The brand new yr—and the return of the Trump administration to the White Home—might carry all types of adjustments to the office. The president-elect is more likely to reverse a few of the wins of the Biden administration, which included increasing authorized immigration to embracing pro-labor insurance policies that assist promote organizing efforts.
Many individuals worry that Trump will reinstate a few of the anti-immigration measures he launched throughout his first time period, which restricted all types of immigration and in addition impacted extremely expert staff. Whereas Biden’s choose to steer the Nationwide Labor Relations Board—Jennifer Abruzzo—has taken important steps to bolster labor rights and strengthen office protections over the previous 4 years, Trump’s appointees are more likely to undo a lot of that work.
Then there are the proposals laid out in Project 2025, which take purpose at office security requirements and organizing rights and even recommend eliminating public sector unions. (Trump has already chosen a number of folks for his administration with ties to Venture 2025—after spending the marketing campaign making an attempt to distance himself from the initiative.) Ought to Trump select to pursue a lot of these suggestions, his second time period might show much more damaging to staff’ rights.
Nonetheless, regardless of the looming uncertainty, there are a variety of legal guidelines and insurance policies which have already been enacted and can go into impact in 2025—a lot of which is able to profit rank and file staff within the new yr.
Minimal wage will increase
States throughout the U.S.—and the political spectrum—have boosted the minimal wage over the past decade, partly in response to the Struggle for $15 motion and different worker-led campaigns. Fourteen states have since handed a $15 hourly minimal wage, although a few of them are nonetheless phasing within the new pay ground. In 2025, staff throughout 23 states and 65 localities will see their wages rise; by the tip of the yr, the minimal wage will exceed $15 in 9 states and cross $17 in 51 cities and counties.
In states comparable to California and New Jersey, some healthcare staff will profit from important pay bumps, placing their hourly pay above $18. Throughout a handful of localities—together with Washington, D.C., and Chicago—tipped staff will even get a elevate, as these areas work towards phasing out the subminimum wage. This yr, Michigan grew to become the primary state to eradicate the subminimum wage, which implies tipped staff there will even see a wage improve in 2025.
Pay transparency
Fourteen states and a number of other localities have now handed legal guidelines mandating that employers share some measure of pay transparency, whether or not which means posting salary ranges in job listings or offering that perception throughout hiring negotiations.
As of 2025, the vast majority of employers throughout five of those states—Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Vermont—should present wage knowledge when posting job openings, arming candidates with extra info as they navigate discussions of compensation. A pay transparency legislation handed in Washington, D.C., additionally took impact earlier this yr.
Whereas some corporations have sought to get across the legislation, often by posting overly broad salary ranges, these measures have continued to realize traction and are catalyzing extra pay transparency throughout the non-public sector. (Early data additionally means that these legal guidelines are closing the gender pay hole extra shortly in states like Colorado, which was the primary to implement pay transparency.) A lot of different states, comparable to Michigan, are contemplating placing the same legislation within the books, whereas others have launched payments that didn’t progress by the state legislature.
Paid sick depart
Whereas paid household depart laws has stalled on the federal stage, many states have discovered a solution to safe protection for staff who want day off for well being causes or caregiving tasks. A few of the broader paid depart legal guidelines are solely slated for enforcement in 2026, however beginning subsequent yr, staff in Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska can reap the advantages of entry to paid sick depart if they should take sick days for well being causes or to look after an ailing member of the family.
As of 2025, sure states with current sick depart legal guidelines will prolong protection to incorporate experiences together with being pregnant loss or adoption or have expanded the definition of “relations” who’re usually coated. In New York, a brand new modification—and the primary of its form—will grant pregnant staff one other 20 hours of paid prenatal leave (along with the state’s current sick depart coverage), which might be put towards medical doctors’ appointments and different prenatal care as wanted.
Retail employee protections
In a handful of states, retail staff will acquire new protections as a result of laws that goals to stop office violence. The Retail Employee Security Act, which handed in New York, requires that every one retailers have a transparent office violence prevention coverage and coaching program; bigger workplaces are even required to put in panic buttons. (Whereas the legislation might be enforced within the new yr, employers do have till 2027 to place a panic button system in place.)
A similar law was enacted in California, although it doesn’t mandate using panic buttons. Each measures are partly a response to the elevated violence and harassment retail staff typically face on the job, which has solely worsened for the reason that pandemic.
Past protections towards violence, retail staff have additionally notched different wins that would enhance their working circumstances. This yr, metropolis officers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, approved a law that can allow staff—whether or not in retail or hospitality—to take a seat whereas on the job, so long as that doesn’t intrude with their duties.
Comparable “proper to take a seat” legal guidelines have already been enacted in California, Florida, and Wisconsin, and in some states, there are nonetheless dated legal guidelines on the books that solely grant ladies the appropriate to take a seat. Whereas pregnant staff, for instance, are eligible for lodging that may enable them to take a seat on the job as wanted, these legal guidelines are largely modeled after norms in European countries, the place retail staff are sometimes seated.
Extra time eligibility
Earlier this yr, the Biden administration finalized a rule that appeared like a boon for hundreds of thousands of salaried staff, making them newly eligible for extra time pay. It was the primary time in many years that extra time eligibility had been expanded considerably; in contrast to hourly staff, salaried staff are usually not entitled to extra time pay until their wage is under a sure threshold.
Underneath the Trump administration, employers have been solely required to pay extra time to staff whose wage was $35,568 or much less; after the rule took impact in July, nonetheless, staff have been eligible in the event that they earned as much as $43,888, and the wage cap would have elevated once more to $58,656 by 2025.
However in November, a federal decide struck down the rule, revoking extra time pay for staff who had certified for it this yr—and blocking a brand new body of workers from eligibility in 2025. (An estimated 4 million staff would have been impacted within the first yr of implementation, based on the Labor Division.)
It’s not clear whether or not eligibility might change once more beneath Trump, who has mentioned he is opposed to the concept of extra time pay and already took steps to restrict extra time throughout his first administration. A few of the recommendations in Project 2025 recommend that Trump may go even additional when he assumes the presidency, by chipping away at current extra time advantages or providing loopholes to employers who need to keep away from paying up.