The minimum wage for tipped workers has remained stagnant for 23 years:
Tipped workers have been getting short-changed for years. At least that’s what the gap between the federally mandated regular minimum wage and federally mandated tipped minimum wage would suggest.
When the tip credit, as that difference is often called, was created in 1966, it split hotel, restaurant and other service industry salaries up so part was paid by their employers and another part was paid by their customers. The legislation was intended to protect service industry workers who had previously been unprotected under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). And the split was originally 50-50 – meaning employers and customers shared the cost of each tipped worker’s minimum salary.
But the burden is increasingly falling on America’s restaurant goers and other service industry customers. “Today this two-tiered wage system continues to exist, yet the subsidy provided by customers in restaurants, salons, casinos and other businesses that employ tipped workers is larger than it has ever been,” a new report (pdf) by the Economic Policy Institute says. The tip credit has surged from fewer than $3 in the late 1980s to more than $5 today, largely because the tipped minimum wage hasn’t increased in 23 years.
The Dish 