On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump rescinded an executive order from the Biden administration that raised the minimum wage for federal contractors. This order, Executive Order 14026, had not only increased wages but also accounted for inflation, benefiting over 327,000 workers with substantial wage increases. Trump's decision reverses these gains, potentially lowering wages back to the Obama-era rate of $13.30 or even the federal minimum of $7.25/hour for some contractors, negatively impacting lower-wage workers such as janitors and food service employees.
"Because federally contracted work so often takes place in long racially segregated industries in states where corporate lobbyists and their lawmaker allies have unjustly suppressed wages, this action will also help begin to close the racial wealth gap," noted National Employment Law Project (NELP) Executive Director Rebecca Dixon at the time.
"Lower-wage federal contractors include janitors who clean government buildings, food service workers on military bases, cashiers in gift shops in national parks and security guards protecting federal property," Samantha Sanders, the Economic Policy Institute's director of government affairs and advocacy, told Truthout.
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