The ballot proposal could lead to stagnant wages and job cuts
By Larry Edelman
Hey bartender. Question 5 would allow employers to share the tips of servers and bartenders with kitchen staff.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
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Restaurant work is tough, as anyone who’s watched “The Bear” knows. The hours are long and stressful. The pay is low.
A Massachusetts ballot initiative seeks to push up wages by requiring employers to pay tipped workers the state’s $15 minimum wage. It sounds good, but the proposal could easily backfire, leading to stagnant paychecks and job cuts.
The details: Question 5 on the November ballot would phase out the tipped minimum wage, under which “front-of-house” servers and bartenders are paid as little as $6.75 an hour, provided tips bring them to at least $15 an hour. Today, if tips fall short, the boss makes up the difference.
The change would take place gradually, with wages reaching the standard minimum rate (even if it increases) in 2029.
Tipping wouldn’t disappear. But the new law, once fully implemented, would permit employers to share that money with “back-of-house” workers like cooks and dishwashers.
What they’re saying: One Fair Wage, the national advocacy group behind Question 5, argues tips should reward good service, not subsidize low pay at restaurants (and other businesses, including hair salons and nail shops, that would also be covered by the new law).
Restaurants say eliminating the tipped minimum wage would lead to pay cuts, fewer jobs, and higher prices.
The numbers: Median income for the state’s 50,000 servers and 20,000 bartenders is less than $17 an hour with tips included, according to Labor Department data for 2023. (The median is where half of the workers make more and half make less.)
Median pay for restaurant cooks, who aren’t tipped, is about $21 an hour. For dishwashers, it’s $17.
The median wage for all occupations is $29 an hour.
The big picture: Seven states require tipped workers to receive their standard minimum wage, including California, Minnesota, Nevada, and Oregon.
The District of Columbia began phasing out the tipped minimum wage last year, and early indications suggest the transition for Massachusetts could be bumpy.
Rising wages and food costs following the pandemic have squeezed many owners despite a more than 23 percent increase in prices at full-service restaurants since the start of 2021.
Pros: The primary argument for Question 5 is that it would lift tipped workers’ incomes by eliminating an unfair exception to the standard minimum wage.
The proposal would also make workers’ pay more predictable and less dependent on the generosity of customers — or, in some cases, putting up with their bad behavior.
The provision on sharing tips would benefit low-paid kitchen staff.
“This ballot question is for my 19-year-old co-worker who works three doubles in a week while going to classes at the University of Massachusetts,” Grace McGovern, a One Fair Wage organizer and server at a brewery in Boston,
Cons: The peg to the standard minimum wage could hold back future wage gains.
Many customers might tip less knowing that hourly wages are higher, or restaurants could institute new fees to offset higher compensation costs. The median pay for servers and bartenders in California, which doesn’t have a tipped minimum wage, is about the same as in Massachusetts.
Some restaurants would likely respond by hiring fewer tipped workers. A survey by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington showed that more than half of respondents reduced hiring in the first year after the district’s new law took effect.
Service could suffer as workers are less incentivized to hustle for their tips.
Independent operators could be forced out of business, leaving the field to corporate-owned chains.
“I didn’t sign up to be a minimum-wage worker and I won’t be fooled by the out-of-state organization pushing this,” Gretchen Shelgren, a bartender in Plymouth,
Final thought: Question 5 has the right intentions, but the arguments against it are persuasive.
Ideally, there would be one minimum wage for everyone. And restaurant prices would reflect the owner’s true compensation costs so customers could tip on merit alone.
But pursuing a solution with so many possible downsides isn’t fair to the workers whose livelihoods are on the line.
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