50 Employment Laws in 50 States

New for 2025

The only at-a-glance reference volume that explains employer obligations under 50+ employment laws, for each of the 50 United States.

50 Employment Laws in 50 States is a compilation of brief summaries of state laws along with their Canadian counterparts on the most important areas of employment law. Each section begins with a question about a specific aspect of employment law — for example, state requirements that exceed federal law, wage and hour requirements, or areas where states typically differ widely from each other. The "answers" are presented state by state. The "answers" are provided by members of the Employers Counsel Network (ECN), a BLR®-sponsored organization linking top employment law practitioners at leading firms in each of the 50 states and Canada.

Buyers' Benefit: You are enrolling in an automatic update program and will receive annual updates sent on a 90-day approval basis and billed separately. You may cancel this automatic update program at any time.

Available: February 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64535-300-3

50 Employment Laws in 50 States

Now you can INSTANTLY discover your legal obligations under the 50 most important employment laws in each of the 50 states.

50 Employment Laws in 50 States, 2025 Edition is the revolutionary guidebook that puts ALL the most need-to-know employment law information — for each of the 50 states — right at your fingertips.

Imagine the time and frustration you'll save with this authoritative, instant-information reference. In just seconds, you'll zero in on the precise information you need whenever you must:

• Create a new policy
• Verify the compliance of an existing policy
• Expand your operations
• Audit your procedures
• Support recommendations to senior management
• Advise colleagues at field offices, branches, and stores.
• Stay comfortably up-to-date with increasingly complicated state employment laws
• Online password privacy

This quick-reference guide puts the expertise of the nationwide Employers Counsel Network right at your fingertips. The top-flight attorneys in the Network focus almost exclusively on defending employers and write the Employment Law Letter for their state. They have applied their valuable time and resources to making this side-by-side comparison of employer obligations the definitive reference.

With 50 Employment Laws in 50 States, 2025 Edition, you get the exact guidance you need whenever you need to understand ANY state law concerning:

Automatic Updates Keep Your Guide Current
Buyers' Benefit: You are enrolling in an automatic update program and will receive annual updates sent on a 90-day approval basis and billed separately. You may cancel this automatic update program at any time.

Major Changes for 2025

Pay transparency: Pay transparency laws have been around for a while but in the past few, states have introduced new variations in an effort to address pay inequality and promote wage transparency, from requiring employers to disclose compensation information to increasing employee access to salary data. Each state imposes different obligations like requiring employers to post salary ranges in job postings or disclose salary information to existing employees and job applicants. Some even impose their requirements on employers advertising for remote workers in the state, not just on employers located in the state. To be sure you are compliant, consult chapter 16 on Equal Pay chapter 38 on Preemployment Inquiries.

Minimum wage and salary exemption increases: In 2024 and early 2025, more than half the states raised their minimum wage. And while the federal overtime rule raising the salary threshold for white collar overtime exemptions was struck down, many states have their own salary thresholds that increased in 2025. Consult chapter 28 A on Minimum Wage to be sure you are meeting your state’s minimum requirements.

Paid sick leave: Nearly one-third of states (and the District of Columbia) require employers to offer some sort of paid sick leave. The requirements differ significantly from state to state, leading to compliance challenges for employers operating in multiple states or with remote employees working in other states. In addition to paid sick leave, states continue to enact and expand other types of leave requirements as well. For example, in 2024, New York became the first state to mandate a separate entitlement for paid leave for prenatal care. Ensure you are meeting all your obligations by reviewing chapter 17, which covers Family and Medical Leave, chapter 42, which covers Sick Leave and Other Paid Time Off, and chapter 43, which covers Small Necessities Leave, including domestic violence leave.

Protections against discrimination and harassment: A continuing trend that affects almost all employers is the expansion of protected characteristics. More than half the states have laws prohibiting discrimination based on certain hair types commonly associated with race, including braids, twists, locs, afros, and textured hair. Other new protected characteristics have included immigration status, association with members of a protected group, and reproductive health decisions. Find out what is included in your state’s discrimination protections in chapter 10 on Discrimination and chapter 45 on Title VII Equivalents.

Your Editor and Contributors

50 Employment Laws in 50 States is prepared by leading attorneys, many of them members of the Employers Counsel Network, a nationwide affiliation of prestigious law firms representing management in employment law matters. Their contributions are edited by Celeste Duke.

Celeste Duke, SPHR, is the Editor of a number of BLR publications. She has written about human resources for a variety of publications, including Basic Training for Supervisors and Frontline Supervision.

She has written and edited a series of white papers covering employment trends and developments and manages the editorial content for BLR’s online training.

Before coming to BLR, she was the business editor for The Daily Herald in Columbia, Tennessee. Celeste earned her bachelor’s degree from David Lipscomb University and a master’s from Middle Tennessee State University, where she also taught writing.

Following is a list of those who were most instrumental in the completion of this book. We thank them for their continued perseverance in this project.

• Alabama:  Lehr Middlebrooks Vreeland & Thompson, P.C.
• Alaska: Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
• Arizona: Tiffany & Bosco, P.A.
• Arkansas: Mitchell Williams
• Colorado: Holland & Hart LLP
• Connecticut: Carlton Fields
• District of Columbia: Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P.
• Florida: Sniffen and Spellman
• Georgia: Thompson Hine LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP and Christopher Butler LLC
• Hawaii: Cades Schutte LLP
• Idaho: Parsons Behle & Latimer
• Iowa: Denton Davis Brown
• Kansas: Foulston Siefkin LLP
• Kentucky: Frost Brown Todd LLC
• Louisiana: Jones Walker
• Maine: Brann & Isaacson
• Maryland: Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P.
• Massachusetts: Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.
• Michigan: Bodman PLC
• Minnesota: Felhaber Larson
• Mississippi: The Kullman Firm
• Missouri: Armstrong Teasdale LLP
• Montana: Ritchie Manning Kautz PLLP
• Nebraska: Erickson | Sederstrom, P.C.
• New Hampshire: Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green PA.
• New Jersey: Genova Burns LLC
• North Carolina: Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP
• North Dakota: Vogel Law Firm
• Ohio: Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP
• Oklahoma: McAfee & Taft
• Oregon: Perkins Coie LLP
• Pennsylvania: Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP
• Rhode Island: Whelan Corrente & Flanders LLP
• South Carolina: Burr & Forman LLP
• Texas: Monty & Ramirez LLP
• Utah: Kirton McConkie
• Vermont:Dinse P.C.
• West Virginia: Steptoe & Johnson PLLC
• Wisconsin: Axley Brynelson, LLP
• Wyoming: Holland & Hart LLP
• Canada: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP