Fact Check: Did Donald Trump sign an executive order raising the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour?
WASHINGTON, DC: Some viral TikToks and Facebook videos have claimed that President Donald Trump dropped a historic executive order raising the federal minimum wage to $25 effective from April 15.
According to these clips—decked out with real Trump footage, Oval Office signing scenes, and news-style voiceovers—the president had "approved the largest minimum wage increase in US history." The videos declared, “As of the eighth of April 2025, no American worker will be allowed to earn less than $25 per hour.”
Fact Check: False
Snopes got bombarded with emails from curious (and hopeful) viewers wondering if their paychecks were about to multiply overnight.
Despite the impressive production quality of the videos—complete with Trump signing paperwork and a mash-up of stock footage—Snopes investigated the claim and gave it a hard pass.
Trump signed four executive orders on April 8, but none of them had anything to do with raising the minimum wage. Snopes clarified that “the claim that Trump signed a new executive order to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour is false.”
It's worth noting that the accounts sharing the viral wage rumor weren’t new to the fake news game. They’d already been pushing equally bogus stories—like Trump allegedly mandating a 32-hour workweek.
Is Donald Trump lowering wages?
If anything, Donald Trump has shown he’s not a fan of minimum wage hikes. Just last month, he signed a March 14 executive order titled “Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.” One of those “harmful” orders was President Joe Biden’s move to raise the federal contractor minimum wage to $15 per hour.
The original Biden order was meant to boost "workers' health, morale, and effort" while cutting down on “absenteeism and turnover.” But Trump’s administration didn’t see it that way. Along with killing the $15 contractor wage, the March 14 order also revoked Biden’s COVID-era order promoting a “data-driven response”.
A memo stating that “all human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are or whom they love.”
At his January confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he does not support raising the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25—where it's been stuck since 2009.
Even Vice President JD Vance wasn’t hyping up wage increases during a March 18 speech at the American Dynamism Summit.
“One of the debates you hear on the minimum wage, for instance, is that increases in the minimum wage force firms to automate," he reportedly said. "So, a higher wage at McDonald's means more kiosks. And whatever your views on the wisdom of the minimum wage — I'm not going to comment on that here — companies innovating in the absence of cheap labor is a good thing.”
Bernie Sanders is still fighting but Senate prospects look bleak
Those serious about raising the federal wage are Sen Bernie Sanders and Rep Bobby Scott, who dropped a new bill—the Raise the Wage Act of 2025—on April 8.
They propose to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 over five years, eliminate the tipped subminimum wage over seven years, the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities over five, and also the subminimum wage for youth workers over seven.
While it's a bold proposal, the odds of the bill passing the Senate are bad.
The bill is expected to face serious headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate—and that’s even before we get into the Trump camp’s outright opposition.
“While House Democrats have reintroduced the measure, previous versions have stalled in the Senate,” Newsweek reported. “Without bipartisan backing in the Republican-controlled upper chamber, the bill's chances of becoming law are slim.”
So, the final verdict is that the White House hasn’t announced any wage hike—no $25/hour order was signed, and Trump’s administration is actively moving against minimum wage increases. Snopes concluded by declaring that they had “rated this claim false.”
