A legacy of slavery, the subminimum wage for tipped workers, still $2.13 an hour at the federal level, was always a source of poverty, racial inequity and sexual harassment for millions of service workers nationwide, and a source of liability for restaurant owners. Data showed that tipped restaurant workers of color earned at last $5 an hour less than their white counterparts due to segregation into lower-tipping establishments and implicit bias in tipping from customers. Evidence from states that provide One Fair Wage - a full minimum wage with tips on top - shows that reducing workers’ dependence on tips also reduces these racial inequities as a result.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this crisis. We uplifted the voices and data from thousands of service workers who reported reduced tips and increased customer hostility and harassment, and then left the industry in a mass exodus as a result. To date, we have documented that 1.2 million workers have left the industry. We then documented the huge industry shift that followed that exodus, in which thousands of restaurants have voluntarily transitioned to paying a full minimum wage for tipped workers during the pandemic in order to recruit staff.

This upheaval has led us to the precipice of policy change. For example, in Washington DC, our nation’s capitol will vote to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers in November 2022, with many more states to follow.

The massive upheaval in the industry and our impending victories resulting from this change create enormous opportunity and one of the few silver linings of the pandemic - as well as a vehicle to excite disaffected voters in November 2022 and 2024. Our 25 by 250 campaign will build on victory in our nation’s capitol and this broader national moment of opportunity and will create momentum for federal policy to raise the minimum wage and end all subminimum wages, and also for multiple other states currently considering similar legislation- if we are able to fully take advantage of the moment.

There are 7 states that already require One Fair Wage (CA, OR, WA, NV, MN, MT, AK). Together with at least 18 other states and the District of Columbia, we will have raised wages and ended subminimum wages in more than 25 states - half the country - by the nation’s quarter millennium anniversary (2026).