Senator Jessica Ramos represents New York’s 13th Senate District in Queens, one of the most diverse and hard-working communities in the country. As Chair of the Senate Labor Committee, she has built her legislative career around a simple principle. Government must deliver real economic stability for working people.
Ramos is known as a results-driven governing progressive who focuses on turning values into law, budgets, and programs that improve daily life. She works closely with labor, community organizations, and responsible employers to raise wages, protect workers, and strengthen the middle class while ensuring that public policy is practical, enforceable, and built to last.
During her tenure, Ramos helped raise New York’s minimum wage and index to inflation so workers can keep up with rising costs. She authored and advanced landmark worker protection laws including prevailing wage expansion, stronger enforcement against wage theft, and new transparency standards that ensure employees understand and receive the benefits they earn. She has championed workforce development, apprenticeship pipelines, and childcare support that allow working parents to enter and remain in high-quality careers, including the building trades.
During the pandemic, Ramos led the creation of the 2.1 billion dollar Excluded Workers Fund, delivering direct relief to undocumented and excluded workers who were left out of federal aid. The program became a national model for recognizing the essential contributions of immigrant workers and ensuring they were not abandoned during crisis.
Ramos has also focused on affordability and long-term economic growth. She is advancing workforce housing initiatives that put union labor and pension investments to work building homes for working families, modeled on New York’s historic cooperative housing tradition. Her approach emphasizes competent governance, strong oversight, and public investments that create good jobs while strengthening communities.
Before her election to the Senate, Ramos served as Director of Latino Media for the New York City Mayor’s Office, where she helped connect immigrant and working-class communities to city services and economic opportunity. She has spent her career at the intersection of public service, labor advocacy, and community empowerment.
The daughter of Colombian immigrants, Ramos brings a deeply personal understanding of the promise and pressures facing working families. She continues to focus on coalition-building across New York’s diverse communities, grounded in the belief that when government works effectively for workers, it works for everyone.