Three months into the new legislative year, with all but a handful of state legislatures currently in session, several employment law trends for 2025 have emerged. Some of the more significant trends reflect the country’s social and political atmosphere, particularly with respect to legislation introduced in support of or in response to Trump administration priorities, and some of the legislative hot topics from 2024 are still trending this year. While it is too early to tell which of the thousands of bills at the federal, state, and local levels will ultimately be enacted, the following seem to be the most notable trends currently.

Trend:  Discrimination and Diversity Initiatives

While the new administration has been active in its efforts to reduce the size of the federal government and concentrate power in the executive branch, state legislatures have responded by advancing their own policies that either complement and support the Trump administration’s priorities, or aim to combat those priorities and preserve certain rights for the citizens of their states.

President Trump issued a package of executive orders aimed at eliminating illegal inclusion, equity, and diversity (IE&D) programs and initiatives in federal agencies as well as for private sector companies that hold government contracts. One of the president’s executive orders, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, both rescinded executive orders requiring affirmative action in government contracting and directed that action be taken to address illegal IE&D programs and policies in the private sector. Federal agencies in turn have begun the process of ending any internal IE&D programs, and of interest to private sector employers, the EEOC and the Department of Justice issued two “technical assistance” documents “focused on educating the public about unlawful discrimination related to ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) in the workplace.”

Some states, perhaps hesitant to regulate the private sector in light of the permanent injunction on parts of Florida’s “Stop WOKE” law, are considering legislation that focuses on eliminating IE&D programs in government contracting. For example, pending legislation in South Carolina would require a contractor or grant recipient to certify that they do not operate any programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to enter a contract with the state or receive state grant funds. Kentucky does take aim at the private sector with a bill that provides that a corporate director is not acting in good faith if they implement or maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or environmental, social, and governance investing. In contrast, proposed legislation in Illinois would expressly allow an employer to implement policies and trainings that are designed to safeguard employees from discrimination based on race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order defines “sex” as each “individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female,” and calls for eradicating “gender ideology,” which, according to the order, “includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex.” To implement these positions, the order requires all federal agencies and employees to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to men and women as biologically distinct sexes.” A handful of states has already enacted legislation to bolster this priority at the state level, and several more states have similar bills pending. Wyoming, West Virginia, and Iowa enacted new laws that define the terms “sex,” “male,” “female,” and related terms to be used in construing and applying state laws and regulations. In a national first, Iowa rolled back antidiscrimination protections for transgender and non-binary individuals by removing gender identity as a protected classification under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. By contrast, approximately 15 states have bills pending that would enshrine protections against discrimination based on a person’s gender identity or expression in the state’s antidiscrimination statute. Many states’ antidiscrimination laws already include protections related to gender identity.

In addition to the trends just discussed, immigration enforcement is both a top priority of the new administration as well as a major topic of legislation in state capitols in 2025.

Trend: Immigration/E-Verify Requirements

As the Trump administration has made immigration enforcement one of its signature issues, there has been a significant uptick in proposed legislation surrounding immigration and employment across state legislatures. Many of these bills focus on the federal E-Verify program, which uses federal government records to confirm an employee’s authorization to work in the United States. While the program is voluntary, several states require public employers and government contractors to use E-Verify, and others require certain private employers to use the program for new hires. Much of the legislation related to immigration enforcement this session would introduce or tighten requirements for employers to use E-Verify. For example, Montana, Kentucky, and Idaho do not currently require E-Verify but are considering bills that would require most or all private employers to use the program. Additionally, even in states with existing E-Verify requirements, bills have been introduced to broaden the scope of these laws. For example, Florida presently requires employers with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify, but is considering multiple bills that would lower that threshold to include private employers of all sizes and increase penalties for noncompliance.

Additionally, several proposed bills would establish new prohibitions on hiring or employing unauthorized workers, while others would increase the penalties for violations of these laws. For example, North Dakota and Indiana are considering bills that would prohibit recruiting, hiring, or employing unauthorized workers, while Florida HB 1033 would revoke an employer’s business licenses and impose a fine of up to $10,000 for employing an unauthorized worker.

