minimum wage

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On April 27, 2021, President Biden issued a new Executive Order that raises the federal contractor minimum wage to $15 per hour, from the current $10.95 per hour, starting January 30, 2022.

Biden’s new Executive Order is nearly a word for word retread of the Obama Administration’s Executive Order 13658 (originally setting a $10.10 federal contractor minimum wage), with some notable exceptions:

  • The federal contractor minimum wage is raised to $15 per hour starting January 30, 2022
  • The current tipped worker federal contractor minimum wage, setting a lower hourly minimum wage just for tipped workers, is phased out by January 1, 2024; and
  • The Trump Administration exemption for certain “recreational services on federal lands” (Executive Order 13838) is revoked.

What remains the “same” is the following:

President Obama signed an Executive Order raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors on February 12, 2014. Our earlier entry on the issue discusses how a higher minimum wage will affect current contractors. It looks like more waiting will be required before the true impact will be known.

The Executive Order calls for the Secretary of Labor and the FAR Council to draft regulations and contract provisions implementing the new minimum wage and to publish them later this year. But the Executive Order also includes some useful guidance.

Here are the key takeaways—