In a city known for its extensive brunch culture and endless cuisine options, spring and summer typically bring swells of foot traffic to restaurants across the District of Columbia. However, despite the seasonal crowds typically flocking to restaurants in the spring and summer, full-service restaurant job growth has slowed. Recent wage hikes due to the city’s tip credit elimination law – Initiative 82 – may be to blame.
EPI has been tracking the harmful impacts of Initiative 82 since it began in May 2023. Now more than two years out, the best-available government data shows that since the law went into place, DC has lost roughly 5% of its full-service restaurant and bar workforce, and employees have lost $11.8 million in earnings.
But even the more recent, monthly estimate data preferred by some on the DC Council and the Council’s Office of the Budget Director are showing serious signs of decline under Initiative 82. New data released last week shows that in the last three months (March through June 2025), DC has lost roughly 900 full-service restaurant jobs. To put that into historical context, that’s the largest employment decline for key spring months since before Initiative 82 went into place.
Using Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly employment survey estimates, EPI found that the growth rate for full-service restaurant employment between March and June has declined each year since 2022, with a noticeable drop beginning in spring 2023 when Initiative 82 began to phase in. Most recently, job growth has turned negative, marking the weakest performance in years even compared to the pre-COVID period. In sum, DC restaurant job growth fell more than 8 percentage points between Spring 2022 and Spring 2025.
Other restaurants are finding the costs of operating in DC under Initiative 82 too difficult to overcome. Also this week, the Washington Business Journal reported DC has already seen over 50 restaurants close in 2025, putting the city on track to surpass its previous record high of restaurant closures last year.
First-hand reporting and data on the negative impacts of Initiative 82 are widespread. Attempts to paint the situation in DC as “healthy” are subject to misleading and flawed use of government data. Just this week, the Economic Policy Institute claimed there is “no evidence” showing DC has been harmed by Initiative 82. Yet the only way they could come to this conclusion is by manipulating government data to exclude the 9 months immediately following Initiative 82’s start date in May 2023 – where the first shock of the law was felt.
The overwhelming evidence from data and individual restaurant experiences under Initiative 82 show the law has harmed DC restaurants and their employees. DC lawmakers should take note and provide meaningful relief to preserve DC’s once-booming restaurant scene.