Some proposed immigration-related legislation this session would also impose new notice requirements on employers, with Alabama HB 302 requiring employers to share foreign workers’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services numbers with the state, and Texas HB 3681 requiring employers to notify a federal agency when a new hire’s authorization to work cannot be verified.

Conversely, several states are considering legislation intended to counteract the new administration’s focus on immigration enforcement. For example, New York SB 3956 would prohibit employers from using E-Verify to check a current employee’s work authorization status, and Illinois HB 3364 would prohibit employers in the state from imposing work authorization or re-verification requirements greater than those of the federal E-Verify system. Additionally, Oregon HB 3830 would allow immigrants who are not lawfully present to lawfully provide certain occupational or professional services, and Washington HB 1875 would amend the state’s paid sick leave law to allow employees paid time off to prepare for or attend immigration proceedings.

Trend: Protections for Tipped Workers

In August 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the Department of Labor’s so-called “80/20/30 Rule” governing how tipped employees must be paid under the FLSA. This rule identified multiple types of work for tipped employees, and required employers to pay these workers differing rates based on the time spent performing services for which the worker would be tipped. However, the Fifth Circuit found that tipped employees did not cease to become tipped employees because of the time spent performing tasks that do not generate tips, and the applicable guidance at the federal level reverted to the 1998 version of the prior “80/20” rule. Soon after, both 2024 presidential candidates proposed excluding tipped wages from income taxes, making the issue a focus of both parties.

Following these developments, it is unsurprising that proposals to amend taxation on tipped and overtime pay have shown up in legislatures across the country as well as the U.S. Congress. More than seven states, including Arizona, California, and Oregon, have introduced legislation to exclude tipped income from state taxes, while at least eight states, including Georgia, Minnesota, and West Virginia, are considering bills that would exclude overtime wages from state taxable income. These state-by-state efforts come in concert with proposed legislation at the federal level that would exclude overtime and tipped wages from federal income tax.

Elimination of the tip credit continues to trend this year. Several jurisdictions, including Hawaii, Arizona, and New Hampshire, are considering legislation that would eliminate or phase out the tipped employee credit, requiring employers to pay their tipped employees the regular minimum wage.

Finally, there is continued energy in some cities and states to more closely regulate the payment of tipped workers and establish new obligations for their employers. For example, proposed legislation in Washington and New Mexico would prohibit employers from withholding credit card fees from employees’ tip payouts, while New York City is considering an ordinance that would require employers to provide each tipped employee with a copy of their individualized gratuity report for each of their working days.

Continuing Trend: Artificial Intelligence and Automated Decision-making Systems

Via executive order, President Trump rescinded President Biden’s 2023 “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,” which called on federal agencies to collaborate to develop principles and best practices to mitigate harms and maximize benefits of AI for workers. President Trump subsequently issued a new executive order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” intended to guard against excessive regulation on AI use and promote U.S. innovation in this area. Notably, the Idaho legislature has introduced a bill furthering these principles. If passed, it would prohibit state government entities from implementing any law that constrains the development, training, or use of AI systems.

In the absence of a concerted federal effort to regulate the development and use of AI systems, states have pressed forward with legislation intended to permit the use of AI tools in a manner that is not harmful to workers and consumers. The pending AI bills in Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Colorado and a few others are based on model legislation developed by the Multistate AI Policymaker Working Group, a coalition of approximately 200 lawmakers from 45 states. In general, these bills would impose a duty of reasonable care on employers (“deployers” of an AI tool or system) to mitigate and assess the risk of algorithmic discrimination caused by their use of AI systems. The bills would also establish significant rights for individuals who are the subject of a decision made by an AI system, such as advance notice related to the use of the system as well as the opportunity to opt out of having personal data processed by an AI system.

California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont have reintroduced bills providing worker protection against AI decision-making that did not succeed in passing in 2024, some with tweaks designed to gain traction. Other states with proposed legislation of this sort include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

A new AI-related legislative trend for 2025 concerns preventing the use of algorithms and surveillance data to engage in pricing collusion in a variety of contexts such as retail, housing, and insurance. Of interest to employers, bills pending in Colorado, Georgia and Illinois would prohibit the use of surveillance data in automated decision systems to determine individual wages for employees.

