Action Alert: Could you survive on $2.13?

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Tipped Workers Minimum Wage

The federal tipped minimum wage continues to be atrociously low at $2.13/hr. For twenty years now, tipped workers in the restaurant industry and elsewhere have toiled for a miserable wage, in part due to the fact that restaurant workers have not had a voice. As a result, waiters and waitresses have three times the poverty rate of the rest of the United States workforce. More than half of all restaurant workers live below the federal poverty level for a family of three.

In Spring 2011, Rep. Donna Edwards (MD) introduced the WAGES Act, the first bill ever introduced into Congress focused on tipped workers. This bill would significantly close the wage gap that currently exists between tipped employees and other workers. The WAGES Act would do this in 3 steps:

1. It would raise the minimum wage of tipped employees from the current level of $2.13 per hour to $3.75 per hour 90 days after enactment.

2. It would then raise the minimum wage of tipped employees to $5.00 per hour one year after enactment.

3. Finally, two years after enactment, the tipped minimum wage would be restored to 70% of minimum wage, but no less than $5.50 per hour.

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