If you live within certain states, government bureaucrats may have already decided what’s best for you with a smorgasbord of new laws beginning on January 1^st, 2020.

Among them, increases within minimum wages, additional fees for electric cars, restrictive gun regulations and new consumer privacy policies, to name just a few.

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Minimum wage laws increasing hourly pay within 20 states including 26 cities across America is perhaps the single most effective law of 2020 that will directly impact working individuals.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, states like Florida and Ohio increases within their minimum wage are actually due to automatic adjustments for inflation, while other states such as Michigan and Arkansas are the results of either legislation passed or ballot initiatives voted into law by the public.

The national push by organized labor in 2019, along with leftist activists and a majority of Democrats spearheading the effort for a comprehensive $15 minimum wage, has gained momentum. Their argument for the increase is the rising cost of living, even though the minimum wage was never intended to be a “living wage” but rather a point of entry, for a youngster entering the labor force, gaining practical knowledge and experience, in lieu of a “living wage.”

Several states that have mandated a $15 minimum wage are experiencing business either laying off employees and reducing overall staff or decreasing employee hours worked, in order to comply with the new law.

Moreover, large restaurant chains like McDonald’s are investing in technology, automating their establishments worldwide and decreasing staff.

Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour where it’s been since 2009.

Yannet Lathrop, a researcher at the National Employment Law Project, told ABC News.

“States and localities understand that costs of living are rising and minimum wages need to keep up with that.”

The New Year has also brought many CLIMATE CHANGE individuals who purchased electric cars in 2019 for the benefit of the environment and to perhaps save a little money by no longer purchasing gas to confront a stark new reality if you did indeed purchase an electric car and live within those 8-states that will be collecting new and increased fees because of lost revenues from gasoline taxes. The fees “theoretically” will be used for infrastructure improvements.

According to the Associated Press, Alabama, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oregon, and Utah are set to enforce fee changes on Wednesday, which may reach $200 annually for the privilege of “plugging-in” your electric car.

Privacy has also become the number one issue for many Americans, worried about “identity theft.” In California, a new data privacy law has gone into effect protecting the information companies collect about consumers. If an individual asks a company or internet provider for the data that’s been collected on that consumer, the company is required under the new law to provide that information collected and explain why it was collected in the first place and with whom it was shared. Consumers also can request to have that data permanently erased.

The law dubbed the “California Consumer Privacy Act” will also apply to out-of-state companies that do business within the Golden State and that also sell services to California residents.

Perhaps the most controversial law thus far passed in 2020, are those “Red Flag” laws or regional laws that allow any individual to petition (in most cases anonymously), a court to confiscate firearms away from someone deemed a threat, without initial “due process.”

Colorado, Hawaii, and Nevada have with the ringing in of the New Year enacted their version of “red flag” laws, which generally conflates what constitutes a “threat” compared to someone who may pose an actual threat. The law is based within many states on conjecture and supposition, which can be used to promote a political narrative, while also disrupting the lives of law-abiding gun owners.

Immigration continues to be a hot topic for 2020, with Arkansas becoming the latest state to ban sanctuary cities within their state, the new bill that just became law on January 1^st bans all cities within Arkansas from declaring themselves “sanctuary cities” if they do the state will cut off all funding to that city or town that willfully defies federal immigration laws.

That’s a brief look at what the New Year has in store for 2020.