On July 1, the minimum wage will increase in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.—lifting wages for more than 880,000 workers and collectively raising their earnings by more than $397 million (see Figure A). In addition to these two states and D.C., 12 cities and counties are also increasing their minimum wage this summer, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Figure A

While not as widespread as the minimum wage raises at the beginning of the year, these summer increases will nevertheless have a profound impact for lower-wage workers and will benefit a diversity of working people:

• 57.9% of affected workers are women.
• While more than half (54.6%) of the benefitting workers are white, the policy disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic workers.
• 86.2% of affected workers are 20 or older, and more than half (55.3%) are 25 or older.
• 45.0% of the affected workers work full-time.
• 54.5% of these workers belong to households whose incomes are less than 200% of the poverty line, meaning they are either impoverished or struggle to maintain economic security.
• More than one in five (22.3%) of affected workers are parents.

These minimum wage increases will put more money in workers’ pockets, helping many of them and their families make ends meet. The average increase in annual wages for a full-time, year-round worker resulting from these minimum wage hikes ranges from $420 in Oregon to $925 in Alaska.

Workers across the nation continue to face high costs of living. According to EPI’s Family Budget Calculator, there is no county in the nation where a single adult working full time could cover necessities like housing, food, transportation, and health care on less than $17 an hour.1

Table 1

The increases this summer signal broad public support for increasing the minimum wage, as well as the long-lasting impact of state- and city-level action. As indicated in Table 1, Alaska’s July increase is the result of a 2024 ballot measure that will eventually increase the state minimum wage to $15 an hour. On the other hand, Oregon lawmakers last made a significant change to the state’s minimum wage policy in 2016, but the wage floor’s value is tied to inflation—meaning it is adjusted automatically each year to reflect price changes. As a result of this indexing, more than 800,000 Oregonians will get a raise this July. Oregon’s standard wage floor will reach $15.05, making it the 11th state to meet or surpass the $15 threshold.2 Indexing the minimum wage to price increases helps preserve its purchasing power over time—in stark contrast to the stagnation of the federal minimum wage, which lawmakers have allowed to erode to a poverty-level wage.

Lawmakers in several states seek to water down minimum wage ballot measures, particularly for tipped workers

According to EPI’s Minimum Wage Tracker, 30 states and D.C. have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum. Many of these gains were achieved through the ballot initiative process. In the last decade, voters have directly passed state-level minimum wage increases in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Maine, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Washington.

In response to minimum wage increases and other progressive ballot measure victories, at least seven states have passed policies restricting access to ballot initiatives. Even policies that were successfully passed by voters are at risk of being clawed back.

In recent months, lawmakers have watered down a handful of minimum wage ballot initiatives. In 2024, Missouri voters approved a ballot measure that would increase the state minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2026 and index the minimum wage to inflation thereafter. But in May 2025, lawmakers stripped the inflation adjustment provision from the policy.3 Florida is also on the path to $15 an hour, but this year state lawmakers proposed a harmful minimum wage carve-out for interns and work-study workers. The Florida measure has failed for now.

Two jurisdictions have interfered with ballot initiatives that seek to eliminate the tipped minimum wage, a carve-out in federal and many state minimum wage laws which allows tipped workers like waiters and bartenders to be paid less than the regular minimum wage. In Michigan, after a seven-year legal battle over a ballot initiative that Republican state lawmakers had illegally undermined, the state legislature again shortchanged tipped workers by scrapping planned tipped minimum wage increases that would have eventually provided tipped workers the regular minimum wage.

In Washington, D.C., voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in 2022 to phase out the tipped minimum wage carve-out. However, in June, the D.C. Council voted to delay a scheduled increase of the tipped minimum wage from $10 to $12 an hour.4 The increase, which was scheduled for July, will now take place in October, denying a wage increase for 12,200 tipped workers in the District. Future wage increases for these workers are also in jeopardy since D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is pushing to repeal the policy entirely.

Tipped workers are not a large percentage of the overall workforce, but they are disproportionately low-wage workers. They experience poverty at greater rates than other workers and are much likelier to experience sexual harassment. Both their low wages and vulnerability to mistreatment are shaped by the tipped minimum wage. Unlike the traditional employee-employer relationship where workers are paid predictably for their time working, workers subject to the tipped minimum wage often receive virtually all their earnings from tips—making their weekly income unpredictable and subject to a multitude of factors out of their control. Research shows that tip amounts are only weakly connected to the quality of service and Black workers receive fewer tips than their white counterparts for the same reported quality of service. This dependence on customer approval also compels workers to remain in situations where they might experience abusive treatment from customers and supervisors.

Opponents to increasing the tipped minimum wage say that industries that employ tipped workers, primarily restaurants, are experiencing acute hardships due to inflation, consumer spending changes since the pandemic, and economic uncertainty. In the District of Columbia, there is no question that the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and contracts with regional employers will weigh on the D.C. metro economy. At this point, however, the best evidence shows few signs of any restaurant underperformance in terms of employment or wage growth in the District relative to its regional neighbors—meaning that it would be seriously inaccurate to claim D.C. restaurants are exceptionally burdened by the rising tipped minimum wage. Economic headwinds like inflation and federal government cuts have affected workers as much as they have businesses; tipped workers should not have to bear the brunt of businesses’ response to those headwinds. Moreover, should conditions for the regional or national economy deteriorate significantly, supporting workers’ wages will be vital for renewing growth. Increasing wages for low-wage workers stimulates the economy because low-income households typically spend a greater share of their wages than higher-income households, injecting money into the economy that would otherwise be held back.

