That small amount of money didn’t cover her bills and expenses. “So then I just ended up working more,” she explained. She would work six or even seven days a week just to try to make ends meet. “I would just go to sleep and then go to work and then go to sleep and go to work,” she said. She spent three years putting in those kinds of hours. “I felt totally exhausted, physically and mentally.”

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

She eventually started working in a different salon in Manhattan where she made slightly more: $50-60 a day for the same hours. It still wasn’t enough to cover her bills. She had to eat “the most basic things,” always at home because she couldn’t afford to eat a meal out. She couldn’t buy herself anything, not even new clothes. “I couldn’t take care of my physical and mental health,” she said.

“You’re working so hard, but at the end of the week you still don’t have enough,” she added. “It makes it impossible to imagine a dignified life.”

Meanwhile, the salon owners never gave her and her coworkers information about how to protect their health and safety when working with chemicals everyday. Salon workers are routinely exposed to the “toxic trio” of formaldehyde, toluene, and dibutyl phthalate, common nail polish ingredients, as well as disinfectants such as alcohol. Exposure can lead to skin irritation and chronic conditions, allergies, and even reproductive problems.

Sefla didn’t realize that she had the right to more pay and better protection until she found the New York Nail Salon Workers Association, which organizes nail salon workers in the state around wages and working conditions. She’s now an organizer there.

“This wasn’t just something that was just happening to me,” she noted. For all of her compañeras in the industry, “This is the reality that we’re living.”

A new report backs her up. In a survey of about 100 nail salon workers in New York City and surrounding counties, the New York Nail Salon Workers Association found that 82 percent experienced wage theft. Employers are failing to pay the state’s tipped minimum wage, aren’t making up the difference when employees’ base wages and tips don’t add up to the full minimum wage, and don’t pay extra for overtime work. The hours are long: nearly two-thirds of nail salon employees say they work shifts that are at least 10 hours. But many aren’t paid time and a half for the extra hours they put in.

That wage theft is costing them, on average, more than $180 a week, or over $9,000 a year—steep sums for the majority immigrant female workers who survive off of little pay to begin with. More than 10 percent of respondents were losing more than $400 a week.

One source of the problem, the report finds, can be traced back to how little it costs to get a manicure in New York. Workers at salons that charge the lowest prices—$9 or less for a manicure—reported experiencing higher rates of wage theft and losing more money, while those at salons that charged at least $16 for a manicure kept more of the money they were due. “Low prices translate into illegal poverty wages,” the report states. But “as service prices increase, wage theft decreases.”

On top of the inadequate pay, the report also found that 86 percent of nail salon workers in New York City aren’t being given paid sick days, as is the law.

In 2015, a New York Times expose shone a light on the rampant mistreatment of nail salon employees in the city, who are often forced to work extremely long hours in harsh conditions for little pay. In its wake, the state implemented health and safety standards dealing with ventilation and protective equipment. It also now requires owners to take financial steps to ensure that workers can recover wages if it’s found they’re being underpaid and created a voluntary recognition process for those deploying best practices. But workers argue that even with some protections in place, they need stronger enforcement to get what they’re due. “While the legislation provided new protections for workers and regulations for employers, workers continue to organize to make those protections a reality,” the report notes.

“We still aren’t really seeing changes,” Sefla said. “We have established better laws, but we’re seeing that a lot of the owners are not complying with the new laws. So we haven’t seen the change that we’re looking for.”

In December, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he would get phase out the tipped minimum wage for a group of workers that includes nail salon employees (although excluded restaurant and hospitality workers), meaning salon owners will be required to pay the full minimum wage regardless of how much customers tip. But as the report notes, many workers weren’t even being paid the lower tipped wage to begin with. So they’re demanding more legislative action.

“We need mechanisms for enforcing those established laws,” Sefla said. “There won’t be any change without consequences and accountability.”

The heart of their demand is that the state legislature pass the Nail Salon Accountability Act, which will be introduced later this month. The law would change the licensing process so that workers’ feedback would be incorporated into the renewal process and owners would have to get certification proving that they are complying with labor, health, and safety laws. It would also mandate training for owners and workers on those laws. “Compliance with the law must become part of the cost of doing business,” the report states.

There are other potential legislative fixes in the works as well. Members of the assembly are considering a bill that would criminalize wage theft. The New York City council is working on a bill that would give salon owners subsidies so they could add proper ventilation.

“Esos son básicos,” Sefla said: These are basic things. “Son derechos que tenemos aquí en este país.” These are rights we have here in this country.

If passed, the new federal bill would also have far-reaching consequences that aren’t widely touted — including helping address America’s growing retirement crisis.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

As of 2013, nearly one in five Americans age 55 to 64 had zero retirement savings or pension. The crisis is much more acute for lower-income Americans: While nearly nine in 10 families in the top fifth of the income distribution have retirement account savings, fewer than one in 10 families in the bottom fifth do.

It’s not surprising, then, that seniors increasingly rely on Social Security’s very modest benefits, which make up 90 percent or more of the income of nearly one in four seniors — a share that rises to more than six in 10 for those in the bottom fifth of the income scale.

The yawning gap between the high pay of the rich and the stagnant or declining pay of the working and middle class is a key driver of the crisis: According to the Urban Institute, rising wage inequality means that today’s 45-year-olds in the bottom fifth of the lifetime earnings distribution will have 3 percent less retirement income than today’s seniors, 25-year-olds will have 6 percent less, and 5-year-olds will have 13 percent less. Meanwhile, for the richest fifth, annual retirement income will rise over time.

The amount a worker can afford to save for retirement is tied to her earnings, and the Urban Institute researchers find that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to just $12 — below the $15 Congressional Democrats have proposed — would offset nearly 60 percent of the retirement income lost by the bottom fifth of today’s 25-year-olds, and nearly 40 percent lost by today’s 5-year-olds.

The minimum-wage bill’s impact would be especially profound on workers of color — particularly black workers, a full 40 percent of whom would get a raise. Black workers are paid much lower wages than their white counterparts, with the typical full-time, year-round black male worker earning just 70 percent of what a white male worker earns, while black women make just 61 percent. They also face a much more severe retirement crisis, exacerbated by systematic inequalities that hamper saving, prevent wealth-building, and inhibit upward mobility. Black Americans who are nearing retirement age have only about 10 percent as much wealth as whites in the same age group. Social Security benefits made up at least 90 percent of income for 46 percent of black seniors, compared to 35 percent of whites.

The low-wage, low-quality jobs disproportionately held by workers of color don’t pay enough to make ends meet — much less save — nor do many offer the tax-preferenced retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) that help build wealth. As a consequence of shorter life expectancy and lack of resources, many black men will die before they are able to retire.

This raise is a decade overdue: In 2019, a worker earning $7.25 per hour will lose nearly $2,600 compared to 2009 — when the federal minimum wage last went up — because inflation has eroded the wage’s purchasing power. A $15 minimum wage would also lift millions of Americans out of poverty, dramatically reduce spending on public assistance programs, and improve infant health. In just the last five years, 22 states and Washington, DC, have increased their minimum wages, at little or no cost to government and without the job losses conservative pundits claim will result.

