Montgomery County Council member Will Jawando is withdrawing a bill he proposed last year to increase the tipped minimum wage every year until it met the Maryland county’s standard minimum wage, phasing out the program altogether.
He said the action to withdraw the bill on Tuesday is “in coordination with other regional partners who are advancing similar measures.” The goal, he said, is to focus on state policy to support tipped employees.
In a statement released on Saturday, Jawando wrote, “Every worker, regardless of their occupation, deserves to earn a wage that acknowledges their value and dignity. The two-tiered wage system undercuts this foundational belief by institutionalizing lower pay for certain classes of workers.”
The bill would have phased out Montgomery County’s tipped minimum wage by increasing the current $4 an hour that tipped workers are paid by their employers by $2 every year until it reached the county’s current minimum wage. Tipped employees in the county — those that make $30 or more each month from tips alone — have the rest of their hourly wage covered by their employer should their tips not total the new $15 minimum wage.
Jawando pushed that the bill would fundamentally transform how employees in the county are paid and in turn contribute to the local economy. But critics of the bill suggested it could result in increased prices for customers, as business owners cover the cost of the increased pay.
Among those who made that argument against the bill was the Restaurant Association of Maryland. It praised the decision to withdraw the legislation.
“Restaurant server and bartender earnings would significantly decrease if the tip credit were eliminated because full-service restaurants would be forced to impose service charges on customer checks to cover the substantially higher labor costs. Customers are unlikely to tip on top of service charges. And there would be no incentive for servers to provide the best possible customer service if they were no longer rewarded with tips,” a news release from the association reads.
Although the bill was highly contested by hourly workers in the county, its withdrawal also comes days after state lawmakers introduced the “One Fair Act of 2024,” which would require employers to pay their tipped workers a full $15 minimum wage plus their tips on top.
Large employers — companies with 51 or more employees — are required to pay $16.70 an hour.
Jawando said advocates are hopeful Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the rest of the state’s General Assembly “will take decisive action on this critical issue and champion the cause of economic fairness in our state.”
Maryland increased the state’s minimum wage this year to $15 an hour for non-tipped workers, which was championed by Moore.
The Fair Wage Act of 2023, passed early last year, was a priority for Moore in his first year in office and accelerates the move to $15 per hour as phased in under a 2019 law.
A similar bill successfully passed in D.C. in 2022 to gradually raise tipped workers’ wages to match the base wage of non-tipped workers by 2027, on top of tips.
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