RI’s minimum wage goes up to $15 in 2025. Here’s what to know.

Rhode Island’s minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour in 2025, up from $14 an hour in the last of several staged increases that lawmakers approved in 2021.

When the law passed in 2021, Rhode Island’s minimum wage was $11.50. That tiered approach brought it up to $13 an hour in 2023 and $14 an hour in 2024.

Efforts in recent sessions to increase minimum wage again, in the wake of high inflation and even higher housing costs, have gone nowhere as more focus has shifted to Rhode Island’s housing crisis.

More: Minimum wage hike, flavored vape ban and more: These new RI laws go into effect Jan. 1

Domestic workers can now earn minimum wage, have other protections

While nothing passed last year to change the minimum wage, the biggest change came for domestic workers. Legislation that passed now requires domestic workers in private homes – like nannies, housekeepers, butlers, maids, cooks, au pairs, gardeners and others – be classified as employees.

Before the change, Rhode Island followed federal law, in which these people who were working were not considered to be employees and therefore not subject to Fair Labor and Standards Act, or FLSA.

That meant any and all normal protections workers get, like overtime pay, health insurance, sick leave, the ability to sue an employer and holiday pay on Sundays, didn’t apply because they were not considered to be employees. That also meant families could deduct food and housing from a worker’s wages, in addition to paying them as little as they wanted – the same situation bemoaned in the 1946 song “Sixteen Tons,” about the exploitation of coal miners.

Domestic workers will now earn minimum wage, but more importantly, be considered employees, eligible for all the same rights and benefits as everyone else in the workforce, including overtime pay.

Rhode Island Center for Justice Attorney Sam Cramer wrote in testimony supporting the change that one woman they advised, a Black immigrant, would have been entitled to $70,000 to $400,000 in back wages and damages if domestic workers were considered employees, Cramer wrote.

“Instead, she was kicked out of the home she lived and worked in without notice, access to unemployment benefits, or any meaningful claim for relief,” he wrote.

Right now, RI’s minimum wage won’t go up again. In other states, it will.

Minimum wage has been $15 an hour in Massachusetts for some years and Connecticut hit $15 an hour in 2023.

One perennial effort in the General Assembly has been to mandate minimum wage increases linked to the rate of inflation, something Connecticut already passed. This method ensures minimum wage increases whenever inflation does, making it a moot point for lawmakers.

Rhode Island’s constitution already mandates increases or decreases in pay for legislators, based on the “cost of living.”

In Connecticut, the minimum wage in 2025 will increase to $16.35 an hour from $15.69, to reflect the rising cost of inflation.

Minimum wage for tipped workers will remain $3.69

While the minimum wage is increasing, the tipped minimum wage will stay the same, after efforts to raise it faced fierce opposition from restaurant owners in the last legislative session.

A tipped worker who makes less than $15 an hour, between tips and the tipped minimum wage of $3.69 an hour, is supposed to be paid the difference by their employer to get them to the state’s minimum wage.

Advocates say that often does not happen. Last year, legislation that failed would have increased the tipped minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

How much does $15 an hour pay yearly?

A person working 40 hours a week at $15 an hour will have an annual gross salary of $31,200, a $2,080 increase over 2024’s $29,120 at $14 an hour.

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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Rhode Island’s minimum wage is $15 in 2025 and these jobs are covered

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