Americans get it: In every single state, voters say want their state’s minimum wage to be higher than it currently is. By passing the Raise the Wage Act, Congress would rightly give voters what they’re demanding, and help address the retirement crisis at the same time.

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on Jan. 17, 2019. It has since been updated.

Here’s the tl;dr:

A first bill, introduced at the end of January by Sen. Bob Casey, and Reps. Bobby Scott and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, would phase out section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which has made it legal for employers to pay disabled workers as little as pennies per hour. It would also provide resources to help these workers transition into competitive, integrated employment in their communities.

Second, Congressional Democrats’ $15 federal minimum wage bill, the Raise the Wage Act — introduced in mid-January by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Bobby Scott with the backing of the full Democratic leadership — would also eliminate the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities and phase out the separate subminimum wage for tipped workers, which is currently $2.13 per hour.

In the first week of February, Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Raúl Grijalva introduced the Fairness for Farm Workers Act, which would extend time-and-a-half overtime pay to agricultural workers, as well as minimum-wage protections to most agricultural workers who still lack them.

Finally, Sen. Harris and Rep. Pramila Jayapal recently announced the first-ever federal domestic workers’ bill of rights, which would give the nation’s more than 2 million home care workers long-denied rights to overtime pay, safety and health protections, recourse against harassment and discrimination, collective bargaining, and more.

This legislation is designed to chip away at several pernicious “-isms” written into the United States’ labor law — racism, sexism, and ableism.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

Many labor carve-outs are the direct legacy of slavery: At the urging of Southern lawmakers determined to maintain a white economic and social hierarchy, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — which established some of our most basic worker protections like the rights to form a union, earn a minimum wage, and receive overtime pay — cut out domestic and agricultural workers, who were overwhelmingly black and brown. At the same time, the discriminatory practice of tipping — which had originally enabled American employers to avoid paying wages to newly-freed black workers — and treating disabled workers as inferior permanently codified some forms of labor as lower-than-minimum-wage work.

As a result, workers in these groups tend to have a lot less power than other workers. For starters, the pay isn’t enough to keep workers out of poverty even if they have a full time job: In recent years, the median annual wage has been roughly $23,000 for tipped workers*, home care workers, and agricultural workers, and an estimated 420,000 disabled workers employed in “sheltered workshops” created under 14(c) were paid an average of $2.15 per hour. These groups of workers are also disproportionately likely to endure physical and verbal abuse, sexual harassment, wage theft, discrimination, and dangerous working conditions.

Yet these unprotected jobs make up a large and growing swath of our economy: Caregiving is the fastest-growing major occupation in the United States, and is forecast to be one of the largest sectors by the end of the next decade, with more than 4.1 million workers employed as home health aides and personal care aides by 2026. The largest employer of tipped workers, the restaurant industry, accounts for 9.5 million workers, which is nearly seven percent of the U.S. workforce. Since these jobs are heavily dominated by women and workers of color, their devaluation perpetuates America’s already-deep inequalities on the basis of race, gender, and disability. The Trump administration has further endangered the many immigrant workers in these professions — who made up 24 percent of domestic workers and 76 percent of farm workers in recent years — by pushing anti-immigrant policies and using xenophobic language that make it even less likely that immigrant workers will seek recourse for illegal or inhumane treatment.

Opponents will likely break out the usual fearmongering that closing loopholes will harm rather than help workers by making it harder to find jobs, like we’ve recently seen in D.C., New Jersey, and Maine. The problem with their argument is simple: States have already enacted these policies and seen positive results. In the eight states where tipped workers are paid the full minimum wage, tipped workers earn more and restaurant growth has outpaced other states. States such as New Hampshire and Maryland are already phasing out the subminimum wage for disabled workers, while eight states and Seattle already have domestic workers’ bills of rights in place. And in several states, including agricultural powerhouses California and Minnesota, farm workers have won overtime protections.

Lawmakers’ proposed fixes are by no means perfect. Perhaps the most egregious untouched loophole affects America’s more than 800,000 incarcerated workers, who earn as little as a few cents per hour — or nothing at all — and for whom labor is compulsory in some states. Also excluded are the roughly 1 in 8 workers in so-called “alternative work arrangements,” including independent contractors (ICs) as well as workers whose employers misclassify them as ICs to avoid taxes and legal requirements, such as Uber and Lyft drivers. Still, even if they’re imperfect and eight decades overdue, the proposed fixes are an important steps forward.

It’s no accident that the champions of these efforts in Congress are largely women and people of color, who come from the communities that have borne the brunt of these exclusionary policies. And it’s encouraging that some lawmakers believe that in addition to big, bold ideas, being a true progressive leader involves unglamorous, piecemeal grunt work, such as plugging the longstanding leaks in the nation’s labor laws. As long as the loopholes continue to exist, the shameful “isms” that create our two-tiered society will continue to stare us down through the holes of our frayed worker protection system.

* The most recent analysis of tipped workers’ wages nationwide, by Sylvia Allegretto and David Cooper, uses 2011-2013 BLS data in 2013 dollars. We assume that median wages have grown at roughly the pace of inflation, adjusting to today’s dollars using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.

Lawmakers initially passed the popular policies in September, after it became clear that ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2022, phase out the tipped minimum wage, and guarantee 72 hours of paid sick leave were likely to be approved if they were put to the state’s voters in November. Concerned that they’d be unable to overturn a ballot initiative, which would require a three-fourths supermajority, Republican legislators took the extraordinary step of passing the law themselves — so they could come back and dismantle it with a simple majority in the current lame duck session.

The new Republican bill delays the minimum wage increase by eight years, until the year 2030. Paid sick time is slashed in half, to just 36 hours per year. In addition, it maintains the tipped minimum wage, increasing it to just $4.58 by 2030, which earlier legislation would have phased out. The bill now heads to the desk of the outgoing Republican governor, Rick Snyder, who is expected to sign it into law.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

Outright subversion of democracy to defeat minimum wage hikes isn’t new. A similar series of events played out in Washington, D.C., just this year, when the supposedly progressive D.C. council repealed a ballot initiative to eliminate the tipped minimum wage just four months after the voters passed it. In Maine, lawmakers reinstated the tipped minimum wage in 2017 after voters eliminated it the year before.

It seems that the same lobbying group may have been behind the repeal of all three bills.

The National Restaurant Association, or NRA, represents more than 500,000 restaurant businesses, making it the world’s largest food service trade association. Over the last 28 years, the NRA and its largest corporate members have spent more than $78 million on campaign contributions, spending $12 million just in the 2016 election cycle. And they have a powerful and dangerous playbook: prevent minimum wage increases at any cost.

All three of the most recent minimum wage hike reversals received significant backing from the National Restaurant Association. In Michigan, dozens of legislators received campaign contributions from the National Restaurant Association during this past election cycle, including the House majority leader.

The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, the state-level partner of the NRA, openly bragged about the amount of control that this bought it over the state’s minimum wage fight, saying that it “worked tirelessly with the Michigan Legislature to prevent this onerous proposal from going to the ballot.”

