Pennsylvania employers can pay tipped workers less than the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour — as little as $2.83 an hour — if they make at least $30 a month in tips.
That threshold will go up quite a bit in the coming months. On March 21, the state raised the monthly tips amount to $135 in a unanimous vote by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission on a proposal by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration.
Yet workers say the new policy won’t have that much impact. Even with the higher threshold, a person who makes $2.83 an hour and works 20 days out of a month may still make only about $25 a day in tips and wages before taxes.
Palmer Marinelli, an organizer with the labor advocacy group Pennsylvania Food Workers, called the change “a totally meaningless adjustment that is pretty insulting.”
“We know they’re doing it because it’s all that they can do,” said Marinelli. “But at the same time, it would probably just behoove all of us to … spend our time only working towards sustainable outcomes.”
November saw a record-breaking 4.5 million people leave their jobs, including 143,000 Pennsylvanians.
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