Federal contractors must pay workers at least $25 per hour.
H.R. 9571 — Living Wage for Federal Contractors Act · Filed by Alma Adams (D-NC) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 2, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill requires federal contractors to pay workers $17 per hour at first. The wage rises to $25 per hour over five years. After that, the wage goes up each year with inflation. Contractors who do not pay lose their contracts. They owe double the unpaid wages, face a three-year ban, and pay fines.
Who it affects
Workers on federal contracts gain higher pay and stronger protections. Taxpayers fund federal contracts with public money. Federal contractors must follow the new wage rules.
One thing to notice
Tipped workers get lower rates than other workers. They still see large increases from the current federal tipped minimum of $2.13 per hour.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 8 Democrats.
- Jul 2, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 2, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $300,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 46 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Alma Adams, who sponsored the bill, received $275,050 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Service Employees International Union Ctw-clc — $300,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- federal contractors — Companies that do work or sell goods to the U.S. government.
- inflation — When prices for things go up over time, so wages go up too.
- tipped workers — Employees who earn part of their pay from tips given by customers.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (10,606 characters) on Aug 12, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
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