Similarly, in Washington, D.C., the NRA contributed more than $236,000 in campaign funds to 13 of the city council’s 14 members. It helped fund an astroturf campaign designed to appear as if it was led by restaurant workers, which flooded public hearings with testimonies. In Maine, the Maine Restaurant Association vehemently lobbied the state legislature until the tipped minimum wage increase was overturned.

In most of its campaigns, the National Restaurant Association claims that minimum wage increases will hurt businesses and eliminate tips that workers depend on. Even a cursory review of the research shows that neither claim is true. The growth of restaurants and restaurant employment is more robust in “equal treatment states,” where there is no tipped minimum wage, compared with states that use the federal minimum tipped wage of $2.13 per hour. And tipped workers in those states see 17 percent higher earnings on average, including tips.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, one in six restaurant workers, or 16.7 percent, live below the official poverty line — fully 10 percentage points higher than workers outside the restaurant industry. Abolishing the tipped minimum wage is particularly beneficial to women and people of color, both of whom receive significantly less in tips than their white, male counterparts.

Raising the minimum wage is among the most popular polices out there, across party lines. In fact, a study released earlier this week finds that in literally every single state in the U.S., the minimum wage is lower than residents want it to be. That’s why when minimum wage increases are on the ballot, they pass. So the National Restaurant Association is doing everything it can to keep voters from having a say, with dangerous consequences for low-wage workers — and for democracy writ large.

Overturning Initiative 77, which would gradually raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.89 per hour to the full minimum wage by 2026, would be a tough blow for tipped workers. They’re already three times more likely to live in poverty than other workers—and those odds get worse for people of color.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

New analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that in D.C., people of color make up 70 percent of the tipped workforce. This alone ensures that communities of color are most affected by Initiative 77.  Moreover, when we analyzed wage gaps for full-time, year-round workers in tipped occupations (referred to here as “tipped workers”), we found that tipped workers of color also earn significantly less than white tipped workers in D.C.

Among full-time, year-round tipped workers in the District, the median annual wages of Hispanic tipped workers were $25,760—$10,737 less than the wages of non-Hispanic white tipped workers. Non-Hispanic black tipped workers made even less at $25,345, a gap of $11,152. This discrepancy is due in part to the nature of tipping itself, which creates a power structure that permits discrimination to blossom: Academic researchers found that black servers receive tips that average 15 percent to 25 percent less than white servers. The result is a wage gap so big that it could cover nearly 6 months of child care, or more than 8 months of rent, in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

This sizable gaps in tipped workers’ wages mirrors broader economic inequalities in the District, which has one of the nation’s largest racial income gaps. New data out this week from the Census Bureau show that while median household income for white families was more than $134,000, the median black household income was just over $42,000—less than one-third as much. And although at nearly $85,000 per year, D.C.’s Hispanic families have the highest household income of Hispanics across the nation’s 50 biggest cities, it still leaves them nearly $50,000 below white families.

Given the disparities they face, it’s not surprising that communities of color came out strongly in favor of giving tipped workers a raise. Across D.C.’s eight wards, support for Initiative 77 was highly correlated with the share of residents of color. In Wards 7 and 8, where more than 90 percent of residents are black, Initiative 77 passed with more than 60 percent of the vote. The only ward where initiative 77 did not win the majority of the vote was Ward 3—the whitest, and wealthiest, ward in the district.

In other words, if D.C. Council members reverse Initiative 77, they’ll not only be disproportionately hurting D.C.’s communities of color—they’ll also be directly silencing these communities’ voices by disregarding their votes.

Methods: In our analysis, which employs the 2012-2016 American Community Survey,  we used the same “customarily tipped occupations” that the D.C. government used it its minimum wage impact study. This definition is very similar but not identical to the occupations used by the Economic Policy Institute in their analysis. Notes: In this analysis, “workforce” includes all those who are employed.

Six decades later, I’ve watched this city get burned down and built back up. The Petworth row house I grew up in, on the corner of Upshur and 7^th, now costs 75 times what it did when I was a kid. I’ve gone from concessions to catering, from cheap hole-in-the-walls to high-end establishments. I’ve always liked puzzles, and that’s basically what serving is: you need to make sure all the pieces—the people, the staff, the meals, the timing—fit together. The prize for solving that puzzle, day after day, has crept up to a minimum wage of $3.89, plus tips.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

Even with tips, that isn’t enough to live on. Many of the places where I’ve worked have found ways to cut into our paychecks, taking a percentage off the top. Some people in the city still made good money working for tips, but a lot of us really struggled. That’s why I pushed for Initiative 77, which would raise the tipped minimum to match the actual minimum wage, to pass. It’s why I was happy when it did, and it’s why I’m so frustrated with the D.C. City Council now.

Last week, City Council Member Jack Evans—who represents the Ward where I go to work every week—introduced a bill to repeal Initiative 77. No compromise, no discussion, just a one-page bill to block the ballot initiative from ever becoming law. Even though the city voted for it overwhelmingly. Even though the slogan on D.C. license plates is about how often the city doesn’t get that chance (“No Taxation without Representation,” it reads). Even though the people who voted for it are also the people who stand to benefit the most: We’re more likely to be poor and black, and to live in the parts of the city where poverty is still rising. Even though the rest of the city is getting richer. Even though one of the Mayor’s signature agenda items is giving black workers a fair shot. Even though all we’re hoping for is a law that would mean we don’t have to worry about how to pay the bills if the rain or the heat keep people inside.

It’s hard to imagine what my life would have been like if I’d had that kind of stability for the entirety of my 58 years as a server. Maybe saving for retirement wouldn’t have been such a luxury. But it’s not just about me. I, along with a majority of DC voters in 7 out of 8 wards, support Initiative 77 because I feel like I have an obligation to leave the industry better than I found it, to make things a little easier for the folks who come up after me.

The obligation to make things better for the next generation isn’t mine alone—City Council shares it. In the District, people don’t get many chances to have their voices heard in a public way. When I started working, city residents had just won the right to vote for the president—almost 200 years after the county was founded. D.C. still doesn’t have a say in Congress, and Congress can still overturn our laws when they feel like it.

To see the city council robbing residents of an explicit expression of self-governing feels like a betrayal. I believe that all of us, no matter the position we hold, have an obligation to try to make things better for the future. If you serve in public office, that responsibility is even greater.

It doesn’t have to be hard. Voters already told you what to do. Initiative 77 asked a question and the voters gave a resounding answer: yes, all of our residents deserve a stable, living wage. Now you just have to listen.

I’ve worked in the service industry for 18 years, which means I’ve been a server in a restaurant for more of my life than I haven’t. There was the sports bar in Florida where we had to wear Catholic school girl uniforms, the barbecue joint in South Carolina next to the arena, the tiny Irish pub in South Charlotte, and the tiny English pub in South London. There was the café in pre-gentrified Brooklyn where the chef made the fluffiest scrambled eggs I’ve ever had, and the Mediterranean place in Helena, Montana with the teal ceiling and bright red chairs.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

Clashing color scheme aside, that Mediterranean restaurant is one of the only places I’ve been able to feel at home. The other servers had worked there for years, and we actually made enough money to live on. I shared an apartment with my sister that overlooked Mount Helena, and we had enough left over after we paid our bills that I could make roast beef at Christmas and throw my sister a surprise party to make up for her third-grade birthday party when no one came.

