Arlington, VA – Tomorrow, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections will hold a hearing titled “Examining the Biden-Harris Attacks on Tipped Workers.” Simone Barron, a restaurant worker working to preserve the tip credit, will testify at the hearing tomorrow at 10:00 am ET.
The hearing comes as a brand new EPI study shows that eliminating the tip credit will actually increase wage gaps for minorities and will not have an effect on diminishing the wage gaps for women.
Meanwhile, a grassroots effort, spearheaded by servers and local restaurants in Michigan, will be marching on the Capitol to demand Michigan lawmakers fix the “Adopt and Amend” constitutional crisis and save the tip credit in Michigan. The servers will rally at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing at 11:30 am ET on September 18th.
Background:
- The Harris-Walz campaign officially added tip credit elimination to its platform last week, after weeks of pressure from activist organizations like One Fair Wage, claiming that it will end inequality and discrimination against women and minorities in the industry.
- A new study conducted by EPI and UC-Irvine economist Dr. David Neumark shows that those claims are false. In fact, tip credit elimination policies will actually increase wage gaps for minority tipped employees and do not increase total weekly earnings for women or minority tipped employees. Meaning, these policies will actually harm those they intend to help.
- The study also shows that maintaining the tip credit is statistically more efficient at raising wages and reducing earnings gaps for tipped employees.
- One Fair Wage has tried and failed to export the misguided tip credit elimination policy across the country this year, an experiment already plaguing Washington, D.C. The only place the organization has been successful thus far is in Michigan, winning through years of court battles.
- The Michigan Supreme Court ruled the state legislature’s “adopt and amend” action on a 2018 minimum wage ballot measure was unconstitutional, paving the way for the state to reinstate the original ballot measure language and to begin eliminating the tip credit in February of 2025.
- Surveys show that 90% of tipped workers nationwide have said they want to preserve the current tip credit system, with 87% saying they believe their earnings will plummet if the tip credit is eliminated.
- A Detroit News poll shows that nearly half of respondents said they would tip less if the tip credit was eliminated.