California’s affordability crisis is about to become a catastrophe, with a majority of Los Angeles’s restaurant workers being severely rent-burdened and not currently earning enough to meet the cost of living.

It is essential that pro-democracy forces actually demonstrate that democracy can deliver for working people in order to mobilize them to vote against authoritarianism in 2026. This means that state and local legislators must pass Living Wage for All policies in multiple jurisdictions across the United States before the November 2026 elections to both address the needs of working people who will experience acute hunger and home and health insecurity in the coming year and save democracy in the process.