Montana is one of the eight states that does not have a subminimum wage for tipped positions. In North Carolina, I only made $2.13 an hour, but in Montana I made the state’s minimum: $8.30 an hour, and tips were a bonus. For the first time in my life, I could save money. I could get a drink with friends after a good week, and still be confident I’d be able to pay my rent after a bad one.

I never even meant to live there. I went out to visit my sister after a car accident left me depressed, rattled, and unsure about my direction in life. I stayed because it gave me time to heal.  By the time I left, nine months later, I was a first-time thousandaire. I had enough money in the bank to start over again in Philly, where I was back in restaurants that paid a subminimum wage. After a year of making $2.83 an hour, I drained my savings and had to sell my bed frame, bike, air conditioner, and beloved textbooks to pay my bills while I moved to D.C.

Now that I’m here, D.C. residents actually have a choice to get rid of the tipped minimum wage.  The debate has been one-sided: Besides the signs, restaurants have pushed their workers to vote against Initiative 77, or to keep their opinions to themselves if they’re voting for it. Meanwhile, my Facebook feed is filled with residents asking if anyone knows what tipped workers actually want, with most of us staying uncomfortably silent.

The truth is, I would not have been able to support myself as a waitress in North Carolina, Florida, or Pennsylvania had it not been for my family’s help. That support is a luxury. Most tipped workers are well into adulthood, past the age that they can expect family to support them. The other servers I know work second and third jobs just to buy the basics, and almost half of us still need to rely on government assistance. Even though federal law says that restaurants have to make up the difference if a worker doesn’t earn the state-wide minimum wage in tips, that math never worked for me. Employee wages are perpetually pilfered by restaurants that feel their base wages, low as they are, are somehow enough.

One well-known restaurateur I worked for, who owns one of the most prominent restaurants in D.C., has a habit of arriving at his boutique restaurants in a chauffeured car, occupying several tables, ordering more than $800 of food and wine, and then leaving without tipping his server. His reason for not tipping was that he paid our wages, which added up to about $8.50 after the three hours of service he demanded. To him, that was enough. For me, it never was.

That restaurant owner thrived by underpaying us. He would still be successful if he paid us a fair wage. And the data shows that’s true across the industry.

Initiative 77 could help us. I’ve seen it first-hand. So, me? I’m voting yes.

The trouble is, there isn’t much actual information beyond the signage—and the information being shared isn’t backed by research.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

D.C.’s overall minimum wage is $12.50 per hour, and will increase to $15 by 2020. By law, employers have to ensure that tipped workers make that amount as well—by combining the base wage of $3.33 with their tips—and if workers’ wages are too low, employers are required to supplement them. In practice, employers often fail to do this. Research by the Economic Policy Institute found that recent Department of Labor investigations of close to 9,000 restaurants resulted in workers receiving nearly $5.5 million in back pay because of tipped wage violations.

Low wages have left many tipped workers struggling to make ends meet. Roughly 1 in 4 D.C. bartenders, servers, manicurists and pedicurists, and shampooers made $11.71 per hour or less in 2017*—well below a living wage in the district. D.C.’s tipped workers are also nearly twice as likely to live in poverty compared to the city’s overall workforce.

The concerns with the tipped wage go beyond just money—the power dynamics of the tipping system allow discrimination and inequality to flourish. One study showed that black servers receive tips that average 15 percent to 25 percent less than white servers, and in D.C., tipped female workers are twice as likely as tipped male workers to live in poverty. It also paves the way for sexual harassment: 1 in 7 sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are in the accommodation and food service industry.

In contrast, research shows that the eight states without a tipped minimum wage have higher average earnings and lower poverty rates among tipped workers, without hurting their employment rates. Specifically, in equal treatment states, tipped workers’ median earnings are 14 percent higher and the growth of restaurants and restaurant employment is more robust compared with states that use the federal minimum tipped wage of $2.13 per hour. Research also suggests that abolishing the tipped minimum wage may be particularly advantageous for women, as the average wage gap for women tipped workers in equal treatment states is one-third smaller than the wage gap for women tipped workers in states that maintain the federal tipped minimum wage.

While the evidence is clear on the positive impacts for D.C.’s lower-wage tipped workers, the District’s high-end restaurant and bar scene, with its higher-paid workforce, has been the center of attention during much of the debate, with figures ranging from Mayor Muriel Bowser to Chef José Andrés voicing concerns that the unified minimum wage will lead to higher prices and lower pay.

It’s tough to envision that high-end establishments’ well-off clientele, wine-and-dine lobbyists, and company-credit-card-wielding business travelers will suddenly become highly price-sensitive if the cost of a meal rises slightly. And any increase would likely be relatively small: Labor costs only account for an average of 30 percent of restaurant operating costs, and businesses absorb higher minimum wages through reductions in costly turnover and increases in productivity. It’s also unlikely diners would compensate for higher prices by offering a smaller gratuity: data on tipping show that tipping behavior in equal treatment states is virtually indistinguishable from tipping behavior in states that have different minimum wages for tipped workers.

What’s more, this focus on D.C.’s high-end establishments misses the bigger picture. Not only is the district home to many restaurant workers who struggle to make ends meet—even after tips—but one-fifth of D.C.’s tipped workers aren’t in the restaurant industry at all. Many valets and manicurists, for example, don’t earn 20 percent on top of an expensive meal, but the Department of Labor allows their employers to pay them D.C.’s $3.33 per hour base wage as long as they “customarily and regularly” receive $30 or more per month in tips.

Initiative 77—which 70 percent of voters support—would reduce poverty and increase economic security among tipped workers in the district, as well as better protect them against discrimination, wage theft, and sexual harassment. The effects would be particularly powerful for women and people of color. Chipping in a little more for craft cocktails and small plates at happy hour seems like a small price to pay.

* Note: At the time these data were collected, the minimum wage in Washington, D.C. was $11.50 per hour.

Five years ago, when fast-food workers formed the Fight for $15 movement, it seemed like a pipe dream. Sanders’s 2015 bill advocating for a $15 federal minimum wage received just five co-sponsors, and throughout the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary Clinton supported a more modest $12 per hour wage. But last week’s bill already has support of nearly half the Democrats in the Senate, and has champions lined up in the House.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

With Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House, the bill stands little chance of passing. But raising the minimum wage is one of the best tools we have to fight poverty, so it’s worth understanding the details of the legislation that Congressional Democrats have united behind.

Here’s How the Bill Works

If enacted, the Raise the Wage Act of 2017 would raise the federal minimum wage by $2 this year, to $9.25. That would immediately raise wages in 37 states. Thereafter, the wage would increase by about a dollar per year until it reaches $15 in 2024. Ultimately, that will raise wages in 48 states (New York, California, and the District of Columbia, which make up nearly one-fifth of the national workforce, have already enacted their own $15 minimum wage legislation).

