Leading Practices

Vendors paid more than $25,000 per year by the city of Berkeley must comply with the Living Wage Ordinance. To comply, vendors must pay a living wage (set by the city), provide health benefits or cash in lieu and provide paid time off. Learn more about this and other vendor requirements, or read the full ordinance. Vendors must have a Berkley city business license. Effective July 1, 2022, vendors must pay employees $17.41 per hour plus a medical benefit equivalent to at least $2.89 per hour. If the employer does not provide the employee at least $2.89 per hour toward an employee medical benefits plan, the employer shall pay an hourly wage of not less than $20.30. Vendors must provide employees with at least 22 days off per year for sick leave, vacation or personal necessity; 12 of these days off must be compensated at the same wage as for a normal working day.

Since 2014, the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Construction Careers project has allocated more than $20,000,000 to labor union and workforce development board partnerships to diversify and expand building and construction trade union membership. The project is expanding union approved pre-apprenticeships that use the Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) and includes a statewide database of the union validated programs. The initiative is funded by revenues through California Senate Bill 1: The Road Repair and Accountability Act, the Clean Energy Jobs Act Program and carbon market cap and trade revenues administered by the California Air Resources Board. Funds have been used to support local partnerships among workforce boards, unions, community colleges and other partners in East San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County and the Central Valley.

Los Angeles issued a living wage ordinance (LWO) along with rules and procedures for implementation of the ordinance. The ordinance defines requirements for sick leave, vacation and personal responsibility and establishes a minimum wage threshold. The LWO applies to contractors receiving city funds and ensures that employees working on city contracts are paid the city’s living wage (which consists of a cash wage rate and an employer’s health benefits contribution) and are provided with time off as required by the LWO (at least 96 compensated hours off and 80 uncompensated hours off). As of July 1, 2020, the city's minimum wage for employers with 26 or more employees increases to $15.00/hour for qualified employees in the city of Los Angeles.

Colorado established a statewide Office of Employee Ownership to increase the number of employee-owned companies in the state by administering a statewide tax credit (HB-21-1311) for employee-owned companies. It provides grants for feasibility studies and technical assistance to help owners sell to their employees and educates businesses about employee ownership through storytelling and building a network of employee-owned companies.

Emeryville, California, implemented a scheduling ordinance in 2017 (see resources on the city's website including posters and FAQs). It specifically addresses advanced notice, predictability of pay, the right for the worker to have input into schedules, requirements for rest and right to address a flexible working arrangement.

In 2021, Harris County established an Essential Workers Board to advise the county on programs and policies that support essential workers. All members must be “low-income essential workers,” with at least one worker representative from the airport or transportation, construction, domestic work or home care, education or child care, grocery, convenience or drug store, health care or public health, janitorial, food services, hospitality or leisure services, and retail industries. In addition to advising the county on its overall approach to protecting essential workers’ rights and providing a public forum, the board is also tasked with providing feedback on the county’s purchasing and contracting policies; workforce development programs; tax abatement and incentive policies; community benefits agreements; distribution of federal COVID-19 relief and recovery funds; disaster preparedness and recovery programs; OSHA trainings; independent monitoring of local, state, and federal public health and labor laws and inclusive economic development planning.

Founded in 1938, JVS has demonstrated new ways to diversify revenue for and through their job training programs, including charging employers for placement services. In 2018, the organization had $16M in revenue from a mix of private and public funding sources.

In 2015, voters approved “Best Start for Kids” levies, with the most recent local measure generating $800,000,000 to expand access, affordability and quality of the region’s childcare system, including a childcare worker wage-increase demonstration project. The King County Department of Community and Human Services is leading implementation focused on increasing access and affordability for high-quality childcare for working families and for job quality for childcare workers.

King County issued an ordinance and a Frequently Asked Questions Guide that outlines wage requirements and addresses repercussions for noncompliance. Contractors (and their subcontractors) awarded a contract valued $100,000 or more must pay a living wage to their employees. Wages are based on the company’s total number of employees. Companies that fail to pay living wages may be subject to (1) disqualification from bidding on a King County contract and (2) damages and termination of a contract. Living wage for a single individual in 2022 is $21.42 per hour.

