The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington is calling on the D.C. Council to repeal Initiative 82, which increased the tipped minimum wage for non-tipped service workers in 2023.
In a statement provided to WTOP, the association said that since the initiative was passed, the “region’s economic reality has changed drastically.”
Between May 2023 — when the tipped minimum wage rose from just over $5 to $10 — and August 2024, job growth stalled and over 1,800 cuts were made at full-service restaurants, according to data from the National Restaurant Association.
In 2024, 74 restaurants also closed down, surpassing the closure rates for the two years prior.
“Without immediate action to restore the tipped wage system and relieve the rapidly mounting financial pressures on restaurants, clear data show that we risk serious harm to workers, business owners, diners, and the very fabric of our region’s culture,” RAMW said.
While the restaurant association blames the initiative for the loss in jobs and business, advocates have long said the main issue lies within the restaurant industry in general.
“It’s especially cynical that, in a moment when one group of workers is being attacked and their livelihoods are under threat, the Restaurant Association would use that as an opportunity to undermine the hard-won wage gains of another group — workers who are overwhelmingly Black and brown women and among the most vulnerable in the District,” Angelo Greco, spokesperson for One Fair Wage, said in a statement to WTOP.
“If the Restaurant Association truly cared about the state of the D.C. economy, they’d reconsider their support for Trump-aligned extremists who are actively working to gut wages and attack workers’ rights nationwide. Let’s be clear: D.C. voters overwhelmingly supported Initiative 82. Any attempt to repeal it is not just opportunistic — it’s undemocratic and dangerous,” the statement continued.
Initiative 82 passed in 2022 and was implemented in 2023, raising the minimum wage for tipped workers, including servers, bartenders and salon workers, from $5.35 to $10 in 2024. On July 1, the amount will be raised to $12, and by July 2027, restaurant workers will earn $17.50 an hour.
Before the initiative’s implementation, service industry workers hustled to make tips that would cover the remaining non-tipped minimum wage — now $17.50, as of 2024. Employers would have to supplement the remaining amount of an employee’s wage with tips if they didn’t make the total $5.35.
RAMW President and CEO Shawn Townsend previously told WTOP the continuous increase in wages has restaurant and business owners nervous, as they’ve already had to make sacrifices and cuts to counter the rising labor costs.
Critics argued that the initiative would generate confusion and invoke higher service fees on bills to help get already-struggling restaurants out of the new financial hole.
A recent survey of D.C. diners by RAMW found that 47% are eating out less as they grow weary of rising menu prices, tacked-on service fees and confusing tip expectations due to D.C.’s minimum tipped wage law.
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