FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, August 28, 2026
MEDIA CONTACT:
Bethany Khan: bkhan@culinaryunion226.org ▪ (702) 387-7088
Culinary Union attends House Democrats’ Field Hearing in Las Vegas on affordability and the cost of living crisis
Las Vegas, NV – Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and Democratic Nevada Members of Congress Representatives Dina Titus, Steven Horsford, and Susie Lee held a Field Hearing on Friday, August 28, 2026. The Field Hearing examined how Trump’s policies have driven up the cost of living for working families, from skyrocketing gas prices and grocery bills to rising housing costs, and the economic impacts driving up costs from Trump’s illegal war with Iran.
Culinary Union Secretary Treasurer Ted Pappageorge was invited as an expert witness to the Field Hearing held at the Las Vegas City Hall:
“The best way to start understanding the Trump Slump is to look at the number of people who come to Las Vegas every year. We know people from all over the country and all around the world love to come to Vegas for fun, for shows, great meals, concerts, sporting events, and many other wonderful things we offer, including world-class meeting and convention facilities.
We have grown from 6.8 million visitors in 1970 to a peak of nearly 43 million in 2019. Visitor volume dropped a few times over the years: in 1981 and 1982 due to a recession; in 2001 after the September 11 attacks; in 2008 and 2009 in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis; in 2017 because of the October 1 shooting. And we had the COVID pandemic in 2020. These were global, national, and local events and tragedies that caused fewer people to come to Las Vegas.
Last year, however, Las Vegas saw the largest ever drop in visitor volume going back to 1970 without a single major event. Visitation dropped by 7.5% in 2025, with over 3 million fewer visitors compared to 2024.
Another indicator of the Trump Slump in Las Vegas is this: total passenger count at Harry Reid International Airport has been declining for 18 straight months, and the year-to-
date count through July is down 6.9 percent compared to last year.
Things are not getting any better soon. LVCVA’s tracking data indicate that we will basically have no growth in annual visitor volume this year. So what caused the Trump Slump?
Starting in January, 2025, this White House began to insult and bully other countries with political taunts and economic tariffs while ramping up a dangerous campaign to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants.
Over half a million of immigrants have been detained since January 2025, including many who have lived and worked and paid taxes in the U.S. for many years. Through its actions here and abroad, this administration told the world that the U.S. does not respect or welcome foreigners. It should then be no surprise that the rest of the world heard the message loud and clear and many of them decided not to come to the U.S., including Las Vegas.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Counc, overall U.S. visitor numbers declined by 5.5% in 2025 compared to 2024 and international visitor spending fell 4.6%. And the United States was the only major tourism destination in the whole world that saw a decline in tourism in 2025, even though the global tourism industry grew 4% last year.
In Las Vegas, the number of foreign visitors by 4.8% in 2025, with a particularly large drop in the number of visitors from Canada at 17.4% in 2025. That particular data point will probably get even worse now. The chaos in and around the White House is not helping. Consumer confidence has been on a steady decline since summer last year.
More wars of choice, with missiles or tariffs, are not going to boost consumer confidence. So here in Las Vegas, fewer visitors to Las Vegas means fewer customers in the casinos and hotels, fewer covers and fewer tips in the restaurants, and all that means is fewer hours and shifts for Culinary Union members. And what’s more, prices are still too high and they did not come down on Day One of this new administration.
We surveyed Culinary Union members about daily expenses last year. They told us:
*94% said grocery prices were too high.
*86% said their car insurance was not affordable.
*79% said their power bills were too high.
*66% said their homeowner insurance bills went up.
*59% were finding it harder to pay rent or the mortgage.
And things have gotten worse this year. According to CBS News, these are the price changes from January, 2025 through July, 2026:
*All food has gone up 4% overall.
*Whole milk is up 7%.
*Coffee is up 33%.
*Ground beef is up 24%.
*Electricity has gone up 10.6%.
*Gasoline of all types on average have gone up 27.3%.
And there is no relief in sight. In July, inflation was at 3.4%, higher than the 2.9% inflation in July two years ago. Here in Las Vegas, regular unleaded gas now costs $4.81 a gallon, almost a full dollar more than a year ago. It even went as high as $5.28 in the spring when this administration first started the war in the Middle East.
Rents remain high in Las Vegas and have not come down meaningfully since January, 2025. We need more housing for working people and working families. But the economy is in such bad shape and there is so much uncertainty that apartment construction pipeline in Las Vegas has fallen to the lowest level in 4 years.
That is not going to help getting more housing opportunities for Culinary Union members and other working people in the city.
On the single-family side, homebuilders are realizing they cannot sell big, expensive houses when most people cannot afford them, so they are starting to shrink their products and cutting prices. But will this help, when Wall Street investors are still buying up houses in our community? In the first half of 2026, corporate investors owned nearly 30% of all single-family homes in the Las Vegas area.
When Congress actually passed a bipartisan bill to provide some long-term relief to homebuyers, this White House refused to sign the bill. Addressing affordability in the housing market clearly is not a high priority for them. What makes the housing situation worse is that, in 2025, Las Vegas had the largest loss of construction workers, in both percentage and absolute terms, out of 360 metro areas in the U.S. According to experts, it was the direct result of the anti-immigrant attacks by this administration.
When this administration claims to help workers with “No Taxes on Tips”, they only came up with limited relief for tipped earners for a limited time, and they failed to address the situation of millions of tip earners around the country who get paid way below federal minimum wage even though they cannot always count on getting enough tips.
This administration’s illegal tariffs and other bullying tactics abroad and brutal attacks on immigrants domestically have made America an unwelcome place to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, they are doing little to address the ongoing affordability crisis. Sometimes it feels like this administration is doing everything imaginable to make everyday life more uncertain and prices higher for all of us.
We are all trying to do our best to earn a decent living, support our families, and try to give our children a little more and a little better than what we had. We cannot do any of that if our financial situation gets more precarious by the day.
I think about the financial situation of Culinary Union members everyday. I believe that’s what most leaders in our community and in our nation do as well. But we need our government to take concrete steps to help us get out of this Trump Slump, grow the Las Vegas tourism economy again, and come with meaningful ways to make life more affordable for working people.
Right now, working families are hurting, this country is off the rails and we've got to get it back on track.”
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ABOUT CULINARY UNION:
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, Nevada affiliates of UNITE HERE, represent 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno, including at most of the casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and in Downtown Las Vegas. UNITE HERE represents 300,000 workers in gaming, hotel, and food service industries in North America.
The Culinary Union, through the Culinary Health Fund, is one of the largest healthcare consumers in the state. The Culinary Health Fund is sponsored by the Culinary Union and Las Vegas-area employers. It provides health insurance coverage for over 120,000 Nevadans, the Culinary Union’s members, and their dependents.
The Culinary Union is Nevada’s largest Latino/a, Black, AAPI, immigrant organization with members who come from 178 countries and speak over 40 different languages. We are proud to have helped over 18,000 immigrants become American citizens and new voters since 2001 through our affiliate, The Citizenship Project.
The Culinary Union has a diverse membership which is 55% women and 60% immigrants. The demographics of Culinary Union members are approximately: 54% Latino/a, 18% white, 15% Asian, 12% Black, and less than 1% Indigenous Peoples.
Culinary Union members work as: Guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry, and kitchen workers. The Culinary Union has been fighting and winning for working families in Nevada for 90 years.
CulinaryUnion226.org / @Culinary226
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