The Lehigh Valley Workforce Board operations are integrated with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program with streamlined Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act(WIOA)/TANF co-enrollment to allow TANF to pay for childcare subsidies for many American Job Center customers. The WIOA/TANF integration began in 2014 with the implementation of WIOA reauthorization.

Pacific Gateway, the workforce development board in Long Beach, California, implemented a minimum wage requirement of $15 per hour in 2018 for all Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act on-the-job training contracts to ensure that participants were being placed on a pathway to economic mobility. Each year the hourly rate for on-the-job training is reviewed and approved by the board based on current economic conditions.

In 2021, Pacific Gateway, the local workforce development board, partnered in the development and implementation of a project labor agreement with the city of Long Beach (CA), local unions and private developers to fill local hire and other project labor agreements for public works projects. Pacific Gateway recruits and trains diverse applicants and refers them to the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) pre-apprenticeship program at Long Beach City College.

Maryland implemented a living wage requirement for state service contracts and rolled out a detailed Frequently Asked Questions Guide that provides detailed guidance on how jurisdictions should incorporate living wage in their procurement processes to support their subrecipients, contractors and vendors. The policy states that, effective 12:01 a.m. on September 28, 2022, living wage rates will be adjusted to $15.13 per hour in tier 1 areas (Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties) and $11.36 in tier 2 areas (any county in the state not included in the tier 1 areas), depending on the location where the services are being performed or on the location benefiting from the work.

Miami, Florida, amended its revolving loan fund policies to allow its community-development-block-grant-funded loan program to finance the conversion of existing businesses to employee-owned structures, with specific callouts for worker cooperatives.

The Board of County Commissioners in Miami-Dade County established a Living Wage Ordinance for employees paid through county service contracts to allow citizens to support themselves and their families above the poverty line and with dignity. The living wage applies to contracts valued at greater than $100,000 and all service contractors at Miami-Dade Aviation Department facilities regardless of contract value for various covered services as defined in the provisions of Miami-Dade County's Living Wage Ordinances. Effective October 1, 2022, the living wage is $15.03 per hour with qualifying health benefits valued at least $3.70 per hour or $18.73 per hour.

In 2016, Minneapolis, Minnesota, created the Labor Standards Enforcement Division within its Department of Civil Rights. Through a team of five employees, the office enforces the city’s paid sick and safe time, minimum wage, wage theft and freelance worker protection laws.

The Living Wage Ordinance, which includes the Business Subsidy Act, requires covered projects to create at least one full-time living wage job for each $25,000 of business subsidy. State law contains many exemptions. The city places its own requirements on subsidies valued at $100,000 or more and with the intention, or end result, of creating or keeping jobs. Living wage rates effective January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022, are 130% of poverty for a family of four without health coverage provided by the employer and 110% of poverty for a family of four with health coverage provided by the employer.

First signed into law in 1937, this legislation outlines minimum national program standards for registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). The systems, structures and policies outlined in this legislation provide the framework for local workforce agencies to fund union registered apprenticeship programs (as well as non-union programs) through other federal funds, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and SNAP employment and training to subsidize wages and classroom instruction related to RAP on-the-job learning and related instruction.

New York City developed the nation’s largest municipal initiative for education and technical assistance around employee ownership and conversion. Business owners can access $10,000 of technical assistance services, utilize the Owners2Owners hotline and have targeted financing and grant opportunities for worker cooperatives.

New York City launched the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, a living wage law that includes wages and health benefits for workers. The law requires certain employers that receive at least $1 million of financial assistance from the city or a city economic development entity to pay no less than the living wage to their employees at the project site, unless the employer qualifies for certain exemptions. As of April 1, 2022, the living wage rate of $15.00 and health benefit supplement of $2.05 applies.