By Alex Gonzalez, Public News Service
Nevada U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford – D-Las Vegas – has introduced legislation that would aim to eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers across the country, and also eliminate federal taxes on tips – a proposal both presidential nominees have said they would support.
It isn’t the first such proposal in Congress.
Horsford noted that a disproportionate number of tipped workers across the country are women and people of color, whom he described as making “poverty wages.”
He told his fellow House members the Tipped Income Protection and Support Act is about economic justice, and recognizing that service workers are “the backbone” of the U.S. economy.
“So, to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we cannot delay this action any longer,” said Horsford. “We must act to ensure that every worker, regardless of their job, can earn a fair wage and keep more of what they earn.”
Critics of the idea point out that many tipped employees don’t make enough to pay income taxes, so eliminating taxes on tips wouldn’t affect them.
The minimum cash wage for tipped workers in the U.S. is just over $2 an hour. Nevada has already abolished the subminimum wage for tipped workers, who now make at least $12 an hour.
Relying on customers to pay the bulk of tipped workers’ wages exposes these workers to “tremendous instability of income,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Across the country, the Institute also found poverty rates for tipped workers are more than twice as high as for non-tipped workers. Horsford called that unacceptable.
“No one should have to depend on the whims of a good tip – which is not a guarantee,” said Horsford, “in order to make ends meet.”
Horsford said his plan, unlike other Republican-led initiatives which would solely exempt tips from federal taxes, would go a step further and eliminate the federal subminimum wage – which he called “the crux of the problem.”
