State action to strengthen worker rights and protections has become critically important at a moment when long-standing U.S. labor standards are under acute threat. Escalating threats include Trump administration attempts to roll back (or stop enforcing) standards that set a national floor for minimum wage, overtime pay, health and safety, nondiscrimination, child labor, and other rights and protections long taken for granted in most U.S. workplaces.
Amid this crisis, states have urgent obligations to shore up basic protections. The crisis also presents states with big opportunities to remedy long-standing weaknesses and exclusions in outdated labor laws and take leadership in addressing major economic challenges like wage suppression, growing income inequality, racial and gender wage gaps, and declining job quality.
Below we summarize some of the actions states have taken so far in 2025 to raise wages, prevent harmful child labor, combat wage theft and worker misclassification, guarantee the right to unionize, expand paid leave, protect worker health and safety, and improve unemployment insurance. These examples from across the country show how state policymakers can assume more expansive, effective roles in enacting and enforcing key worker rights and protections.
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