After 2024, increases would be linked to growth in the median wage. That’s actually a big deal. In the past, the minimum wage has only increased when new legislation specifically raised it. That’s a slow process, and Congress typically doesn’t bother to do it until inflation has caused the minimum wage to lose a lot of value.  There have been several proposals to link the federal minimum wage to inflation, so that it would increase automatically each year, but none of them have ever become law. This bill skips right over inflation and links to the median wage, which tends to grow faster than inflation does. That would ensure that wage growth for low-wage workers would keep pace with the rest of the workforce, which would curb inequality and make a meaningful statement about the value of their work.

The bill would also gradually phase out subminimum wages for tipped workers, young people, and people with disabilities. Their minimum wages—currently set at $2.13 per hour for tipped workers, $4.25 per hour for young people, and as low as pennies per hour for disabled people—would be raised gradually until they are even with the federal minimum wage.

By the time the minimum wage hits $15 in 2024, it will likely have the same purchasing power as about $12.50 to $13.50 does today (depending on inflation). That’s about 70 percent to 85 percent greater than the current federal minimum wage, and about 30 percent more than the minimum wage’s peak value in 1968. It would be just enough to keep a family of four out of poverty—unlike the current minimum wage, which leaves a family of four well below the federal poverty line.

Here’s Who It Would Help

According to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 3 in 10 American workers—more than 41 million people—would see higher wages under the Raise the Wage Act of 2017. Two-thirds of affected people work full time, and well over half are women. And, although white workers would be the largest group to benefit in terms of population size, the bill would disproportionately help workers of color. More than 4 in 10 African American workers—and one-third of Latino workers—would get a raise. Children also stand to gain a lot, since nearly 1 in 4 have a parent who would be affected.

The average affected worker is 36 years old, and is a primary breadwinner who uses their earnings to support their family. These low-wage workers are not only older, but also more productive and better educated than their counterparts in prior generations. Nearly half (46.5 percent) have at least some college experience.

Here’s What It Would Do for the Economy

The average directly affected full-time, year-round worker would see his annual earnings rise by more than $5,000 by 2024—an increase of nearly one-third. The bill would increase consumer spending and reduce taxpayer spending on public-assistance programs such as nutrition assistance since workers would be able to make ends meet on their own.

To be sure, economists can’t predict the full effects of a $15 minimum wage, even if it is phased in slowly. We can be confident that the increased consumer spending would give local economies a boost, but we can’t be positive that there would be no adverse effect on employment.

Even if employers responded to the wage hike by cutting workers’ hours, or if workers ended up spending a few extra days between jobs, the benefits would likely far outweigh the negatives. First of all, the wage hike is big enough that workers who experience a reduction in hours may still break even or come out ahead in terms of annual earnings. Second, there are other legislative options that could make sure disadvantaged workers do not feel negative effects. This includes, for example, expanding our Unemployment Insurance system to cover low-wage workers who spend a few extra days searching for their next job; extending short-time compensation and partial unemployment benefits for workers who experience reductions in hours; and creating subsidized employment, national service, paid training, and apprenticeship opportunities for folks who are unable to find work.

It’s also worth remembering that there are benefits beyond pure economic growth and workers’ pay. A $15 minimum wage would help increase family stability and close stubborn gender and racial wage gaps. Rigorous research also shows that higher minimum wages improve infant health, reduce crime, and decrease poverty.

It’s a Political Long Shot—but Not Introduced in Vain

Since Republicans have the majority in Congress, this bill can’t pass without their support. And, even though the bill is popular with the public and would help Trump keep his promise to give his supporters higher wages at virtually no cost to government, it’s unlikely that Congressional Republicans are going to reverse course and suddenly support minimum wage hikes.   

But even if Congress doesn’t pass this bill, it will likely encourage wage hikes on a local level. Sen. Sanders’ previous $15 proposal, inspired by the Fight for $15, preceded successful state and local bills such as those in California, New York, the District of Columbia, and Seattle. Similarly, Sen. Murray and Rep. Scott’s bill for $12 by 2020 provided the wage target for Arizona and Colorado’s laws. With a strong majority of voters across party lines supporting a higher minimum wage, more states and localities can be expected to take matters into their own hands by adapting federal legislation.

Correction: This article originally stated that the Raise the Wage Act of 2017 would immediately raise wages in 48 states. It will immediately raise wages in 37 states, and eventually raise wages in 48 states.

It was a very busy weekend, and I was told to pick up a table outside of my section.  A few minutes later I greeted the group of white, well-dressed guests seated at the table.  One of them, an older gentleman, grabbed my arm and said, “There goes your tip! I guess we’ll take you out back and give you 30 lashes.”

I felt my blood begin to boil. I walked away, declining to wait the table. I knew that this refusal would cost me money—but I didn’t want to accept harassment in order to earn a living.

I had a similar experience while working at Denny’s on Christmas Day. The restaurant was completely dead, and the one table I served gave off an impression that they had just had an altercation at a family get-together. The father asked for a steak so rare it was bleeding. When I served it, he took one look and bellowed, “This steak is frozen! How am I supposed to eat that?” He then threw it at my head.

These experiences haven’t happened in isolation. Incidents like these are the kinds of things servers endure to receive a good tip—or any tip at all. Because the federal tipped minimum wage has remained at $2.13 an hour for the past 25 years, servers are more likely than other workers to live in poverty and rely on some form of public assistance to make ends meet. All the while, multi-billion dollar corporations like Darden (the parent company of Olive Garden) get away with their customers or the government making up the difference through tips or public assistance.

Indeed, having your livelihood dependent on tips creates economic instability. Even when I put in the same number of hours from one month to the next, my earnings can differ by hundreds of dollars. If I have a slow week, I have to put off bills and pay late fees that I can’t afford. I often go from feeling like my family is getting by to wondering if the utilities will be turned off.

Working for tips also devalues the labor of people in the service industry. Servers are paid varying amounts every day based on whether someone else thought they deserved to make enough money to pay their bills or feed their children. You can provide great service to a customer, but if he doesn’t want to pay a decent tip, you lose.

I’ve come to this conclusion: Tips are referred to as gratuity for a reason. They are not meant to substitute for an actual wage.

But this isn’t a problem that should be rectified by the restaurant customer. As social media has come into vogue, I’ve started seeing posts about once a week about how a server at a restaurant was either grossly under-tipped or completely stiffed. The message is usually meant to shame the person who did not tip well and to promote awareness of the economic hardship that it causes. But, instead of fighting for people to tip more, we should be urging our state representatives to eliminate the tipped minimum wage and ensure that restaurants pay all of their workers livable wages.

We sorely need one fair wage for all working Americans. Despite conservative arguments that increases in wages cost jobs, cities like San Francisco that have eliminated the tipped minimum wage have actually seen positive job growth. In fact, raising the minimum wage can boost the wages for workers who earn more than the minimum wage, too. And, if a worker puts in a solid 40-hour workweek, shouldn’t she be able to afford the basic necessities to live?

Change can be unsettling, sure—but even more frightening, for tipped workers like me, is the thought of no change. We need to bridge the gap between those who are profiting in the food industry and their employees who are not, and fight for one fair wage.

“Whenever you feel like it’s probably fine to not tip your server, that’s one more bill stacking up because they’re short on money. This is food for the week that our families will go without because you didn’t think it was necessary, even after asking for everything under the sun and receiving it free of charge, mind you. This is one less basic necessity my daughter needs because even TWO more dollars is too much for you.”

