Supporters of a new wage equity law in Massachusetts say it will help close the state's gender and racial wage gap. Starting next year, companies with more than 25 employees must disclose a salary range for all posted positions.

Kimberly Borman, executive director of the Boston Women's Workforce Council, said wage transparency not only benefits women and people of color, who are often paid less than their coworkers, but their employers as well.

"If you never put out there what you can pay, you're going to get a lot of people who are kicking the tires and then you may like them and you get to a point you can't hire them because you just don't have the money," she said.

Borman said the new requirements build on a 2016 law that prohibits wage discrimination based on gender. Massachusetts is now the eleventh state to mandate pay transparency.

The new law also requires larger companies to share their federal wage and workforce data with the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to help identify where wage gaps remain. In Greater Boston, a 2023 report found the gender wage gap was 21 cents, and for Black women it was 54 cents. Borman says the new law will help Massachusetts remain competitive with other states and better able to recruit and retain top talent.

"So, we're losing good talent because they don't believe that they're going to be paid fairly or be promoted to the positions that they should be promoted to and earn the kind of money that they need to stay in this city," she continued.

Borman said a recent survey by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce found one in four residents ages 20 to 30 plans to leave the state in the next five years due to the lack of job availability and high housing costs.


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Union workers across Montana are celebrating the death of a bill which would have given employees the right to choose whether to join a union when hired by a represented company.

Known as the "right to work" bill, some said its title is misleading. More than 200 people signed up to speak against Senate Bill 376 at a hearing last Friday, and more joined them at a rally outside the Statehouse later in the day. Only two people testified in favor.

Jim Soumas, principal officer for Teamsters union Local 190, said it is "inappropriate" to expect unions to do their work with optional dues.

"It's like asking a business to provide a free service," Soumas pointed out. "There's cost to the union to provide professional representation and negotiation skills. We provide that for our members but that comes with a cost."

After the bill failed a committee vote Saturday, its sponsor, Sen. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, tried to force it out of committee but 14 majority Republicans joined Democrats to block the move.

Jason Hottel, a member of Ironworkers Local 732, said early in his career, he worked in Idaho, a "right to work" state. He could not live off the wages, he said, so he moved back to Montana, a state with a strong union history.

"Since then, it's been night and day with what it's done for my life," Hottel explained. "The people around me and my children and everybody else involved with my life has been the biggest impact."

Hottel added he rallied at the Capitol to be an example for younger union workers. Montana is one of 23 states to have not passed so-called "right to work" legislation.

A Pennsylvania city is leveraging funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to improve road safety, housing, and more.

The largest infrastructure project funded by the Infrastructure Bill is an Amtrak line from Scranton to New York City. It is now entering phase two, one of only five projects nationwide to progress to the mark.

Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton, said the community is enhancing infrastructure investments and utilizing funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to support local projects and programs.

"We continue to work on road safety," Cognetti pointed out. "We have lots of projects going on, especially in our downtown, to have reimagined streetscape, more safety concerns, things like calming down the traffic, taking down traffic signals and putting stop signs in."

As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Pennsylvania is expected to receive about $13.2 billion in federal funding for highways and bridges over five years.

Cognetti noted housing remains a top concern in Scranton and nationwide, directly affecting affordability, quality of life and basic financial stability. Cities use various strategies to increase housing supply and improve existing units to ensure safer, more livable conditions.

"There's legacy cities, like we have lots of those in Pennsylvania, where we have housing, but it might be 100 years old," Cognetti observed. "How do we get folks the funds that they need to make their housing up to code, make it warmer and safer, so that we can continue to have those houses for generations to come?"

Gov. Josh Shapiro's proposed budget tackles Pennsylvania's housing crisis with long-term solutions. It includes $10 million to help first-time homebuyers with closing costs and more than $1 billion in property tax relief, making housing more affordable and helping families build generational wealth.


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Conservation advocates say the Trump administration's firing of probationary U.S. Forest Service workers in New Mexico and other Western states could ruin summer vacations - and even prove life-threatening.

The Forest Service has not commented, but Gila National Forest workers told the Silver City Daily Press that at least 13 employees of the trails and recreation crew lost their jobs.

Aaron Weiss, deputy director with the Center for Western Priorities, said those employees terminated are people we've come to depend on.

"They're the ones leading the tours, they're the one answering questions in the visitor center, they're the ones cleaning trails," said Weiss. "So in some cases here, you're talking literally about the folks who make sure you have a safe, sanitary, clean family vacation."

A former employee told the Daily Press that the firings affected the forest's "13/13" crew - permanent seasonal employees who work six months a year.

The firings are part of a massive federal workforce reduction by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, head of the newly-formed advisory group - the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

The Gila National Forest and Gila Wilderness encompass some 600,000 acres and draw thousands of tourists each year. They've also been the site of recent fires, which Weiss said worried him.

"February is prime season for hiring wildland firefighters for the upcoming fire season, and for doing controlled burns and wildfire prevention work," said Weiss. "If you're not doing those controlled burns now, you are leaving more fuel on the ground that will burn this summer."

New Mexico's Democratic congressional delegation released information showing the state has about 2,200 federal employees in probationary periods in the Forest Service, Veterans Health Administration, Bureau of Land Management, and the FBI.





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