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21 states are getting minimum wage bumps in 2025
Activists appeal for a $15 minimum wage near the Capitol in Washington in 2021.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
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J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Minimum-wage workers in 21 states will see a bigger paycheck come the new year. They’re among the many thousands of laws changing as a new year begins.
Those wage increases will impact an estimated 9.2 million workers and raise pay by a total of $5.7 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that publishes economic research and examined the expected 2025 wage increases.
An additional 48 cities and counties will raise their minimum wages above their state wage floors starting Tuesday.
California, which is increasing the minimum wage from $16 to $16.50, is one of the 14 states adjusting the minimum to increase for inflation. The average full-time minimum-wage worker in these states will make around $420 more annually, according to EPI.
Five states are bumping up the statewide minimum wage through previously adopted legislation, and two states — Nebraska and Montana — are making changes after voters passed ballot measures.
With these continued increases, EPI found that 19 states and Washington, D.C., will have at least a $15 minimum wage by 2027.
Meanwhile the federal minimum wage of $7.25 has not increased in 15 years and the spending power of one dollar is not what it used to be — putting workers in a tough spot as prices for groceries and housing have risen over time.
Research shows that a full-time minimum wage worker earning $7.25 an hour makes just $20 more than the poverty guidelines for a single-person household. Add kids or needing to care for other family members, and that worker falls below poverty levels. Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities found in 2021 that “a true living wage” that supports an individual’s basic food and housing needs would be between $20 and $26 or more per hour depending on the state.
Dollar bills are shown in New York. The Economic Policy Institute says the Jan. 1 minimum wage increases show that the “minimum wage continues to be a powerful tool for combating racial and gender wage disparities.”
Mark Lennihan/AP
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Mark Lennihan/AP
Who are most impacted by increases?
Among those most directly benefiting from these wage increases are women and Black and Hispanic workers.
“The January 1 increases show that the minimum wage continues to be a powerful tool for combating racial and gender wage disparities, supporting working families, and reducing poverty,” EPI said in its report.
Women make up almost 60% of workers seeing a raise, according to EPI’s analysis. A little over 11% of workers seeing higher paychecks are Black, and nearly 40% are Hispanic.
College student Jimena Sanchez (right), who studies children’s development, works as a part-time cashier earning minimum wage at a family store in Los Angeles on Oct. 11.
Damian Dovarganes/AP
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Damian Dovarganes/AP
But the minimum-wage level may still be too low to keep up with rising prices and home costs, according to EPI. That’s especially the case if a locality’s minimum wage was tied to inflation years ago and has not been reexamined since. EPI pointed to Ohio, a state that last passed a significant increase to its minimum wage in 2007, and that will see it increase this year from $10.45 to $10.70 because of an inflation adjustment.
High food and housing costs were issues top of mind for voters in the 2024 election. Many polls and experts pointed to voters’ unhappiness with the economy as a big reason for President-elect Donald Trump’s reelection — despite experts, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, indicating that the U.S. economy was on good footing as 2024 came to a close.
A collection of snow sport enthusiasts brave blowing snow and 20-degree temperatures to ski Horsebarn Hill in Mansfield, Ct. on Monday afternoon as the snow squalls pass from a storm that dropped more than a foot of snow across the state on Feb. 23.
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Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public
A powerful winter storm hit the northeast U.S. on Monday, leaving millions stranded at home, prompting travel bans — which were lifted by midday— and flight cancellations throughout New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
According to Connecticut Public, some parts of the state got as much as two feet of snow, while some neighborhoods throughout New York recorded as much as 24 inches of snow. Thousands of residents in New York and New Jersey also reported power outages, with nearly 40,000 customers in New Jersey still without power as of early this evening.
Here are images of the areas affected by the winter storm:
A plow clears Silver Lane between East Hartford and Manchester, Ct. on Feb. 23.
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Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public
A person makes a recording while laying in the snow in lower Manhattan during a snow storm on Feb. 23 in New York.
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Seth Wenig/AP
A trio of yard decorations in Willington, Conn. are coated with snow on Feb. 23, during a nor’easter that pounded the state with up to two feet of snow in some areas.
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Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public
Residents shovel snow in East Boston, Mass., on Feb. 23.
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Elena Eberwein/NHPR
A person skis through the streets of Brooklyn as blizzard conditions continue on Feb. 23 in New York City.
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Ducks swim in The Pond during snowfall in Central Park on Feb. 23 in New York City.
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Birds fly between a tree and a railing amid heavy snow on February 23, 2026 in Brooklyn, New York.
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Children sled on Cedar Hill in Central Park in New York on Feb. 23 during a snow storm.
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Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
A person carrying flowers walks through the snow in the Lower East Side on February 23, 2026 in New York City.
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new video loaded: Why the Supreme Court Struck Down Trump’s Tariffs
By Ann E. Marimow, Sutton Raphael, June Kim and Whitney Shefte
February 23, 2026
Suspected gunman was ‘very quiet’ and came from a family of ‘big Trump supporters’, cousin says
The New York Times is reporting that Austin Tucker Martin graduated from Union Pines High School in Cameron, North Carolina, in 2023, and started an artwork company last June that specialised in handmade drawings of golf courses.