These words from a young, Colorado waitress named Taylar Cordova—accompanied by an image of a zero-tip check for a meal totaling $182—set the internet ablaze this week, receiving thousands of likes, shares, and comments on Facebook and sparking impassioned think pieces about the plight of our nation’s 11 million restaurant workers.

And it couldn’t have been timelier. Thanks to the efforts of industry groups like the National Restaurant Association—or “the other NRA,” as I like to call them—which has stymied efforts to raise wages for restaurant workers, today marks the 25th year the federal tipped minimum wage has been frozen at an abysmal $2.13 per hour. And when you’re paid $2.13 per hour by your employer, or even $5.29 as it is in Colorado, you are completely reliant on tips to pay your bills.

Happy anniversary, everybody!

Twenty-five years is a long time to go without paying a significant portion of your workers—servers, bussers, hosts, bartenders—at least the minimum wage, let alone a wage that enables a family to make ends meet. And as a result, servers are twice as likely to need food stamps than the rest of the U.S. workforce, and three times as likely to live in poverty. The restaurant industry now includes 7 of the 10 lowest paying jobs in the country.

And the fact that it’s been 25 years isn’t even the half of it. In fact, it’s only about a quarter of it. Since the creation of the minimum wage almost a century ago, federal law has mandated that tipped workers be paid less than everyone else, a practice rooted in American slavery, when employers didn’t want to pay newly freed slaves a wage. Why? Because of the undue and enduring influence of our friends at the NRA.

The NRA claims to represent small independent businesses, but APRIL FOOLS! It’s actually a front group for multinational corporations like Darden (Olive Garden), DineEquity (Applebee’s/IHOP), and Bloomin’ Brands (Outback Steakhouse). Despite the corporate welfare that these companies manage to secure for themselves, as many as 50 percent of their employees are near the poverty level and must access an array of public assistance programs—at a cost of over $9 million to taxpayers.

And thus, although heart-wrenching and unacceptable, Taylar Cordova’s story is not unique. In my travels and after talking with hundreds of restaurant workers, I’ve met countless women like Taylar—mothers working long hours to put food on the tables of others, all the while uncertain whether they’ll be able to afford food for their own tables later that night.

All Work and No Pay from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

All of these stories contradict the prevailing myth that tipped workers are largely white men working at fine-dining establishments, earning nearly six figures for their efforts. In reality, nearly 70 percent of tipped restaurant workers are women, 30 percent of whom are mothers, working in casual dining establishments like Denny’s, the Olive Garden, or, in Taylar’s case, PF Chang’s. These workers—42 percent of whom are people of color—also experience disproportionate rates of poverty, financial insecurity, and discrimination.

And then there’s the sexual harassment. The restaurant industry is the single largest source of sexual harassment claims in the country. What’s more, workers in states that pay the lowest possible tipped wage of $2.13 per hour experience harassment at twice the rate of their counterparts. Conversely, tipped women workers in states that have eliminated the subminimum wage are less likely to experience sexual harassment. The tipped minimum wage, combined with the practice of tipping, forces women servers to tolerate inappropriate behavior from customers, coworkers and managers in order to survive.

Altogether, this isn’t just about the huge restaurant corporations lining their own pockets. With the lives of over 11 million restaurant workers hanging in the balance, their impact is seismic. Their obstructionist efforts have deep consequences and keep the restaurant industry and our nation at large from moving in a direction that promotes equality across racial, gender, and economic lines.

But after years of hard work, and tireless efforts by workers and their allies, stories like Taylar’s are resonating because a national movement for One Fair Wage is gaining incredible momentum. The seven states that have already eliminated the two-tiered minimum wage system (including California and most of the West Coast) account for over one million tipped workers, and their restaurant industries are flourishing. In fact, California is taking a step further; state legislators announced this week they are moving forward with a plan to increase the minimum wage for all workers to $15 per hour. Many other states, including New York, Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, plus Washington D.C., are considering wage increases. I urge them not to leave out women and people of color; tipped workers deserve a raise, too.

From Danny Meyer to Amy Schumer, the plight of employees who earn tips is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. It’s time for our legislators to catch up with the rest of America and establish one fair wage for all workers. We hope that on this special 25th anniversary, we’ll finally give the restaurant industry a gift it deserves: a fair wage that ensures dignity and justice for the tens of thousands of hardworking employees who make the restaurant industry what it is.

Rebecca here.

A few weeks ago I signed up for one of your credit cards. Just a few weeks after the card came in the mail, I got an email alert from you about a tip I had left. Here’s what it said:

We noticed you gave an extra generous tip on March 14, 2016, for your service at Mackey’s… We hope you left this tip because your service was exceptional. So if it’s not a mistake—or if you’ve already addressed it—there’s nothing you need to do. Have concerns about the tip? Just sign in to look at the charge in more detail. You can also contact Mackey’s directly if you need to…

I looked closer at your email to see I’d left $5 on a $14 bill.

While my tip may have exceeded 20% of the bill (the percentage conventionally considered to be a “good” tip), it was just an extra two bucks—and well within the realm of what I consider reasonable.

As a former server—and as someone who spends her days working to fight poverty and boost opportunity in America—I was struck by the great irony of receiving these emails in the weeks leading up to the 25^th anniversary of the last time Congress raised the tipped minimum wage.

.@CapitalOne apparently doesn’t believe its customers could possibly care about tipping their servers well pic.twitter.com/1lrNlm2NKe

— Rebecca Vallas (@rebeccavallas) March 19, 2016

I was still reeling from your initial email alert when my “extra generous” tipping was flagged again. This time I had I left a whopping $4 tip on an $11 bill.

.@capitalone straight up trolling me now IT’S $4 ON $11 FOLKS pic.twitter.com/1OwaPYSeYP

— Rebecca Vallas (@rebeccavallas) March 20, 2016

And the emails kept coming every day for the rest of the week.

I get that somewhere in there you may have good intentions. Indeed, in response to my publicly sharing your tip-shaming email alerts, your customer service department tweeted that you “like to lean on the safe side when it comes to possible fraudulent activity.”

But with April 1st marking 25 years since Congress last raised the tipped minimum wage, now seems as good a time as any to explain why I tip how I do—and why your email alerts aren’t just meddlesome and offensive, but part of the problem.

In the U.S., the 4.3 million Americans who work for tips are subject to a much lower federal wage floor than other workers. Whereas the federal minimum wage—which is itself a poverty wage—sits at $7.25 per hour, the tipped minimum wage is an abysmal $2.13 per hour, just 30 percent of the full federal minimum. And while the federal minimum wage has been increased five times since 1991, policymakers have left the tipped minimum wage to stay stuck at $2.13.

This anemic wage floor leaves workers at restaurants, hair salons, nail salons, valet parkers, airport attendants, bellhops, and food delivery workers—anyone working for tips—economically vulnerable. In fact, 12.8% of workers in predominantly tipped occupations live below the federal poverty line, and nearly 15% of restaurant servers are poor, compared to just 6.7% of the overall workforce. And nearly half rely on public assistance to make ends meet.

