{"id":7411,"date":"2026-03-01T19:33:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7411"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:39:07","slug":"civil-rights-leaders-demand-end-to-2-13-tipped-wage-call-it-a-legacy-of-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7411","title":{"rendered":"Civil Rights Leaders Demand End to $2.13 Tipped Wage, Call It a Legacy of Slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0<span class=\"author vcard\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/author\/staceybrown\/\">Stacy M. Brown<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Justice, political and labor leaders stood inside the New York Hilton Midtown and declared that the mission to end subminimum wage is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we think about the partnership with One Fair Wage and the relationship with labor you know that NAACP and labor is married,\u201d said Jamal R. Watkins, senior vice president of strategy and advancement at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/naacp.org\/\">NAACP<\/a>, during a spirited press conference. \u201cThe movement of working people is the movement of Black people, the movement of Brown people, the movement of women, the movement of children, the movement of folks who had to make this country what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With Black History Month underway, and held during the NAACP National Leadership Convening and Black History Month, the gathering united\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/naacp.org\/people\/derrick-johnson\">NAACP President Derrick Johnson<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nul.org\/\">National Urban League<\/a>\u00a0leadership, New York NAACP Chair L. Joy Williams,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/yusef-salaam\/\">New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam<\/a>\u00a0(D),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.onefairwage.org\/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=22988042056&amp;gbraid=0AAAAA95aQjdWVYo4KunGe3KlW_CVW50HB&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA7-rMBhCFARIsAKnLKtAD2aAfV-zRVbkodqOjYjwoING9sRwlbwHKS14rAzPEs7rjJDR_7ooaAhB6EALw_wcB\">One Fair Wage\u00a0<\/a>President and co-founder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/onefairwage.squarespace.com\/saru-jayaraman\">Saru Jayaraman<\/a>, tipped restaurant workers, small business owners and labor advocates. Together, they called for passage of Living Wage for All, legislation newly introduced in New York City and New York State, and for similar congressional bills.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-1 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-caf9af3267-0\">\u201cToday we recognize Black History Month, and as we recognize Black History Month, we also recognize that the fight for economic justice is inseparable for the ongoing struggle of racial justice,\u201d said Salaam. \u201cThis gathering honors the leadership, resilience, and contribution of Black workers who have always been at the forefront of movements for fairness, dignity and opportunity.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The proposed measures would raise the minimum wage closer to the cost of living at least $30 an hour in New York and $25 an hour federally, and eliminate all subminimum wages \u2014 including the tipped minimum wage that remains at $2.13 an hour under federal law.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders were able to tie the current campaign to the work done to organize restaurant workers after the September 11 attacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the 25th anniversary of 9\/11; on 9\/11 there was the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center \u2013 a restaurant called Windows on the World,\u201d said Jayaraman.\u00a0 \u201cOn that morning, 73 workers died and 13,000 workers lost their jobs. I was asked as a young organizer to start a relief center for restaurant workers in the aftermath of the tragedy, and what started as a relief center for restaurant workers grew into a national restaurant workers organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, service industry employees remain frustrated, Jayaraman said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-2 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-2bd992b9b0-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cEverywhere we went, restaurant workers would always say it\u2019s my wages, it\u2019s my wages,\u201d she continued. \u201cThere are 13.6 million workers in America, 700,000 here in New York, yet it is the absolute lowest paying employer and has been for generations, dating back to emancipation.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-still-waiting-for-equal-pay\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>\u2018Still Waiting for Equal Pay<\/strong>\u2018<\/h2>\n<p>At the center of the event was the release of a February 2026 report from One Fair Wage titled\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.onefairwage.org\/research-reports\/still-waiting-for-equal-pay%3A-how-%242.13-suppresses-tipped-workers%E2%80%99-wages-and-exacerbates-black-women%E2%80%99s-pay-gap\">\u201cStill Waiting for Equal Pay: How $2.13 Suppresses Tipped Workers\u2019 Wages and Exacerbates Black Women\u2019s Pay Gap.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The report concludes that the federal tipped wage of $2.13 an hour depresses earnings and widens racial and gender wage gaps in the restaurant industry.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Black women tipped workers earn just 63 cents for every dollar earned by white men in the same industry. The research also concluded that more than 70% of tipped restaurant workers nationwide earn under $25,372 annually and that 95% earn less than $57,000. In states where the tipped wage remains $2.13, tipped restaurant workers have a median individual income of $15,149 compared to a national median income of $42,220.<\/p>\n<p>Pointing to a systemic issue, speakers said the subminimum wage traces directly to post Emancipation labor practices that forced Black workers into tip-dependent jobs without guaranteed pay.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-3 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-dc2e0e383b-0\">They also warned against the federal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/2312\">Tipped Employee Protection Act, H.R. 2312<\/a>, which, according to Congress.gov, would modify the definition of a tipped employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act to broaden who qualifies as a tipped employee. Advocates described the proposal as an expansion of subminimum wage loopholes that would weaken worker protections nationwide.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Salaam, a member of the Exonerated Five, framed the issue as a civil rights imperative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must also confront a painful truth that some minimum wages are the direct legacy of Jim Crow policies designed to exclude Black workers from basic labor protections,\u201d Salaam said. \u201cThat legacy has not disappeared. It continues today morphing into disproportionately harming workers of color who are overrepresented in low wage and tipped industries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, president of the NAACP, argued that wage policy sits at the heart of democratic power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur job is to serve and create a better society for all. If you think about how workers are treated, particularly service workers. It is inhumane,\u201d Johnson remarked. \u201cIt is inhumane for someone to work 9,10,12 hours to almost make their house payments. The history of the human rights movement in this country that we call the Civil Rights Movement is based on three basic pillars; our ability to exercise our vote; our ability to ensure the public policy that arise from our vote prepares our young people for a future, education and the abilities of our communities not to be exploited for free and cheap labor.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-4 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-ca419f6974-0\">Source: Published without changes from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/restaurant-workers-wage-inequality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Washington Informer Newspaper<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Stacy M. Brown Justice, political and labor leaders stood inside the New York Hilton Midtown and declared that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[209,257],"class_list":["post-7411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-black-owned-business","tag-wage-discrimination"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7413,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions\/7413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}