Week 17 Blog Post

The Minimum Wage is Rising, But These Workers are Being Left Behind

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/us/minimum-wage-tips-au-pair.html

Federal law lets businesses pay $2.13 an hour to waiters, bartenders and others who get tips, so long as the total of tips and wages meets the federal minimum.

This article relates to what we are learning about in class because we are writing about giving a voice to the voiceless, and the people in this article and facing discrimination and deserve to have a voice.  The article is about a class of workers whose earnings have not increased since 1991.  This class of people is payed less than minimum wage, legally, because of what kind of work they do.  These are mostly jobs that rely on tips and are exempt from minimum wage rules.  Employers are allowed to pay as little as $2.13 an hour, and this has not changed since 1991.  I think that this should change because money is not worth quite as much as it was in 1991 and workers deserve slightly more money, although it is not very unfair because they earn tips and many jobs that earn tips earn more money than normal jobs.

Why is this a big issue if they get paid through tips?

What kind of workers who do not earn tips have a minimum wage of $2.13 an hour?

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