Voters in Arizona and Massachusetts are set to decide whether employers should be able to continue to pay tipped workers such as servers and bartenders a lower minimum wage than non-tipped workers.

Mel Nichols, a 37-year-old bartender in Phoenix, Arizona, takes home anywhere from $30 to $50 an hour with tips included. But the uncertainty of how much she’s going to make on a daily basis is a constant source of stress.

“For every good day, there’s three bad days,” said Nichols, who has been in the service industry since she was a teenager. “You have no security when it comes to knowing how much you’re going to make.”

The amount tipped workers make varies by state. Fourteen states pay the federal minimum, or just above $2 an hour for tipped workers and $7 an hour for non-tipped workers.

    • @[email protected]
      7•2 months ago

      Not so sure, more and more people fed up with greedy price gouging seem to be cutting back on tipping. You see it in business rags trying to sell it as “are consumers getting more stingy?”

      Tips go away, tipped workers go away, tip-model businesses then have to adapt or die. (While whining that nobody wants to work, I’m sure.)