According to its website, Fresh Sky Illustrations:
Is an artwork company that mainly focuses on bringing to life the hopeful feeling of being on a golf course by illustrating golf course scenes and providing framed copies of handmade works in various golf course gift shops while handling personal commissions on the side.
Combining the aesthetics of the sunny outdoors, and old digital aesthetics from the mid 2000s, Fresh Sky Illustrations hopes to awaken a sense of hope and comfort with this handcrafted webpage design.
Martin, who lived in a part of North Carolina renowned for its golf courses, was a registered voter, although state voting records indicate he wasn’t affiliated to a particular party.
The 21-year-old was described by his cousin Braeden Fields as “very quiet” and inexperienced with guns.
“He doesn’t even know how to use a gun. He’s never used a gun,” Fields, 19, told ABC station WTVD hours after Martin had been killed.
Fields said the family are “big Trump supporters” and that Martin has an older brother in the military.
Martin “never really talked about … he didn’t want to get into politics,” Fields said, adding that Martin worked at a golf course, preparing it for the season, and liked to send his paychecks to charity.
“We grew up together, practically,” Fields said. “I never, I wouldn’t believe that he would do something like this. Mind-blowing.”
Key events Sara Braun Major institutions of higher education in the US are reckoning with the latest release of the Epstein files after discovering the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s relationships with board members, professors and administrators on campuses across the country.
In some cases, professors have been placed under review, research centers closed or conferences canceled. Students and staff have responded in different ways, including petitions, open letters and campus forums.
The Guardian spoke with students, employees and alumni at some of the universities implicated.
On 9 February, faculty at Barnard College, the private women’s liberal arts’ college affiliated with Columbia University, published an open letter signed by more than 70 faculty members calling on the university to “acknowledge and investigate” recently released correspondence between Epstein and Francine LeFrak, a prominent donor and member of the school’s board of trustees. LeFrak appears in the Epstein files 15 times, according to reporting from the Barnard Bulletin.
In one appearance, LeFrak asked – in 2010 – to join a close friend and Epstein during “the holidays”; in another, later that year, she invited Epstein “as her guest” to a trip to Rwanda, where she founded an initiative that provides occupational training and employment for female survivors of that country’s genocide. The letter notes that the connection between Epstein and LeFrak is “repugnant”, particularly since the interaction took place following Epstein’s 2008 conviction of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
President Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on the US supreme court following its decision to strike down his tariffs.
Writing on Truth Social, he crowed that the court had “accidentally and unwittingly” given him “far more powers and strength” as a result of its ruling.
He said that other tariffs can be used in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way”.
In his typical rambling style, Trump wrote: The supreme court (will be using lower case letters for a while based on a complete lack of respect!) of the United States accidentally and unwittingly gave me, as President of the United States, far more powers and strength than I had prior to their ridiculous, dumb, and very internationally divisive ruling.
For one thing, I can use Licenses to do absolutely “terrible” things to foreign countries, especially those countries that have been RIPPING US OFF for many decades, but incomprehensibly, according to the ruling, can’t charge them a License fee – BUT ALL LICENSES CHARGE FEES, why can’t the United States do so? You do a license to get a fee! The opinion doesn’t explain that, but I know the answer! The court has also approved all other Tariffs, of which there are many, and they can all be used in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty, than the Tariffs as initially used.
Our incompetent supreme court did a great job for the wrong people, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves (but not the Great Three!). The next thing you know they will rule in favor of China and others, who are making an absolute fortune on Birthright Citizenship, by saying the 14th Amendment was NOT written to take care of the “babies of slaves,” which it was as proven by the EXACT TIMING of its construction, filing, and ratification, which perfectly coincided with the END OF THE CIVIL WAR. How much better can you do than that?
But this supreme court will find a way to come to the wrong conclusion, one that again will make China, and various other Nations, happy and rich. Let our supreme court keep making decisions that are so bad and deleterious to the future of our Nation – I have a job to do.
Alex Daniel
Donald Trump’s administration has said it will stop collecting tariffs the supreme court ruled were illegal as they were imposed using emergency powers, as investors attempted to digest the US president’s latest volley of replacement levies. The US dollar slumped 0.4% against a basket of other currencies on Monday after the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency said it would deactivate all tariff codes associated with International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) related orders as of Tuesday at midnight (5am UK time).
Gold jumped 0.6% to $5,135 an ounce, its highest level since the end of January, as investors flocked to the safe haven asset, while bitcoin dropped as much as 4.8% to $64,300 before recovering some ground, at $65,734. Futures tracking the US S&P 500 stock market slipped 0.5% on Monday morning.
The supreme court ruled last week that Trump had overstepped his legal authority to impose his “liberation day” measures last year, plunging financial markets into a new phase of uncertainty over where US trade policy will land.
Trump retaliated over the weekend with a new flat-rate global tariff of 15% under a separate legal authority to replace the tariffs that had been struck down. The new levies will come into force on Tuesday and could last for up to 150 days under separate powers.
