In early 2016, Birmingham became the first city in the South to approve a local minimum wage, raising its floor from $7.25 to $10.10. In a matter of days, Alabama state legislators passed an act leading all Alabama cities to abide by the federal minimum. Aggressive state preemption of local laws has grown more common over the past several years, most often involving conservative state legislators overriding policies passed by liberal cities. Now, the pandemic has brought a level of public scrutiny to state and local affairs that’s pretty much unprecedented in recent history. The question is what, exactly, advocates and institutions will do with this moment, and how philanthropy should best deploy its resources for impact at a time when historic state policy shifts are not only possible, but probable.