These disparities aren’t inevitable. Indeed, the contrast between states that have a subminimum tipped wage and those that pay tipped workers the same as other workers shows the difference that policy can make. Just 10.2% of restaurant servers are poor in states that have no subminimum tipped wage compared with 18% in states with a $2.13 per hour tipped wage.

Importantly, it’s not just low pay that makes it hard to get by on the tipped minimum wage. As anyone who’s ever been a restaurant server knows all too well, working for tips is inherently unpredictable. While other workers are paid the same rate for every hour they work, tipped workers’ income can fluctuate day to day and week to week, subject to the vagaries of busy and slow shifts, good and bad weather, a booming economy versus hard times when potential customers are tighter with their pocketbooks, and more. It can be incredibly difficult to budget, plan ahead, and save for the future when you can’t predict your income.

Contrary to claims made by some in the restaurant industry—the main opponents of raising the tipped minimum wage—growth of restaurant jobs in states that pay tipped workers the same as other workers is on par with that of the rest of the country. In fact, three of the states with the top growth—Nevada, Washington, and Oregon—do not have a tipped wage below the minimum wage. Restaurants themselves can even benefit from raising wages for their workers. In addition to boosting productivity, one study of restaurant workers found that higher wages cut employee turnover by as much as half, shrinking training costs substantially.

Policymakers at all levels of government are working to address this. Legislation championed by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) would gradually raise the tipped minimum wage to 70% of the federal minimum, an important step in the right direction. Meanwhile, as the Fight for $15 movement continues to gain steam in states and cities across the U.S., there is widespread support for raising or phasing out altogether the tipped minimum wage as well, with 8 states taking action in just the past two years to boost wages for tipped workers.

Yet, Capital One: While these legislative actions are positive steps, some—hopefully many—of your customers who can afford it may choose to tip more generously than 20%, in recognition of how hard it is to get by on the tipped minimum wage. As sociologist Kathy Edin and economist Jonathan Skinner noted recently, tipping well—while hardly a panacea for poverty and inequality—is one concrete step that people can take to make a difference in the lives of low-wage workers who rely on tips.

In closing, I’ll leave you with a few ideas for how you can put your algorithms that trigger email alerts to better use.

What about sending emails with facts about the tipped minimum wage to customers who are routinely cruddy tippers?

@rebeccavallas @CapitalOne Does it go the other way? “We noticed you left a sh*tty tip. Did you know that servers only earn $2.13 an hour?”

— Dan Crawford (@dpcrawf) March 21, 2016

Or alerting your customers when businesses they patronize commit wage theft?

Or letting us know when companies fail to top off workers’ pay when tips don’t get them up to the federal minimum wage, as employers are required by law to do?

@rebeccavallas @CapitalOne Don’ you wish we consumers had an automatic way of contacting companies every time they underpaid their workers?

— Joel Berg (@Joelsberg) March 22, 2016

But if nothing else, please stop hectoring customers like me for doing what we can to tackle poverty and inequality.

Sincerely,

Rebecca D. Vallas

Unfortunately, the American Dream is just that—a dream. When I returned to the States, I quickly realized that in many cases restaurant workers—who often earn the minimum wage or the tipped minimum wage—are expendable in the eyes of employers. After working for about a month in a restaurant in my hometown, I began noticing improper behavior from my employer. They failed to pay me on time and accused me of stealing without presenting any evidence to back up their accusations. When I didn’t receive my paychecks on time, I had to rely on customers’ tips.

Even so, I would come to work early and leave late – not for the money but to gain experience and knowledge. I tolerated petty arguments and misdirected anger. I had a clear vision and burning motivation for a career in the restaurant industry, but I was unhappy with my work. I felt disposable and without a voice. However, since I needed to pay rent and had responsibilities, I knew that quitting would be financially unwise.

I was lucky to learn about the D.C. Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), a worker center dedicated to improving working conditions and raising industry standards for all Washington, D.C. restaurant workers. Here I was, a young, broke, female, black, twenty-something-year-old from nowhere that mattered. But to organizations like ROC-D.C., I do matter. When I quit my job, and my employer withheld my final paycheck in retaliation, ROC-D.C. advised me about my options. They reassured me that I am the embodiment of the American dream and that I have a life that should not be measured by the size of my bank account.

ROC-D.C assisted me but I was left wondering – how can everyone become educated about their rights in the workplace? I am not alone in these experiences. Through ROC-D.C., restaurant workers come to realize that although we might be dealing with problems on a daily basis, we are also part of the solution. We have to fight for a living wage, against wage theft, and for protection so that we can stand up without fear of employer retaliation.

Restaurant workers are adults, mothers, realists and dreamers. We are living off tips, and working more than one job to make ends meet. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk (the author of Fight Club), “We’re [low-wage workers] everyone you depend on. We’re the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you’re asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers.” With our laundromat-washed uniforms, nicked fingertips, and loose dollar bills, we are paid as low as $2.13 an hour.

It is time to take a stand. The minimum wages in D.C. and across the country has been infuriatingly inadequate for way too long. In Washington, D.C., servers take home a median wage of just $9.23 an hour including tips. We often rely on food stamps and have a poverty rate that is twice as high as the poverty rate of the general workforce. This unacceptable reality spurred workers and advocates to launch a successful campaign to raise wages. Former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed a “living wage” bill, which increased the minimum wage to $11.50 and indexed it to inflation.

Unfortunately, tipped workers will still receive an extremely low base salary of $2.77 an hour, meaning we have to continue to live off tips and the mercy of the customer.

If you are a restaurant worker in the Washington D.C. Metro area, I encourage you to get involved with ROC-D.C. We are currently running a ONE FAIR WAGE campaign to raise the minimum raise for all workers, including tipped workers. If you’re unhappy with your job, or think you’re being treat unfairly, then I encourage you to join a worker center. Get involved in a local movement that pushes for respect, fair wages, and benefits for all workers.

The figure below shows changes in real hourly wages throughout the wage distribution between 2013 and 2014. What is particularly striking is that almost every decile and the 95th percentile experienced real wage declines from 2013 to 2014, with two exceptions. First, there was a very small increase at the 40th percentile wage, up 3 cents, or 0.3 percent. But a more economically significant increase occurred at the 10th percentile where hourly wages were up 11 cents, or 1.3 percent.

So, why did wages at the bottom tick up when they fell for nearly everyone else? What is so special about that wage that sits below 90 percent and above 10 percent of workers (i.e., is not generally earned by particularly privileged workers)?

The answer is simple: we still have some labor standards that provide wage protections. More specifically, 18 states increased their minimum wage in 2014 (either through legislation or through automatic inflation adjustments). The states with minimum wage increases in 2014, displayed in green below, represent 57 percent of the workforce.

When we compare states with and without a minimum wage increase, we find clear evidence that the minimum wage is the reason people at the 10^th percentile wage didn’t see the negative trends found elsewhere in the workforce. The figure below compares the wages in these states with those in states without minimum wage increases. Wages at the 10^th percentile rose by 1.6% in states with minimum wage increases, while in states without such an increase, they pretty much stagnated—increasing by a scant 0.3%.

