OpEd: Righting a Wrong For Tipped Workers

On Oct. 3 in Syracuse, a Wage Board appointed by Gov. Cuomo will hold its first of four public hearings around the state on raising the minimum wage for workers who earn tips. These workers were excluded from the wage increase passed last year, and are only guaranteed a sub-minimum wage, which for food-service workers is just $5 per hour. Now New York has the opportunity through the wage board process to right that wrong and improve the lives of New York’s 229,000 tipped workers and their families.

Enacting one fair minimum wage for all workers is the smart thing to do for New York’s economy. Tipped workers are among the lowest-paid in our state, and many struggle to provide basic necessities for their families. The extra money they earn will go back into our local economy, strengthening our whole community.

But even more importantly, raising the wage for these workers is the moral thing to do. As a parish priest in Binghamton, I know well the consequences of inadequate wages. Despite working long hours at demanding jobs, too many of our neighbors simply don’t make enough to afford adequate housing, food, healthcare, and childcare. Though religious groups and other agencies do our best to provide services, families still go without.

Tipped workers are especially vulnerable. They include restaurant workers, hotel workers, carwash attendants, and others in the service industry. Nationally, they are twice as likely as other workers to live below the poverty line. A recent report found that in New York City, tipped restaurant workers were 30 percent more likely to be food insecure than the rest of the workforce.

Catholic teaching shares with other faiths a foundational belief in the value of every human life. We believe our economy should support, not undermine human dignity. As the U.S. Catholic Bishops state clearly, “The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.”

Unfortunately, we live in a time when maximizing profit is often prioritized over the wellbeing and rights of workers. New York has the highest inequality in the nation, largely because wages for our lowest-paid workers have stagnated. This represents not only an economic crisis, but also a moral one. Pope Francis put it bluntly when he wrote, “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.”

Our society must do better. Gov. Cuomo and the Wage Board now have the opportunity to make New York the eighth state to require employers to directly pay their tipped workers the full minimum wage. In doing so, they can improve the lives of workers and their families and address larger problems of inequality in our state. I, for one, will be praying they do the right thing.

Fr. Timothy Taugher is pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Binghamton.