Ballot measures ending the subminimum wage are expected to turn out voters in key battleground states in the 2024 elections.
This article was originally published on The Daily Hampshire Gazette.
During the summer after my sophomore year of college, I worked as a waitress in a diner in West Hartford, Conn. I earned $2.13 an hour, plus tips.
I had to smile at nasty customers all day long to get the tips I relied on to pay rent for a room at the YWCA in downtown Hartford. I remember returning each evening to my tiny room, dumping coins out of my apron onto my bed and counting them up.
Over three decades later, the federal subminimum wage is still $2.13.
In most states, servers in restaurants earn a subminimum wage, meaning their employers are allowed to pay them less than the legal minimum wage, based on the assumption they will make up the difference in tips. Employers are required by law to keep track of tips and make up the difference if they fall short of the minimum wage, but research shows this mandate is often ignored.
While some states have eliminated the subminimum wage, or raised it above the paltry federal rate, the vast majority of states still allow employers to pay servers less than minimum wage.
Restaurant servers in the United States are approximately 70 percent female and disproportionately women of color. Young people, disabled workers and incarcerated people in many states also receive subminimum wages.
Hard-fought campaigns to end the subminimum wage have succeeded in seven states—but the vast majority of states still allow employers to pay servers less than minimum wage.
In the book Forked: A New Standard for American Dining, Saru Jayaraman explains that the system of subminimum wages and tipping is a legacy of slavery. After the Civil War, white business owners replaced wages with tipping because they did not want to pay their Black employees.
The first Black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, formed in 1925 in response to the Pullman Company’s policy of requiring porters on trains to work long hours for little pay—meant to be supplemented by tips—and expecting them to pay for their uniforms, meals and sleeping quarters while traveling.
“We need to end legacies of slavery in our economy,” said Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, which works to end subminimum wages in the United States. One Fair Wage has launched the “25 by 250” campaign to raise wages and end subminimum wages in 25 states by the United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026.
Hard-fought campaigns to end the subminimum wage have succeeded in seven states so far, including California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana and Alaska. Advocates have also ended subminimum wages in Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Flagstaff, Ariz.
One Fair Wage is now campaigning to pass subminimum wage laws legislatively in another nine states and by ballot measures in Michigan, Ohio, Arizona and Massachusetts. California has a ballot measure to end the subminimum wage for incarcerated people.
The subminimum wage harms women of color, in particular, who face a combination of gender and racial biases from customers, which shows up in lower tips.
Eliminating the subminimum wage will reduce the sexual harassment that runs rampant in the restaurant industry, said Jayaraman. “What we know from data is that servers have the highest levels of sexual harassment because they are forced by the wage structure to have to not just tolerate harassment, but actually encourage it in order to get tips. They are asked by managers to dress more sexy, show more cleavage and wear tighter clothing in order to make more tips. And they have to tolerate that because their only income comes from pleasing customers.”
In the seven states that have eliminated the subminimum wage, rates of sexual harassment declined by half. “When a woman gets a full minimum wage from her boss, she’s not as completely dependent on tips, so she can tell a customer who tries to harass her to buzz off,” said Jayaraman.
The subminimum wage harms women of color, in particular, who face a combination of gender and racial biases from customers, which shows up in lower tips. “Women should never have to rely on tips as their primary source of income to begin with,” said Jayaraman.
Jayaraman also argues subminimum wage ballot measures will turn out voters in the key battleground states of Michigan, Ohio and Arizona in the 2024 November elections for president and control of the U.S. Senate.
“Polling shows this issue motivates young people, people of color and women to go to the polls,” said Jayaraman, “because they’ll actually be able to vote themselves a raise. And while they’re there at the ballot box, they will vote for anybody who supports them getting a raise.”
Ending the subminimum wage and requiring all employers to pay one fair wage to all their workers will reduce poverty and inequality in the workplace, shrink the gendered and racial wage gaps and decrease high rates of sexual harassment in service jobs. It’s long past time to end this vestige of slavery.
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