Table 2 Some state and local lawmakers are fixing long-standing gaps in minimum wage protections

Lawmakers in other jurisdictions are boosting wages for workers that have been historically excluded from minimum wage coverage. In Chicago (see Table 2), the tipped minimum wage will rise in July from $11.02 to $12.62 an hour as the city gradually phases out the lower tipped minimum wage by 2028. There are already seven states (Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) without a tipped minimum wage carve-out. In Maine, lawmakers passed legislation that will extend the state’s minimum wage to agricultural workers, increasing the effective minimum wage from $7.25 to $14.65. Maine joins 21 other states that pay their agricultural workers more than the federal minimum wage, although many states have exemptions for certain types of agricultural workers.

More state-level increases could be on the way. The Rhode Island House and Senate have each passed bills set to increase the minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2027. Currently, approximately 82,000 Rhode Island workers earn less than $17 an hour, or around 17% of the state’s workforce. If fully approved by the chambers and the governor, Rhode Island will most likely join California, Connecticut, and Washington as the fourth state to adopt a minimum wage exceeding $17 an hour by 2027.5

The minimum wage continues to be a powerful, evidence-backed policy for increasing the wages of working people. States and localities must continue to strive for minimum wage targets that provide meaningful economic security to workers in their jurisdictions. This includes ensuring that all workers are subject to the minimum wage, regardless of occupation or industry.

1. Assuming the worker receives all their income from wages.

2. Oregon’s has three distinct minimum wage levels for different geographies in the state (Portland Urban Growth Boundary, Nonurban counties, and remainder of state). Nonurban counties remain at $14.05.

3. Missouri legislators also repealed the paid sick leave portion of the ballot measure.

4. D.C. is increasing its regular minimum wage in July as a result of the indexing provision in its minimum wage policy.

5. California, Connecticut, and Washington’s minimum wages are all projected to surpass $17 an hour by 2027 due to inflation adjustments to their minimum wage. The District of Columbia and numerous localities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, and Washington already have wage floors exceeding $17 an hour. By 2027, the minimum wages of Chicago, New York City, and the Oregon Portland Urban Growth Boundary will also reach or exceed $17 an hour.

Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and State Senator John Hoffman are my legislators. On the morning of June 14, a right-wing extremist assassinated Melissa Hortman and her husband. John Hoffman and his wife were shot multiple times in an attempt on their lives; their prognosis is guardedly positive.

I’ve spoken and worked with Melissa and John often over the years, and I always respected their intellect, passion, and basic human decency. I went to Melissa’s house to phone bank for candidates, or to pick up flyers to take door knocking for her. I talked to her many times about policy issues, though it’s not clear to me that I ever taught her anything she didn’t already know. Her biggest passion may have been the environment, and I often wondered that if she had not been Speaker of the House, President Biden might have appointed her to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

I first met John in 2012, when my wife and I held a fundraiser at our home in opposition to a ballot measure that would have banned same-sex marriage. He was then running for his first term in the state Senate, but he didn’t come to campaign—he just wanted to support the cause.

Dave Kamper pictured with Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman.

When I worked for a Minnesota union, John would always drop whatever he was doing to talk to union members I would bring by his Senate office. He would listen with great interest as they talked about their jobs, and he genuinely wanted to understand how proposed policies and legislation would affect their real lives and work.

Melissa, John, and their spouses were shot at a time of increasing right-wing violence. But they’re not just exhibits on a list. Melissa and John played pivotal roles in enacting the kinds of state policies we work on and support here at EPI.

In the spring of 2023, Melissa Hortman helped lead Minnesota through perhaps the most productive legislative session any state has seen in years. The legislature codified Minnesotan’s rights to abortion access and reproductive care. They made school meals free and expanded unemployment insurance access for school support staff in the summer. They required utilities offer carbon-free electricity by 2040. They banned anti-union “captive audience” meetings. They passed a paid family and medical leave bill and an earned sick and safe time bill. They made Minnesota a safe haven for LGBTQ people. They expanded driver’s license access to residents regardless of citizenship status. They legalized cannabis. They expanded tenant protections, passed gun safety reforms, and provided grants for schools to purchase electric buses.

While Speaker Hortman guided these policies through the House, John Hoffman proved the deciding vote again and again in the Senate. Without him, none of it would have been possible.

As a Minnesotan, I took great pride in my state’s accomplishments in 2023. I remember seeing John after the legislative session and sharing a hug with him, congratulating him on all they had done. I saw Speaker Hortman at the same event, but she was constantly surrounded by admirers, and I didn’t feel bold enough to break through the pack and tell her how proud I was that she was my representative. I wish I had.

We at EPI believe that policy matters. Politicians can shape policies that make life better for working families. Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman together helped prove it to be true.