide has become an annual ritual of shock, treated as if it were a hurricane that blew in unannounced instead of a slow-moving crisis we have been measuring for decades.
Suicide is not weather. It is not random. It is patterned, predictable, and preventable. Rates climb where jobs collapse and housing becomes unstable. They spread where guns are plentiful and mental healthcare is scarce. They grow in cultures that equate vulnerability with weakness. And they accelerate when elected officials strip away the programs that keep people from falling over the edge.
I know the consequences of silence. My father died by suicide when I was young. For more than a decade, I did not know how he died. My family believed silence could protect me. But silence also isolates, leaving questions that cannot be asked and grief that cannot be named. That fog never fully lifts. It is a reminder that behind every statistic is a family that carries loss forward, often without words for it.
That loss is now multiplied across nearly 50,000 American families each year. Almost 50,000 people died by suicide in 2022—the highest number ever recorded—and nearly 50,000 again in 2023. That is one death every 11 minutes. Three out of four were men. Men are half the country yet nearly 80% of its suicides. The rate for men over 85 is the highest of any group, 15 times higher than women of the same age. Middle-aged men follow close behind, especially in rural counties where work has dried up, institutions have withered, and guns are everywhere. Even among younger men, suicide remains a leading cause of death.
The methods matter. More than half of suicides now involve a firearm. Men are far more likely than women to use a gun, and that choice often makes the difference between an attempt and a death. A gun is immediate and almost always fatal. A moment of despair becomes permanent because the tool at hand was designed to be permanent. Where lethal means are easy and care is scarce, brief despair turns irreversible. States with higher gun ownership have higher suicide rates. The connection is not mysterious. It is arithmetic.
Suicide is not inevitable. It rises when supports are stripped and stigma is reinforced.
Economics tell the same story. Men who lose jobs, homes, or the ability to provide are at higher risk. One national study found that more than 1 in 5 men aged 45 to 64 who died by suicide had recently lost a job, faced eviction, or been buried by debt. When a man’s sense of worth is tied to being a provider, losing that role can feel like losing his reason to live. Economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton called these “deaths of despair,” and the label fits. But despair is not destiny. Raise the minimum wage, expand tax credits, stabilize housing, and suicides among working-class men decline. Let wages stagnate, strip away safety nets, and suicides rise. If despair tracks wages and rent, then budgets decide who lives long enough to get help.
Budgets are moral documents. In 2025, the Trump administration proposed cutting more than a billion dollars from the nation’s main mental health agency. That means fewer clinics, fewer treatment teams, fewer crisis counselors. The same budget threatened to scrap parts of the 988 crisis line, including its LGBTQ youth service. At the Department of Education, $1 billion in school counselor grants was pulled back, leaving rural districts that had finally hired mental health staff facing layoffs. Insurance rules that would have forced companies to cover therapy on par with physical health were paused. On homelessness, the administration reversed Housing First, vowing instead to sweep encampments, force treatment, and “bring back asylums.” Each of these choices falls hardest on men. When Medicaid is cut, when housing supports vanish, when community clinics close, the men most in need are left to cycle through emergency rooms, jails, or morgues.
Policy failures meet cultural stigma. Only about a third of men say they would seek professional help if depressed, compared to nearly 60% of women. The rest say they would handle it on their own, or not at all. That reluctance is reinforced by leaders and influencers. US President Donald Trump once suggested veterans with PTSD “aren’t strong.” Andrew Tate tells millions of young men that “depression isn’t real.” Jordan Peterson blames despair on feminism and political correctness. These voices frame pain as weakness, recast systemic causes as personal failings, and tell men that asking for help makes them lesser. For someone already on the edge, that message can be lethal.
And when suicide is mentioned in politics, it is often weaponized rather than addressed. Commentators invoke male suicide to claim that society only cares about women or minorities. Lawmakers cite “what’s happening to our boys” while voting against Medicaid expansion or school mental health funding. Grievance substitutes for prevention. The fire is pointed to, then the water is cut.
The alternative is straightforward, if not simple. Treat the 988 crisis line like 911: permanent, funded, universal. Expand Medicaid and enforce insurance parity so therapy is covered like any other medical need. Keep counselors in schools. Invest in housing with voluntary supports. Build mobile crisis teams so despair meets a trained counselor, not a police squad. And meet men where they are: union halls, barber shops, job sites, veterans’ groups.
We know this works. In Colorado, “Man Therapy” has used humor and direct language to reach men who would never otherwise consider counseling. Veterans’ peer networks reduce stigma and improve follow-through on care. In Australia, the “Men’s Shed” movement has built thousands of local spaces where older men gather, work on projects, and informally support one another—a model credited with reducing isolation and depression. These are not small-scale experiments. They are blueprints for national policy.
Suicide is not inevitable. It rises when supports are stripped and stigma is reinforced. It falls when care is reachable, affordable, and treated as normal. My father’s death remains a personal loss. But the broader crisis is a collective choice. We know the patterns. We know the risks. We know the solutions. What remains is whether policymakers are willing to act on them.
On this Suicide Prevention Day, the question is not whether we will keep raising awareness. It is whether we will stop treating male suicide as a seasonal headline and start treating it as a preventable epidemic. If policymakers can count the dead, they can also count the votes that decide whether men keep dying at this scale. The choice is not between silence and hashtags. It is between burying another 50,000 next year—or building a country where men live long enough to be heard.
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