CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The $2.13 Subminimum Wage: When is Enough Enough?

The federal subminimum wage has been stuck at $2.13 since 1991. This has unquestionably been a boon for employers; as the price of everything else has increased substantially, the cash wages paid to the tipped workforce have not budged in three and a half decades. But even though it has been frozen this long, that doesn’t mean it cannot be changed.

The subminimum wage policy disproportionately benefits the full-service restaurant industry, which is the largest employer of tipped workers. It was their lobby, the National Restaurant Association, that used it as a bargaining chip that ultimately froze it in perpetuity through the 1996 Fair Labor Standards Act........

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