The European Union is poised to freeze the ratification process of its trade deal with the US and is seeking more details from president Donald Trump’s administration on its new tariff program, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. Zeljana Zovko, the lead trade negotiator in the European People’s Party group on the US deal, told Bloomberg in an interview that the EU has “no other option” but to delay the approval process to seek to clarity on the situation.
The center-right EPP group is the largest political bloc in the European parliament.
Donald Trump is yet to respond to the incident but the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, wrote in a post on X on Sunday:
In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home.
Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our country safe and protect all Americans. It’s shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their Department.
Richard Luscombe
Richard Luscombe is a reporter for Guardian US based in Miami, Florida
Investigators believe the suspect left North Carolina and headed south, picking up a shotgun along the way, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said.
The box for the gun was recovered in his vehicle, Guglielmi said. The man drove through the north gate of Mar-a-Lago as another vehicle was exiting, and he was confronted by Secret Service agents and was fatally shot … Sunday’s episode has parallels with a 2019 incident in which a Chinese woman carrying multiple cellphones and a computer thumb drive bearing malware gained access to the main lobby of Mar-a-Lago, having evaded security.
That was one of a number of incidents during Trump’s first term in office that drew accusations of lax security at the club, which he has often called his “winter White House”.
In July, 2024, Trump was wounded during an assassination attempt as he spoke at a rally for supporters in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the presidential election campaign. A bullet grazed his ear and some spectators were killed.
Then on 15 September of the same year a man with a rifle was captured after waiting near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach while the president played a round. He appeared to be pointing the weapon through a perimeter fence. He was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.
Last Wednesday, police in Washington arrested a man from Georgia who was armed with a loaded shotgun and sprinted towards the west side of the US Capitol building. Investigators are continuing working to compile a psychological profile and establish a motive. Asked by journalists yesterday whether the suspect was previously known to law enforcement, Palm Beach county sheriff Ric Bradshaw said “not right now”.
The Moore County Sheriff’s Department in North Carolina said a relative of Martin’s reported him missing early on Sunday morning.
In a statement posted to Facebook, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office wrote:
The Moore County Sheriff’s Office confirms that on February 22, 2026, at approximately 1:38 a.m., a relative of 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin approached a deputy at a local business and reported him missing. He was subsequently entered into a national missing person database.
Following that report, federal authorities informed the Sheriff’s Office that they are conducting an active investigation in Florida involving Martin. At their request, the missing person case information has been turned over to federal investigators.
The Moore County Sheriff’s Office had no prior history involving Martin before the missing person report.
The New York Times is reporting that Austin Tucker Martin graduated from Union Pines High School in Cameron, North Carolina, in 2023, and started an artwork company last June that specialised in handmade drawings of golf courses. According to its website, Fresh Sky Illustrations:
Is an artwork company that mainly focuses on bringing to life the hopeful feeling of being on a golf course by illustrating golf course scenes and providing framed copies of handmade works in various golf course gift shops while handling personal commissions on the side.
Combining the aesthetics of the sunny outdoors, and old digital aesthetics from the mid 2000s, Fresh Sky Illustrations hopes to awaken a sense of hope and comfort with this handcrafted webpage design.
Martin, who lived in a part of North Carolina renowned for its golf courses, was a registered voter, although state voting records indicate he wasn’t affiliated to a particular party.
The 21-year-old was described by his cousin Braeden Fields as “very quiet” and inexperienced with guns.
“He doesn’t even know how to use a gun. He’s never used a gun,” Fields, 19, told ABC station WTVD hours after Martin had been killed. Fields said the family are “big Trump supporters” and that Martin has an older brother in the military.
Martin “never really talked about … he didn’t want to get into politics,” Fields said, adding that Martin worked at a golf course, preparing it for the season, and liked to send his paychecks to charity.
“We grew up together, practically,” Fields said. “I never, I wouldn’t believe that he would do something like this. Mind-blowing.”
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
The armed man who US Secret Service agents killed yesterday after allegedly breaching the secure perimeter of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida has been identified in media reports as Austin Tucker Martin, a 21-year-old illustrator from Cameron, North Carolina.
Although the US president often spends weekends at the oceanfront resort, he was at the White House in Washington during this incident, as was first lady Melania Trump.
At a press conference on Sunday morning, Ric Bradshaw, the sheriff of Palm Beach county, said that the suspect was carrying a gas canister and a shotgun.
Bradshaw later confirmed Austin’s identity after initially withholding it until officials could notify his family, according to the Washington Post.
Austin’s family in North Carolina had reported him missing in the early hours of Sunday morning, according to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.
As my colleague Richard Luscombe notes in this story, Bradshaw told reporters that two Secret Service agents and one of his deputies went to the north gate of the property at about 1.30am ET (06:30 GMT) after a security detail alerted them that a person was within an inner perimeter.
There, they confronted a white male carrying a shotgun and a gasoline can, Bradshaw said. “He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can (and) raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” the sheriff said.
“At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat. He is deceased at the scene.”
A motive has not beeen determined by investigators, who are being led by the FBI. The security breach follows two assassination attempts against Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.
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