Tipped workers hold a uniquely vulnerable position in our nation’s employment landscape. Federal law allows for pay discrimination between tipped and non-tipped workers, permitting employers to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 per hour.
This is an equality issue
Nearly 70% of tipped restaurant workers are women, 40% of whom are mothers. The sub-minimum wage for tipped workers is in effect legislated pay inequity for a predominately female workforce. Eliminating the sub-minimum wage will help address the persistent gender pay gap, where women are paid just 78 cents for every dollar that men are paid.
- The typical full-time, year round, female restaurant worker is paid 79% of what her male counterpart earns. For female servers – a tipped classification – that amount drops to just 68% of what their male counterparts are paid ($17,000 vs. $25,000 annually).(1) Black female servers are paid only 60% of what male servers overall are paid, costing them more than $400,000 over a lifetime. Tipped restaurant workers in states with a sub-minimum wage for tipped employees have a much higher poverty rates than states without a sub-minimum wage (20% vs. 14%). Because tipped workers are predominately female, this poverty burden falls disproportionately on women. Women restaurant workers are nearly 30% more likely to experience poverty than their male counterparts.(2)
- The restaurant industry is the single largest source of sexual harassment claims in the U.S. This is largely the result of the fact that tipped workers earning a sub-minimum wage are dependent on the generosity of customers for their income, rather than their employers. As a result, they must often tolerate inappropriate behavior from customers, and are vulnerable to sexual harassment from coworkers and managers. While 7% of American women work in the restaurant industry, it is responsible for 37% of all sexual harassment claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
