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'A National Disgrace': 19 States to Raise Minimum Wage But Federal Rate Stuck at $7.25
One Fair Wage noted that "tipped workers can still legally be paid as little as $2.13 an hour, a system advocates describe as a direct legacy of slavery."
Dec 31, 2025
Over a third of US states are set to raise their minimum hourly wage in 2026, but worker advocates including Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday decried a federal minimum wage that's remained at $7.25 since 2009—and just $2.13 an hour for tipped workers for over three decades.
Minimum wage hikes are set to go into effect in 19 states on Thursday: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Increases range from 28 cents in Minnesota to $2 in Hawaii, with an average hike of 67 cents across all 19 states. More than 8.3 million workers will benefit from the increases, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The mean minimum wage in those 19 states will rise to $14.57 in 2026, up from $13.90 this year.
Three more states—Alaska, Florida, and Oregon—plus Washington, DC are scheduled to raise their minimum wages later in 2026.
In addition to the state hikes, nearly 50 counties and municipalities plan to raise their minimum wages in the coming year, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP). These include San Diego, California—where the minimum wage for hospitality workers is set to rise to $25 an hour by 2030—and Portland, Maine, where all workers will earn at least $19 by 2028.
However, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25, and the subminimum rate for tipped workers is $2.13, where it's been since 1991—and has lost more than half its purchasing power since then.
The federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 since 2009. In 2026, workers in 19 states and 49 cities and counties an increase. Alabama’s rate will stay at $7.25. 🔗 https://t.co/mrGfPAKba3 pic.twitter.com/EsokVIc6KP
— AL.com (@aldotcom) December 31, 2025
"Tipped workers can still legally be paid as little as $2.13 an hour, a system advocates describe as a direct legacy of slavery," the advocacy group One Fair Wage (OFW) said in a statement Tuesday.
Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media on the eve of the hikes: "Congratulations to the 19 states raising the minimum wage in 2026. But let’s be clear: A $7.25 federal minimum wage is a national disgrace. No one who works full time should live in poverty. We must keep fighting to guarantee all workers a living wage—not starvation wages."
Yannet Lathrop, NELP's senior researcher and policy analyst, said earlier this month that "the upcoming minimum wage increases are incremental and won’t magically turn severely underpaid jobs into living-wage jobs, but they do offer a bit of relief at a time when every dollar matters for people."
“The bigger picture is that raising the minimum wage is just one piece of a much larger fight for a good jobs economy rooted in living wages and good benefits for every working person," Lathrop added. "That’s where we need to get to."
Numerous experts note that neither $7.25, nor even $15 an hour, is a livable wage anywhere in the United States.
"The gap between wages and real living costs is stark," OFW said. "According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, there is no county in the United States where a worker can afford to meet basic needs on less than $25 an hour. Even in the nation’s least expensive counties, a worker with one child would need at least $33 an hour to cover essentials like rent, food, childcare, and transportation."
"Advocates argue that policies like President [Donald] Trump’s 'no tax on tips' proposal fail to address the underlying problem of poverty wages," OFW continued. "While the policy has drawn attention, they say it is a headline rather than a solution, particularly since nearly two-thirds of tipped workers do not earn enough to owe federal income taxes."
Frustrated by the long-unchanged $7.25 federal minimum wage, numerous states in recent years have let voters give themselves raises via ballot initiatives. Such measures have been successful even in some red states, including Missouri and Nebraska.
Rising minimum wages are a legacy of the union-backed #FightFor15 movement that began among striking fast-food workers in 2012. At least 20 states now have minimum wages of $15 or higher.
However, back then, "the buying power of a $15 minimum wage was substantially higher than it is today," EPI noted. "In 2025, a $15 minimum wage does not achieve economic security for working people in most of the country. This is particularly true in the highest cost-of-living cities."
In April, US senators voted down an amendment that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour. Every Democratic and Independent upper chamber lawmaker voted in favor of the measure, while all Republicans except Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) rejected it.
As Trump administration and Republican policies and practices—such as passing healthcare legislation that does not include an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, which are set to expire on Wednesday and send premiums soaring—coupled with persistently high living costs squeeze workers, advocates say a living wage is more important than ever.
The issue is underscored by glaring income and wealth inequality in the US, as well as a roughly 285:1 CEO to worker pay gap among S&P 500 companies last year.
"Minimum wage doesn't cover the cost of living," Janae van De Kerk, an organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Airport Workers union and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport employee, said in a video posted Tuesday on social media.
"Minimum wage doesn't cover the cost of living. Many of my co-workers have to choose between food on the table or health insurance" Janae, Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport service worker No one should have to make that choice.
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— Airport Workers United (@goodairports.bsky.social) December 30, 2025 at 10:34 AM
"Many of my co-workers have to choose between food on the table or health insurance, or the choice between having food and paying the electric bill," van De Kerk—who advocates a $25 hourly minimum wage—continued.
"We shouldn't have to worry about those things," she added. "We shouldn't have to stress about those things. We're willing to work and we wanna work, and we should be paid for our work."
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Latest GDP Figures Show Rich Reaping Rewards as Working Class Continues to Suffer Under Trump
"People at the top are doing fine, people in the middle and lower income brackets are struggling a bit, to say the least."
Dec 24, 2025
President Donald Trump's allies this week hyped up newly released data showing that the US economy grew by more than 4% in the third quarter of 2025, but economists and journalists who dove into the report's finer details found some troubling signs.
