Employment Preemption
State laws that preempt local minimum wage, paid leave, and worker scheduling ordinances.
This is the category named for a fight. Cities raised minimum wages and mandated sick leave; state legislatures answered with preemption statutes nullifying the ordinances, sometimes retroactively. Whether your city's wage floor is its own or the state's is the entire question, and the answer divides the country roughly along familiar lines.
Local employment law survives in permissive states and clusters in big cities: wages above the state floor, sick-leave accrual, scheduling ordinances, living-wage terms in city contracts. Everywhere else, the state code is the only text that matters.
All 50 States: Employment Preemption at the State Level
Each tile shows the strongest state-level rule for that state. Click a state to see its full statewide rules and how local cities are constrained.
Severity: Few Restrictions · Light Restrictions · Some Restrictions · Significant Restrictions · Heavy Restrictions
What's Covered
Minimum Wage Preemption
Whether your state prevents cities from setting a higher local minimum wage, and what the statewide wage floor is.
Paid Leave Preemption
Whether your state blocks cities from mandating paid sick leave or paid family leave for private employers.
Worker Scheduling Preemption
State limits on local "predictive scheduling" or "fair workweek" ordinances that would require advance notice of shifts.