In his recent book, Critical Wage Theory: Why Wage Justice Is Racial Justice, Professor Ruben Garcia argues that wage justice is inseparable from racial justice and offers a framework for understanding the intersection of race, class, and labor law through what he terms “Critical Wage Theory” (CWT). García’s work builds on decades of scholarship in critical legal studies and labor law, weaving together historical struggles for fair wages, social movements, storytelling  and structural critiques of inequality.

This is a Moment of Wage Policy Rollbacks

In the first ten months of his presidency, Donald Trump signed 217 executive orders, 54 memoranda, and 109 proclamations, addressing issues ranging from foreign policy to artificial intelligence.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-5716″ title=”Donald Trump’s Executive Orders and Actions, 2025-2026, Ballotpedia (last visited Dec. 1, 2025).” target=”_blank”>1 Given this volume and the immense variety of rights targeted, it is entirely possible that many people might have missed the fact that the current administration has, in a very systematic way, been limiting the access of workers to a living wage.

Among these actions, were significant rollbacks of minimum wage protections. On March 14, 2025, President Trump revoked a Biden-era executive order that had set a $17.75-per-hour minimum wage for federal contractors.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-5716″ title=”Exec. Order No. 14,236, Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,037 (Mar. 20, 2025).” target=”_blank”>2 This means the Biden-era minimum wage for federal contractors is no longer in effect. The applicable minimum wage instead reverted to the Obama-era standard of $13.30 per hour under Executive Order 13,658. The administration also proposed eliminating minimum wage protections for approximately 3.7 million domestic workers—a workforce largely composed of women and racial and ethnic minorities, including immigrants.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-5716″ title=”U.S. Bureau of Lab. Stat., In 2023, the Majority of Home Health Aides and Personal Care Aides Were Women (Feb. 28, 2024).” target=”_blank”>3 In addition, the Department of Labor withdrew a proposed rule that would have ended sub-minimum wages for workers with disabilities, leaving the current $7.25-per-hour standard intact.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-4-5716″ title=”U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Employment of Workers With Disabilities Under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act; Withdrawal, 90 Fed. Reg. 56,321 (July 7, 2025).” target=”_blank”>4

Critical Wage Theory, a way to better understand structural wage inequality

Fortunately for us, for over 20 years, Professor Ruben Garcia has been paying attention to how low-wage workers struggle to survive. Garcia demonstrates that these policy changes exacerbate long-standing structural inequalities. Over the past fifty years, income inequality has widened, particularly for immigrants and people of color. This book brings together two decades of research and writing on the importance of raising the minimum wage, not only to lift workers out of poverty in general, but also as a way of fighting structural racism. Critical Wage Theory applies the principles of Critical Race Theory to wage law, emphasizing intersectionality and the need for structural solutions to systemic barriers preventing workers of color from attaining a living wage. García argues that the “fusion of race and class is even more important at this period of backlash,” highlighting how immigration status and race intersect to deny economic dignity. (P. 28.)

Professor Garcia’s book also comes across as very personal. He includes his experiences as a labor and employment attorney representing unionized bakery workers, graphic designers, undocumented immigrant painters, and exotic dancers. It seems clear from his telling of these experiences that, when there is a coalescing of gender, immigration status, and work that is performed in the margins, workers are more vulnerable to wage theft. This is part of what he calls the “racial political economy.” Racial political economy often results in the law failing to protect the workers, even when protective law exists, due to the politics surrounding the minimum wage.

Proposed Reforms and Comparative Lessons

The book also proposes important reforms that need to happen to achieve wage justice. The first of these is to raise the minimum wage and lift millions of people out of poverty. Other needed reforms include eliminating the exemptions to the minimum wage, making wage increases consistent, making work more beneficial than unemployment, limiting unpaid internships, ending tipped wages5, and using universal income to supplement not to supplant.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-6-5716″ title=”This refers to a publicly funded, consistent, and unconditional cash transfer provided irrespective of people’s income level, employment situation, or any similar qualifying criteria. In general, see Philip Harvey, Is There a Progressive Alternative to Conservative Welfare Reform?, 15 Geo. J. on Poverty L. &amp; Pol’y 157 (2008).” target=”_blank”>6 He also promotes the idea of moving from the minimum wage concept to a minimum salary that is not calculated hourly and that would provide workers with more stability.  In particular he proposes converting the minimum hourly wage to a livable working wage that could offer flexibility to employers and certainty to workers.

He closes the book with an important reminder that, in a globalized economy, transnational advocacy networks are essential for minimum wage policy. Maybe we should be looking to our neighbors south of the border for guidance. Mexico’s recent experience offers a compelling comparative example. Between 2018 and 2024, Mexico doubled its minimum wage, contributing to a 12-percentage-point reduction in poverty—from 42.9 percent to 29.6 percent—and lifting nearly 13 million people out of poverty. Poverty fell from 42.9 percent to 29.6 percent. According to experts, minimum wage increases explain around 70 percent of this historic reduction.<a href=”https://equality.jotwell.com/wage-justice-for-the-working-poor-across-race-and-gender/#easy-footnote-bottom-7-5716″ title=”Mexico | Notable Progress, Poverty at Its Lowest Level of 29.6%, but Inequalities Persist, BBVA (Aug. 20, 2025).” target=”_blank”>7 The way Mexico achieved this offers valuable lessons for a way forward that mirrors many of Garcia’s proposals.  He cautions however that even though translating minimum wage standards across borders is particularly challenging, transnational advocacy is important to achieve a better wage policy globally.

Garcia also reminds us that law conveys social meaning and that a low and stagnant minimum wage communicates that we as a society “place little value on all workers, not just those who happen to earn at that low level.” (P. 141.) As Garcia recognizes, advancing stronger labor protections for people of color is essential to raising labor standards more broadly across society.

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  1. Donald Trump’s Executive Orders and Actions, 2025-2026, Ballotpedia (last visited Dec. 1, 2025).
  2. Exec. Order No. 14,236, Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, 90 Fed. Reg. 13,037 (Mar. 20, 2025).
  3. U.S. Bureau of Lab. Stat., In 2023, the Majority of Home Health Aides and Personal Care Aides Were Women (Feb. 28, 2024).
  4. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Employment of Workers With Disabilities Under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act; Withdrawal, 90 Fed. Reg. 56,321 (July 7, 2025).
  5. For many decades, employers were permitted to forgo paying a base wage, requiring workers to rely exclusively on tips for their compensation. Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1948 to require employers to pay at least $2.13 per hour, allowing employers to count on tips to reach the federal minimum wage. This continues to be current federal minimum cash wage for tipped employees.
  6. This refers to a publicly funded, consistent, and unconditional cash transfer provided irrespective of people’s income level, employment situation, or any similar qualifying criteria. In general, see Philip Harvey, Is There a Progressive Alternative to Conservative Welfare Reform?, 15 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y 157 (2008).
  7. Mexico | Notable Progress, Poverty at Its Lowest Level of 29.6%, but Inequalities Persist, BBVA (Aug. 20, 2025).