Ron Insana, a finance reporter and a former hedge fund manager, told MS Now's Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday night that there is a "split economy" in which growth is being driven primarily by spending from the top 20% of income earners, whom he noted accounted for 63% of all spending in the economy.
On the other side, Insana pointed to retail sales data that painted a very different picture for those on the lower end of the income scale.
"When you look at lower income individuals, nearly half of them are using 'buy-now-pay-later' for their holiday shopping," he said. "So we have this real split... People at the top are doing fine, people in the middle and lower income brackets are struggling a bit, to say the least."
Dean Baker, co-founder and senior economist of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, also took note of this split in the US economy, and he cited the latest data showing that real gross domestic income, which more directly measures worker compensation over total economic output, grew at just 2.4% during the third quarter.
Baker also said that most of the gains in gross domestic income showed up at the top of the income ladder, while workers' income growth remained stagnant.
The theme of a split economy also showed up in an analysis from Politico financial services reporter Sam Sutton published on Wednesday, which cited recent data from Bank of America showing that the bank's "top account holders saw take-home pay climb 4% over the last year, while income growth for poorer households grew just 1.4%."
Sutton said that this divergence in fortunes between America's wealthy and everyone else was showing up in polling that shows US voters sour on the state of the economy.
"In survey after survey, a majority of Americans say they’re straining under the pressure of rising living expenses and a softening job market," Sutton said. "The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says low-income consumers have 'substantially' higher levels of credit card debt than they did before the pandemic. Even as growth and asset prices soar, Trump’s approval ratings are sagging."
Economist Paul Krugman on Tuesday argued in his Substack newsletter that one reason for this large disparity in economic outcomes has to do with the US labor market, which has ground to a halt in recent months, lowering workers' options for employment and thus lowering their ability to push prospective employers for higher wages.
"Trump may claim that we are economically 'the hottest country in the world,' but the truth is that we last had a hot labor market back in 2023-4," Krugman explained. "At this point, by contrast, we have a 'frozen' job market in which workers who aren’t already employed are having a very hard time finding new jobs, a sharp contrast with the Biden years during which workers said it was very easy to find a new job."
None of these caveats about the latest gross domestic product (GDP) data stopped US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick from going on Fox News on Tuesday night and falsely claiming that a 4.3% rise in GDP meant that "Americans overall—all of us—are going to earn 4.3% more money."
Lutnick: The US economy grew 4.3%. What that means is that Americans overall—all of us—are going to earn 4.3% more money. pic.twitter.com/SIFi99NRBX
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 24, 2025
In reality, GDP is a sum of a nation's consumer spending, government spending, net exports, and total investments, and is not directly correlated with individuals' personal income.
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Sanders Slams Private Equity Scrooges Ending Paid Holidays for Walgreens Workers
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation is making the problem worse."
Dec 23, 2025
Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged the private equity firm that recently acquired Walgreens to reverse its decision to strip hourly workers at the second-largest US pharmacy chain of paid days off on Christmas and other major holidays.
After Sycamore Partners finalized its $10 billion purchase of Walgreens in late August, the pharmacy chain—now headed by CEO Mike Motz—eliminated paid holidays for New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Workers were notified of the move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, in October.
The move is typical of what private equity firms—sometimes called vulture capitalists—often do in order to maximize profits. In addition to slashing paid time off and benefits, they often reduce or freeze pay, fire workers, close locations, introduce aggressive sales targets, and reduce job security by replacing full-time positions with hourly or independently contracted workers. Walgreens announced last year that it planned on closing around 1,200 of its roughly 8,000 US stores, citing their struggling performance.
"This Thanksgiving, Walgreens' hourly workers faced the impossible choice between losing pay and spending the holiday with their loved ones," Sanders (Vt.)—who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee—wrote Tuesday in a letter to Sycamore Partners founder and managing director Stefan Kaluzny.
"Walgreens employs 220,000 employees, the vast majority of whom are hourly workers... Sycamore Partners' decision to cut paid holidays for these hourly workers is unfortunately not surprising," the senator continued. "The firm follows the private equity playbook of buying businesses and aggressively extracting profit while using and abusing workers."
"For example, just one year after Sycamore Partners purchased Staples, the firm extracted $1 billion from the company as it closed 100 stores and laid off 7,000 workers," Sanders noted. "That same year, Sycamore Partners drove Nine West into bankruptcy and was accused of siphoning off over $1 billion in funds."
"Meanwhile, from 2016-22, companies owned by Sycamore Partners racked up over $3 million in labor violations, including wage-and-hour and workplace safety and health violations," he added.
During the holiday season, we all want to spend time with our loved ones. And yet, just two months after buying Walgreens for $10 billion, the private equity firm Sycamore Partners stripped hourly workers of paid vacation, including Christmas and New Year’s Day. Shameful.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) December 23, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Sanders contrasted a reality in which "60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck" with the fact that "more private equity managers make over $100 million annually than investment bankers, top financial executives, and professional athletes combined."
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation leave is making the problem worse," he stressed. "Some Walgreens workers make as little as $15 an hour. Cutting their paid leave will make it even more difficult for these workers to pay for housing, childcare, healthcare, and groceries."
"In short," Sanders concluded, "Sycamore Partners is forcing workers to sacrifice their basic needs for private equity profit."
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