A five year long saga appears to be coming to a close as Washington D.C.'s alternative minimum wage for tipped employees is set to begin phasing out in May 2023. Under the new D.C. law, the minimum wage for tipped workers will rise incrementally until July 1, 2027, when their base wage will equal the minimum wage for other D.C. workers. D.C. joins seven other states that have eliminated the lower minimum wage for tipped employees – including Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington State.
Most often associated with restaurant servers, the so-called "tipped minimum wage" allows employers to pay tipped employees a lower rate while taking a tip credit to cover the difference between the lower rate and D.C.'s minimum wage. Currently, the tipped minimum wage in D.C. is $5.35 per hour. Employers can credit up to $10.75 per hour of the employee's tips to meet the D.C. $16.10 per hour minimum wage.
The years-long movement to eliminate the tipped minimum wage in D.C. met initial success in June 2018 when D.C. voters passed Initiative 77, providing a single minimum wage for all employees. However, in October 2018, the D.C. Council passed legislation that repealed Initiative 77, maintaining the status quo.
In November 2022, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved of Initiative 82, a revived ballot measure increasing minimum wage for tipped employees. The political will to keep the tipped minimum wage seems to have evaporated since 2018 as the D.C. Council...
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