After 30 years of waiting tables, Paula Baker earns just $1.03 more an hour than she did when she started working in the early 1960s.
So although millions of minimum-wage earners received a raise Friday, the League City waitress, who’s been struggling for years to make ends meet, did not.
Although the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 per hour, the increase does not apply to tipped workers such as waitresses. Congress raised the federal minimum wage in 2007 for the first time in 10 years. The third and final wage increase from that legislation took effect Friday.
Baker and millions of other tipped workers still earn a minimum wage of $2.13 per hour, a wage that has remained frozen since 1991.
“When are we going to get a boost?” asked Sonja Munlay, a waitress who has been able to store away just $1 in savings, enough to prevent the bank from closing the account. It’s impossible to budget, much less save money, when working for tips, the mother of three children said.
The problem is worse than ever as the economy soured and cash-strapped customers spend less and leave smaller tips, the National Employment Law Project pointed out in a new report.
Customers now leave 10 percent tips, or less, on the table, Munlay said.
While the new federal minimum wage guarantees a full-time worker will earn $15,080 a year, a full-time tipped worker continues to earn a base salary of $4,430.
The low minimum wage forces tipped workers to subsist almost entirely on tips, the report found. However, most tipped workers still earn more than a minimum-wage worker once their tips are factored in, the National Employment Law Project found. If their tips are not enough to bring them up to the minimum wage, employers are supposed to make up the difference.
Even so, the pay isn’t high enough to support a family, Ashley Bella said.
Bella, who has four children, spends 20 hours a week when she’s not in school waiting tables at Esteban’s Cafe and Cantina on FM 518 in League City. She said she receives food stamps and Medicaid to pay for expenses she can’t afford on her waitress salary.
The National Employment Law Project report found that waitresses and waiters — the largest group of tipped workers — have three times the poverty rate of the work force as a whole.
The report proposed the federal government should raise the minimum wage for tipped workers to 60 percent of the full minimum wage, or $4.35 per hour, and ensure the tipped worker wage increased automatically every time the federal government raised the minimum wage.
The report also urged the government to strengthen protections against “tip stealing” and make sure employers don’t skim a portion off worker’s tips.