Trend: Countering Wage Theft

According to the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) December 2024 report, from 2021 to 2023, 1.5 billion dollars in deprived wages were collected through federal, state, and local initiatives to counter wage theft. Violations characterized as “wage theft” may include, but are not limited to, failure to pay minimum wage or overtime, meal and rest break violations, unlawful tipping practices, illegal paycheck deductions, compensable off-the-clock violations, or employee misclassification. As provided by the EPI’s report, wage theft can be found in all industries, but is most prevalent in the retail, construction, healthcare, and restaurant industries.

Several states have introduced bills that would counter wage theft by increasing their state labor department’s and attorney general’s enforcement powers and allowing employees to bring a representative action. For example, Massachusetts SB 1926 is similar to the California Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) and would allow employees to bring representative actions on behalf of other employees and the state of Massachusetts to recover wages. New York has introduced the EMPIRE Act for the third consecutive session; like the PAGA and the Massachusetts bill, this act would allow an affected employee to initiate a public enforcement action on behalf of the state labor commissioner for violations of the New York Labor Law.

The states have also introduced bills that enhance the penalties and deterrents for employers found to be in violation of state wage and hour laws. Legislation introduced in Pennsylvania would increase overall penalties for wage theft, and Arizona’s HB 2260 would provide that if an employer fails to pay wages to an employee, the employee may recover up to five times the amount in unpaid wages. California legislators are introducing various new deterrents for wage theft including:

• California AB 485: denying state licenses or permits for California businesses that do not pay their wage theft judgments;
• California SB 261: requiring the California Labor Commissioner to maintain and post a list of businesses that have failed to pay wage theft judgments on the Commission’s website; and
• California SB 355: denying or suspending drivers’ licenses and company vehicle registrations if a business does not pay its wage theft judgments.

Several states, including New York, Minnesota, California, and South Dakota, have introduced legislation that would criminalize wage theft. New York SB 2078 would allow business licenses to be suspended if a business has been charged or convicted of wage theft. Unique to New York this legislative season, the state is seeking to hold high-level executives personally responsible for wage theft. New York AB 166 and SB 2131 would create a lien remedy to hold up to ten members of the largest ownership interests personally liable for the wages owed to the employee. Further, New York AB 4994 would provide a civil process for holding shareholders personally liable for wage theft.

Continuing Trend: Reproductive Health and the Workplace

Reproductive health has been on the forefront of state legislation since the Dobbs decision in 2022. Although bills are still being introduced related to health insurance coverage, procedural protections, or reproductive health ballot initiatives, (See here and here for more information related to past reproductive legislative trends), in 2025, the topic of reproductive health is popping up in the form of leaves of absence and accommodations.

Reproductive Health Accommodations

A relatively new, but small, trend has emerged regarding accommodation for certain reproductive health conditions. A 2016 study estimates that 14-25% of women have menstrual irregularities, which are more broad than actual disorders, including amenorrhea (lack of menstrual cycle), menorrhagia (heavy menstrual bleeding), and dysmenorrhea (painful menstrual cycle). Related legislation aims to require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees with reproductive health conditions unless it would be an undue hardship or burden for the employer. Typically, there is a range of potential qualifying disorders, and these may include the typical irregularities described above. For example, New Jersey has introduced a pair of bills, SB 4197 and AB 3334, requiring an employer to allow employees suffering from a range of menstrual disorders to work remotely, unless it would create an undue burden for employers.

A few bills generically provide for accommodations for “menstrual disorder” or “menopause-related conditions.” New York AB 5436 would require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for an applicant’s or employee’s menstrual and menopausal-related conditions. Rhode Island SB 361 would expand pregnancy accommodation provisions to provide accommodations for menopause-related conditions. Neither provides much guidance on what constitutes “menopause,” “menstrual conditions,” or “related conditions.”

Time off is contemplated as one possible accommodation for conditions related to menstruation or menopause. For example, a pair of New York bills, SB 3908 and AB 1940, would require employers to provide four days of paid leave a month for menstrual complications and menopause.