The great news in this story is that policy can actually affect the labor market. And, it is imperative that we use all the policy levers at our disposal to help rejuvenate the economy, create jobs, and build stronger wage and income growth for the 99%. 

In my book, Part of the Family: Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers, and the Battle for Domestic Workers’ Rights, I discuss how domestic workers have successfully persuaded state and federal policymakers to include domestic workers within basic labor protections such as overtime. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), enacted in 1938, deliberately excluded domestic workers. This type of gendered exclusion results in higher levels of poverty for women. Domestic workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the United States.  Since our nation’s earliest days they have been excluded from basic labor protections, in large part because the work of the domestic sphere — dominated by women — has long been considered not “real” work.

In recent years, amid the economic turmoil so many Americans are experiencing, the message that domestic work is real work has begun to resonate with some policymakers. In 2010, the New York state legislature enacted the nation’s first domestic workers’ bill of rights, ensuring overtime, rest breaks and disability benefits for the state’s domestic workers. California followed suit in 2013 (though the legislative path wasn’t easy, with bills vetoed in 2006 and 2012). Hawaii also enacted legislation in 2013 that expands overtime protections for domestic workers. Massachusetts just enacted legislation that ensures a day of rest per week and protection from harassment on the job. Critically, President Obama and former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis finally reversed the exclusion of domestic workers from the FLSA. These regulations would ensure that domestic workers are protected under wage and hour laws, and, barring delays, will be effective in 2015.

During these legislative battles, advocates saw clear shifts in how legislators understood the issue of domestic workers’ rights. New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver originally refused to bring the state bill of rights to the assembly floor. But over time he was persuaded to support the legislation, and upon enactment, he noted, “This bill rights a wrong that began when domestic workers were excluded from the labor protections created by the New Deal and brings us one step closer to our goal of dignity and fairness for all workers across this state.”

Clearly, the end goal is not just the new regulations. These campaigns for domestic workers’ rights help change the way that all of us — including our legislators — think about the value of workers. The movement is part of a larger movement demanding that all workers be paid a living wage; receive paid sick days that are good for workers and public health; and have the right to paid family leave that is critical for workers and those who need their care.

There may continue to be setbacks — such as the Supreme Court’s ruling in Harris v. Quinn on June 30, which weakened the collective bargaining power of many domestic workers. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t reason for optimism. The heightened awareness among policymakers alone is a signal of progress, though it has to be sustained. My book advocates for more funding for community organizers who work hard to ensure that workers are aware of their rights and that new laws are enforced. Shining a light on emerging activism and its successes is also crucial.

The narrative of the economic collapse can indeed evolve into a better story – one in which the Great Recession eventually led to improved economic conditions for women and for all workers.

There was once a strong statistical link between economic growth and poverty reduction, but rising inequality has severed it, and the results are deeply dispiriting. If the statistical link between economic growth and falling poverty that held before the mid-1970s had not been broken by rising inequality, then poverty, as the government measures it, would be virtually eradicated today. Furthermore, the impact of rising inequality is nearly five times more important in explaining poverty trends than family structure.

As the Economic Policy Institute has documented in our paper launching the Raise America’s Pay project, this rise in inequality is simply the flip side of nearly stagnant hourly wage growth for the vast majority of the American workforce in the three decades before the Great Recession. So how to reverse this wage-stagnation, especially for low-wage workers? Below is a list of proposals, all linked in their attempt to rebuild institutions that provide bargaining power to workers who have had it taken from them in recent decades.

The minimum wage is currently more than 25% below its real value in the late 1960s. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the Harkin-Miller bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 would cumulatively boost incomes of people below the federal poverty line by $5 billion. And this is probably too conservative; other academic research finds that the same bill would lift more than 4 million people out of poverty. Among those who would see a raise from the Harkin-Miller bill, 55% are women and 25% are women of color. Nearly one-in-five kids would see at least one parent get a raise.

Another key policy priority should be efforts to level the playing field for workers to organize and form unions. The decline in unionization over the last several decades has led to increases in wage inequality and a loss of bargaining power for workers. And this bargaining power loss is not confined to union members themselves—unions often set wage-standards for entire sectors. Importantly, the decline in unionization is not a natural, inevitable phenomenon or a result of workers no longer wanting unions. It is the result of a policy decision to allow growing employer aggressiveness to tilt the playing field against organizing drives.

This policy choice is clear when one looks at the evidence. First, unionization has held up much better in the public sector where employers have less ability to fight organizing drives. Second, in 2007, the share of non-union workers who said they wanted to be represented by a union or similar organization reached an all-time high at over 50%.   There is a growing wedge between the desire to organize and bargain collectively and workers’ ability to do so. And, third, even the most obvious form of employer aggressiveness—the firing of workers who are trying to organize—has risen sharply in recent decades, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

The fact is that the decline of unions can explain approximately one-third of the growth of wage inequality among men and approximately one-fifth among women since the 1970s. This rising wage inequality is the key driver behind stagnant wages for workers at the bottom. When low-wage workers have been able to organize, unionization is  associated with higher wages and benefits for many, including: food preparation workers, cashiers, cafeteria workers, child-care workers, cooks, housekeepers, and home-care aides.

Reducing wage theft is also particularly important to low-wage workers. Wage theft occurs when employers withhold wages that are owed to a worker, for example by requiring workers to work off the clock or refusing to pay overtime. There is widespread evidence of these practices and more—from tipped workers not being paid their wages to Apple store employees being forced to stand in line after their shift while their bags are checked for merchandise. In nearly 9,000 investigations of the restaurant industry, the wage and hour division of the Department of Labor found that 83.8% of the shops investigated had wage and hour violations —underscoring the enforcement problems.

Millions of low- and moderate-wage workers have also seen slow wage growth because they are working overtime and not getting paid for it. This is because the real value of the salary threshold under which all salaried workers, regardless of their work duties, are covered by overtime provisions has been allowed to erode dramatically. Simply adjusting the threshold for inflation since 1975 would raise it to $984 per week (or $51,000 on an annual basis), from its current level of $455 ($24,000 annually). This simple adjustment would guarantee millions of additional workers time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

Other labor market policies and practices, which, if changed, would increase the wages of low- and moderate-wage workers, include: the misclassification of employees, such as construction workers who are deemed independent contractors so that the employer doesn’t have to pay for workers’ compensation. Just-in-time scheduling occurs when employers schedule workers erratically and sporadically, and denies workers any regularity in their schedule or pay. Think about how difficult that is for working parents who need to support their families and also find child care, or for workers who need a second job to make ends meet. Finally, paid sick time, paid family medical leave, and flexible work hours, all would support workers and their families.

The social safety net remains crucial for low-income working families in this country and also needs reforms. Everything from shoring up SNAP to extending EITC to childless adults to expanding Medicaid to people in those states which refuse federal dollars. We also should have universal pre-K and affordable and high quality child care—we need to use every tool in our toolbox to give kids a chance of success, reducing inequality at the starting gate of kindergarten.

But, if we really care about children in our country, then we also need to raise the wages of parents working hard every day to lift their families out of poverty.  We need to enforce the labor standards we have, update the ones that need it, and put power back in the hands of workers to bargain for better working conditions for themselves and their families.