Why We Should Eliminate the Tipped Minimum Wage

March 03, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on February 29, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the film Waging Change and speaking on the following panel at the Ford Foundation for Social Justice (note to architecture buffs: the atrium is everything it’s hyped up to be). The film follows organizers (including Jane Fonda and AOC!) fighting to eliminate the sub-minimum wage, also known as the tipped minimum or the “slave wage,” across America, and coming up against the powerful restaurant lobbying group the National Restaurant Association.

I think many casual restaurantgoers don’t realize that tipped workers get a different base pay than everyone else and mostly live off of customer tips. If they do know about the sub-minimum wage, they might not understand all of the inherent problems with it. First, if the worker doesn’t make enough tips in a given week, their bosses aren’t always making up the difference, as required by law. Wage theft is rampant in the restaurant industry, and the onus is on the worker to make sure their bosses are making their paychecks whole.

Just as important: When workers are dependent on their customers to pay their salaries, they are much more vulnerable to abuse, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment from both customers and bosses.

Many diners are complacent about the tipped minimum because they think front-of-house workers are rolling in cash. It’s true for a certain percentage of high earners but not the majority of American servers. Tipped workers rely on food stamps at twice the rate of the general employed population.

Some other interesting things I learned from the film:

• The National Restaurant Association is the third-largest lobby in America.
• The restaurant industry is the second-largest private employer in the country, employing 10 percent of the American workforce.
• The sub-minimum wage has been frozen at $2.13 since 1991.
• Fight for 15, the movement started by fast-food workers that advocates for a $15 minimum wage, doesn’t include tipped workers.

Slow progess is being made on this issue. Seven states have just one minimum wage (and they are apparently doing well). Chicago is considering eliminating its sub-minimum wage. D.C. constituents voted to eliminate it (but the D.C. Council repealed the initiatve). New York eliminated the tipped minimum... for every sector except the hospitality industry. (Feel free to let Governor Andrew Cuomo know if you don’t agree with this decision.)

Anyway, I know many restaurant owners aren’t on board with this, but you should watch the film. I’m going to try to organize a couple screenings. If you are in New York and have access to a screen, or if you want to screen the film in your city or town, please just let me know. The filmmaker Abby Ginzberg would love to get this out to as many people as possible.

On Eater

Rey Lopez/Eater DC

• Intel: Che Paul Qui returns to court in April for two DWI charges; famed D.C.-area chef Peter Chang has seen a 20 to 50 percent decline in business at his various Chinese restaurants since the outbreak of the new coronavirus; New York power lunch favorite Lure Fishbar will open a Chicago location; the top presidential campaigns spent over $600,000 on food in the month of January; the phenomenon that is quesobirria has made its way to pizza in SF; Philly is getting a bilevel Taiwanese place called Mei Mei in a couple weeks; one of Houston’s most poplular dining districts was paralyzed by a giant water main break; Stephen Colbert and Elizabeth Warren ate a meal at Husk in Charleston for a recent (very funny) segment; the City Council in New York is looking into limiting commission rates charged by delivery apps like UberEats, GrubHub, and Postmates; meanwhile, SF’s Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on the impact of these apps and will look into regulating ghost kitchens; upscale ice cream chain Van Leeuwen just raised $18.7 million in funding; Salt Bae opened a silly burger restaurant, and it’s terrible; people in LA are lining up for hours for a street cart selling hand-pulled noodles, promoted only via Instagram; Mundano, a new restaurant where company culture is as important as the food, opened in Chicago; D.C. has a new pop-up destination for colorful, loaded Guatemalan hot dogs; and New York mainstay Barbuto reopened in a new location less than a year after its closure.
• New takes on Jewish deli food are all the rage in LA.
• Oh, we have TWO NEW sites: Eater Carolinas (an expansion of Eater Charleston) and Eater Phoenix.
• How the design for very beautiful restaurant Nari in San Francisco came together.
• The enslaved chefs of America’s first presidents were some of our first celeb chefs and made valuable contributions to American cuisine.

This Week on the Podcast

This week on Eater’s Digest, we talk to photojournalist Gary He about his year covering how food plays a role in the presidential race. Then we talk about the biggest stories of the week, including World Central Kitchen cooking for the coronavirus ship, a wine heist, and more.

Off Eater

• New, great follow: @keithmcnally [@keithmcnally]
• ICYMI: Here is the wildly credulous Daniel Humm profile that caught some flack this week for including zero women sources and zero sources, period, that were vaguely critical or questioning of Humm or his ascent. [VF]
• Maximalism as a design trend is not about visual excitement or accumulation of stuff. It’s “about the power and necessity of plurality.” [Curbed]
• Very excited to learn that excessive, overly indulgent (but, like, self-aware?) fashion banquets are a thing now. [T]
• Nancy Meyers on reconnecting with her ex after two decades. [NYT]
• A look under the hood of newish restaurant-world gig economy app Pared, which seems to “prioritize desperation and urgency for both management and labor.” [WaPo]
• Whatever you do, just don’t miss this epic floor routine. [@TheUndefeated]