Reproductive Health Leaves

Bereavement leave, a relatively recent legislative trend in the leaves arena, is being expanded via bills that would allow for leave in cases of reproductive loss. “Reproductive loss” typically includes, but is not limited to, miscarriage, stillbirth, failed adoption or surrogacy, and unsuccessful in vitro fertilization or other assisted reproductive technology. California, Illinois, and Washington currently have bereavement leave provisions that extend to certain reproductive loss events. Both Texas HB 317 and Hawaii HB 822 would provide five days of leave if an employee experiences a reproductive loss. Pennsylvania HB 551 would require employers to provide 24 hours of paid leave for reproductive loss, including a fertility diagnosis or if an absence is needed to care for a spouse or domestic partner who experiences a pregnancy loss.

Continuing Trend: Banning Mandatory Employer-Sponsored Meetings

In 2024, 13 jurisdictions introduced 23 bills that would prohibit employers from requiring an employee to attend or participate in meetings regarding political or religious matters. Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington all enacted their own bans in 2024. Connecticut, Illinois, and Minnesota have had their bans challenged on the grounds that it inhibits employers’ freedom of speech and is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. Most recently, California’s Worker Freedom from Employer Intimidation Act went into effect on January 1, 2025. Like the laws in other jurisdictions, California’s recently enacted law has met pushback, as the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Restaurant Association filed a federal lawsuit challenging this law in late 2024.

In 2025, this trend continues as Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Utah have pending legislation seeking to ban mandatory employer-sponsored meetings. As of March 21, 2025, Maryland’s Worker Freedom Act (HB 233) and New Mexico’s Employee Free Speech Act (HB 84) have both passed their respective houses. New Mexico’s bill specifically would ban mandatory employer-sponsored meetings only in relation to political matters. As both states are Democratic trifecta states, it is highly anticipated that these may become law.

Federally, it is unlikely any legislation will progress. The current NLRB acting general counsel’s rescinding the previous general counsel memorandum calling for the banning of mandatory employer-sponsored meetings may signal that the newly appointed general counsel will endeavor to overturn or reverse the Biden NLRB’s recent ban on such meetings regarding unionization.

Honorable Mention: Additional Notable Trends

Along with the categories of legislation discussed above, the following are topics and trends to keep an eye on in 2025:

• Bills related to labor-management relations: Labor-related legislation remains a consistent focus in legislatures across the country, with many states looking to increase protections for organized labor in anticipation of the Trump administration’s expected loosening of National Labor Relations Act enforcement. More than ten states are currently considering legislation that would provide or expand eligibility for unemployment benefits to employees who are locked out of work due to a labor dispute. Conversely, there is momentum elsewhere to loosen labor restrictions. Some states are considering legislation that would enact state right-to-work laws, and others seek to increase penalties for workers and labor unions that violate the existing right-to-work statutes by attempting to persuade workers to join a union.

• Bills regulating child labor: Many of these bills broadly deregulate child labor at the state level, loosening restrictions on working hours, mandatory break periods, and work permit requirements. Additionally, some proposed legislation would update the allowed job duties of minor workers, such as serving or delivering alcohol or working near construction sites.

• Bills regulating the use of noncompetition agreements: In 2025, some states are seeking to beef up their existing restrictions on noncompetition agreements, while others are focusing on restrictive covenants for workers in the healthcare industry beyond physicians, such as travel and temp nurses.

• Workplace safety and health: There is an uptick in legislation that would require employers to implement workplace violence prevention programs, particularly in retail and healthcare settings, as well as bills that would require employers to facilitate worker safety during extreme temperatures.

• Lack of state regulatory activity: At the federal level, President Trump issued a directive that paused all pending regulatory rulemaking. This regulatory freeze directed federal agencies to consider postponing non-emergency rulemaking for 60 days so the new administration can review pending regulations. Although not legislation, state regulatory agencies have also substantially slowed down their rulemaking activity, likely to wait and see what actions the federal agencies take and respond accordingly.

As in any other legislative year, it remains to be seen whether any of the bills discussed here will gain traction and eventually pass. Employers should consult counsel regarding any bills of concern to learn more about the current legislative status of the bill and the associated compliance obligations the bill would impose if it were to become law.