Higher Wages — H7769/S2620
Support a $20/hr Minimum Wage.
Rhode Island's minimum wage is $16/hour — only about two-thirds of what a single adult needs to survive. To make up the gap, workers are forced into 60-hour workweeks just to cover rent, food, and medicine. This has gone on long enough. It is time to make a change.
H7769 - In Committee - HEard march 18, 2026
S2620 - In Committee - TBD
Why Rhode Islanders Are supporting
Real VOICES. Real stories
"I got into caregiving to look after my mother. Seven years later I'm still choosing between paying bills and buying groceries for my kids. No matter how much I work, it is still not enough. Essential workers deserve better."
Sally
Home Care Worker
"Every week I hear from patients going without food, working 12 hours a day and still unable to pay rent. You can't therapize or medicate your way out of an affordability crisis. We need real solutions now."
Brooke
Mental Health Professional
"At $16 an hour, I challenge any elected official in Rhode Island to live off that for a month. It is not enough. Rhode Island workers deserve higher wages and they deserve them now."
Jesse
Affordable RI Chair
Background & Numbers
The Two-Thirds Gap
Rhode Island's current minimum wage is $16/hour. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children needs at least $25.01 per hour just to cover the basics — rent, food, transportation, and medical expenses — without any government assistance.
That means today's minimum wage is only about two-thirds of what it costs to survive in Rhode Island.
To bridge the difference between $16 and $25, a Rhode Islander has to work 62.5 hours every single week just to achieve baseline stability. We are effectively mandating a 60-hour work week for our lowest earners — leaving them no time for rest, for family, or for anything else.
For families, the math becomes impossible:
$45/hr
A single parent with one child needs to be self-sufficient in Rhode Island
$31/hr
Two working parents with two children each need to make ends meet
Source: MIT Living Wage Calculator, February 2025 — livingwage.mit.edu/states/44
Even at $20/hour, a full-time worker is still $5 short of a basic living wage for a single adult. But every year without action is another year we are telling the working poor to run faster to keep up with a treadmill that never slows down.
Who It Affects
The Human Cost
Across Rhode Island, 51% of renters are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing alone.* When wages don't cover rent, everything else falls apart.
For working parents, low wages impact the entire family. When the minimum wage is $16 or $17 an hour, and survival requires 60+ hours of work a week, parents aren't home for bedtime stories or homework help. We are sacrificing our next generation's stability because we refuse to pay today's workers a fair wage.
And then there are the caregivers.
We saw during the pandemic who is truly essential: home care workers, childcare providers, and direct service staff. These are the people we trust to care for our aging parents and our youngest children. It is a moral failure that a home care worker in Rhode Island — averaging $19/hour — often cannot afford the very care services they provide for others.
We cannot continue to build this state's care infrastructure on the backs of workers who are being left to go hungry.
* Source: RI KIDS COUNT 2024 Factbook
Why It Matters
This Is Not a Raise.
It's an Urgent Adjustment.
You will hear opponents of this bill say that $20 is too much, too fast.
But by the time this bill takes effect in January 2027, $20/hour will still fall short of the living wage for a single adult in Rhode Island. This is not asking for more than people need — this is asking to stop pretending that less is enough.
"H7769 is not an increase, but an emergency adjustment to help working Rhode Islanders who are in crisis right now."
If we want a Rhode Island where people can afford to live where they work, where parents can see their children every night, and where "essential work" is treated with dignity, this bill is the obvious next step.