Welcome to States of Play
New York City minimum wage workers are set to receive a boost to $16 an hour amid a push by many states to increase wages. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is the latest state to enact an annual spending plan with large increases amid warnings of declining tax revenues and looming budget problems.
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LABOR & EMPLOYMENT
The minimum wage increase for workers in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County comes as 21 other states also are increasing compensation. Increases are set to take effect Jan. 1 from Rhode Island to Nebraska to California. Washington state will require employers to pay $16.28 an hour, the nation’s highest state-level minimum wage. (Bloomberg Government)
STATE EMPLOYMENT LAW WEBINAR: State legislatures are top of mind for employment lawyers because they’re making laws on things like pay transparency, non-compete clauses, minimum wage, and contractor pay equity. An array of employment law professionals joined Bloomberg Government today for a webinar to discuss how businesses can navigate this complicated landscape of state laws.
Click HERE for a recording of the webinar. Click HERE for the webinar slides.
BUDGET & TAX
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) signed a $3.1 billion budget bill into law, legislation enhanced with $250 million for the stretched-thin emergency shelter system and $400 million to fund union contracts for state employees. Healey signed the overdue budget within an hour of it being passed by the Senate and after weeks of legislative procrastination, parliamentary delays, and finger pointing. (State House News Service)
New York State saw a spike in the number of taxpayers leaving the state during the Covid-19 pandemic, led by people fleeing New York City, the state comptroller said. One out of every 100 residents who file personal income taxes left the state in 2020, a fourfold increase from the year before. (Bloomberg Government)
REDISTRICTING
Georgia state senators today passed a new congressional map in a special session that would maintain a likely 9-5 Republican edge in the state’s delegation.(Associated Press)
A group of Black and Latino voters in North Carolina also said in a lawsuit that four of the state’s new congressional districts are racial gerrymanders. They are asking a panel of federal judges to declare the plan unconstitutional, claiming it intentionally weakens minority voting power. (NC Newsline)
EDUCATION
The Texas House adjourned a fourth special session, leaving school vouchers, school safety, and election bills unfinished. The latest cuts included legislation that would have spent $800 million on school safety measures through 2025 and a bill changing the timeline of a trial after an election contest is filed by a citizen or group. (Texas Tribune)
The University of Pennsylvania was sued by a pair of students who claim the campus was a hotbed of antisemitism even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Penn became the third major US college, after the public New York University and the University of California, Berkeley, to face lawsuits claiming the schools failed to protect Jewish students amid campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. (Bloomberg Government)
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
The Biden administration’s clean energy incentives to support its goal of decarbonizing the power grid by 2035 is having an unintended consequence: There’s now too much interest in building and buying renewable energy generation in California. (Bloomberg Government)
Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi told the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans governing wandering ozone pollution strip the states of their full Clean Air Act discretion to present their own mitigation plans for agency approval. (Bloomberg Government)
HEALTH
Minnesota must temporarily stop enforcing its law prohibiting certain price increases for generic drugs, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a win for the pharmaceutical industry. (Bloomberg Government)
CANNABIS
Ohio Republicans are pushing major changes to the marijuana ballot measure approved by voters in November. Senate Republicans are proposing a ban on home-grown marijuana plants and higher taxes on legal marijuana sales, and are also are considering limiting the number of dispensaries to 230—below the 350 voters approved. (Columbus Dispatch)
ABORTION
A Texas woman who needs an abortion “now” sued the state, seeking an order that will allow her to have an emergency procedure that likely would be illegal under Texas’ six-week abortion ban. (Bloomberg Government)