The Minimum Wage For Restaurant Workers Must Be Raised

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"It is but equity...that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."

-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

The restaurant server is one of the most popular jobs in the country and according to the National Restaurant Association, currently, 1 in 12 Americans work in the restaurant industry and about 50 percent of all adults have worked in the industry at some point during their lives. The industry is clearly very large with over 13 billion workers, but overall, workers in the industry do not get paid very well. According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the average annual salary for a server is just over $20,000. In fact, servers are twice as likely to use food stamps as the rest of the U.S. workforce and three times as likely to be living in poverty.

The main reason for this is the existence of the tipped minimum wage, which since 1991 has stayed set at $2.13 per hour. Not many people even realize that the tipped minimum wage exists, but according to the DOL, servers in 43 states get paid less than the regular minimum wage hourly based on the assumption that the rest of their wages will come from customer tips. In fact, 22 states pay their tipped workers less than $3 per hour.

Although tips can often lead to servers making well over regular minimum wage per hour, overall, tips are very inconsistent and are completely dependent on restaurant customers. Not only does the customer decide how much to tip based on his/her enjoyment of the dining experience, but also servers need busy restaurants in order to make good money.

There is an ebb and flow to the restaurant busin...

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...y-income-fine-dining-servers-20195.html>.

Myotte, Maria. “Op-Ed: Restaurant Servers Can’t Live on $2.13 an Hour.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 11 Dec. 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2014. .

National Restaurant Association. 2013 Restaurant Industry Pocket Factbook. Rep. National Restaurant Association, 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2014. .

Nayak, Rajesh, and Paul Sonn. Restoring the Minimum Wage for America’s Tipped Workers. Rep. National Employment Law Project, 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2014. .

U.S. Department of Labor. Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees. Rep. U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, Dec. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2014. .

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