Last week, hundreds of Michigan tipped workers went to the state Capitol to advocate for the preservation of the tipped minimum wage, claiming that the “Adopt and Amend” Supreme Court ruling — which paves the way for the elimination of the tipped minimum wage — would “devastate” the industry.

However, the ruling was celebrated by One Fair Wage, which claims that eliminating the tipped minimum wage will end inequality and discrimination against women and minorities in the restaurant industry.

Now, research debunks this claim.

Current federal and Michigan state laws allow employers to pay tipped employees a minimum wage below the regular wage, as long as their hourly earnings with tips factored in reach the regular minimum wage. This perspective that eliminating the tip credit will reduce wage and earnings inequities oversimplifies the economics of tipped restaurant work.

A new study by Emma Wohl and me estimates the impact of varying state tipped minimum wage rates on restaurant workers’ earnings and shows that raising tipped minimum wage floors does not reduce earnings gaps for women and minorities in the restaurant industry — it may, in fact, make them worse.

Research shows that, among workers paid by the hour, tipped workers earn more per hour than non-tipped workers across all race and gender groups. This means tipped workers are by no means the lowest-paid workers in the economy.

After comparing what happened to the pay of restaurant workers in states that already raised or eliminated the tipped minimum wage relative to states that did not, we found that raising tipped minimum wages causes relative hourly earnings to decline for Black and Hispanic tipped workers. Although hourly earnings increase somewhat for women, a simultaneous loss of hours negates the hourly impact on female tipped workers’ overall earnings.

On an hourly basis, the impact these changes have on racial and gender pay gaps is mixed. Higher wages reduce the hourly pay gap between women and men but increase the hourly pay gap between White and minority workers.

We also look at weekly earnings to determine if higher tipped wages boost earnings when accounting for effects on hours of work. On a weekly basis, we find that tipped wage hikes have no clear impact on the weekly earnings gap between minority and White tipped employees. And despite increasing hourly pay for women, tipped wage hikes cause many employers to reduce hours of their female employees. Therefore, the increase in the tipped minimum wage has no clear impact on reducing the gender weekly earnings gap.

The data also shows that the presumed increases in base wages from higher tipped minimum wages do not reduce these gaps, and in some cases exacerbate existing pay gaps.

Our research finds regular minimum wage hikes that leave the tipped minimum wage intact, boost hourly and weekly earnings for women, Black and Hispanic restaurant workers, relative to White men. However, those gains were due to rising wages for non-tipped workers and did not have any significant impact on tipped employees.

Tipped workers — and restaurant workers overall — should be recognized for their contributions to our economy. However, it’s imperative to approach wage policy reforms with a comprehensive understanding of their potential impacts. The data doesn’t support the view that raising tipped minimum wages will directly resolve issues of lower pay for women and minorities in this sector. The solution to pay inequities likely lies elsewhere.