On July 1-7, 2021, Lake Research Partners designed and administered an online survey of 300 restaurant workers (who work as waiters, servers, or bartenders) in the District of Columbia. The results of the survey, which you can be downloaded here, show that an overwhelming majority of tipped workers support raising the base wage (currently $5.05 per hour) in the District of Columbia.
Here’s two slides from the survey:
Click the image to view the full size graphic
Sometimes it can be hard to explain how the archaic “Tip Credit” works against tipped workers. This graphic visually explains the District of Columbia Tip Credit Elimination Act of 2021.
Join us on Tuesday, 10/26, at 4pm at the Top of the Hill Conference Center on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, for a very timely policy briefing and reception on raising wages and ending subminimum pay in America, with Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) and One Fair Wage, and professor at UC Berkeley, Tom Periello, President of Soros Foundation USA Programs, restaurant workers and employers, and national labor leaders.
The event is being held on the occasion of the launch of Saru’s new book, One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America, (New Press, 2021), which uplifts the stories and voices of subminimum wages workers across many sectors – including tipped restaurant, nail salon, parking attendant and airport wheelchair attendant workers, gig workers, workers with disabilities, incarcerated workers, and youth workers.
In the restaurant industry, the largest employer of subminimum wage workers, pandemic-impacted service workers have cited subminimum wages as the reason they are leaving the industry in the millions – leaving restaurants massively understaffed. A September 2021 New York Times piece featured One Fair Wage’s new research documenting thousands of restaurants now voluntarily raising wages in all 50 states, based on this moment of incredible worker leverage. Many of these employers are joining forces with workers to call on Congress to create a level playing field by raising wages economy-wide.
We look forward to engaging in conversation with workers, employers, investors, labor leaders, and policymakers together to discuss how subminimum wages are a source of inequity for workers and liability for employers and investors, and how setting one fair minimum wage for all workers across the nation will help alleviate poverty, sustainably grow the economy, and advance gender, racial, disability, and economic justice.
