As head server at a trendy gastropub in Manhattan, Kimmie works full-time delivering meals, pinch-hitting for other servers, refilling drinks, and meeting a variety of customer needs, earning just $5.00 an hour, the minimum for New York tipped wage workers. It’s a small fraction of her total income, however. She takes home between $100 and $200 each shift in tips, an amount that fluctuates wildly depending on the time of day, her customers, and whether it’s raining, she said with a laugh.

She’s pleased by news that the New York Department of Labor commissioner decided last month to raise the state’s subminimum wage for tipped workers from about $5.00 (depending on their job category) to $7.50 per hour, effective December 31, 2015. But it’ll barely make a dent in covering her rent and other expenses—she still needs the bulk of her tips. “No restaurant is going to want to pay what you earn from tips,” said Kimmie, who asked that we not use her full name to protect her job.

While workers’ rights advocates do consider the subminimum wage increase a step forward, as tipped workers will have to rely less on tips because of the slightly greater pay, the increase is not nearly enough to raise more workers out of poverty, to compensate their labor fairly, and to reduce the pressure to tolerate hostile work environments or else lose out on tips.

Tipped Work—The Stress Factors

With a median income of about $9.00 an hour including tips, about 16.7 percent of the nation’s estimated 3.5 million restaurant workers—including bartenders, servers, bussers, runners, and barbacks—live in poverty, with women workers particularly hard hit: one-fifth of women working in the restaurant industry live below the poverty line, and nearly half live at twice the poverty line (which in 2014 was $23,340 for a single individual and $31,460 for a family of two).

Worse, relying on customers’ tips to compensate for pathetically low wages intensifies the inherent power dynamic between food service workers and their customers, according to a 2014 study by the Restaurant Opportunities Center-United, a restaurant worker advocacy organization, and Forward Together, a racial justice policy organization. This leads to uncomfortable work environments for many workers, especially for women, who make up more than 70 percent of the nation’s servers and 60 percent of bartenders, and in particular women of color, who make up 40 percent of tipped workers. Almost two million women restaurant workers are mothers, and more than one million are single parents with children under 18.

Workers who rely on tips face high rates of sexual harassment and assault from coworkers and customers, much of which they feel forced to put up with because they need to please management to keep their jobs, and please customers to keep their tips. Service does not determine the size of a tip; rather, numerous factors related to gender, a pleasing appearance, and friendliness do.

“The difference for tipped employees versus other employees is that the responsibility for their guests has a direct outcome on their income,” said Miranda Kitterlin, assistant professor at the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Florida International University. Kitterlin has studied sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, and explains that it creates a power dynamic. “If I have to make my money from tips, I might not be so ready to walk away from unwanted sexual attention from a guest.”

Fighting for a Living Wage

New York’s decision to increase the subminimum wage was a compromise between labor advocates and business representatives, who vehemently opposed increasing the subminimum wage, said Meg Fosque, national policy director of Restaurant Opportunities Center-United, which campaigned the state’s labor board to eliminate the subminimum wage and move toward the minimum wage for such workers.

The struggle for a living wage will be substantial in the face of the restaurant lobby, one of the largest in the country. “It’s a lot easier for a paid lobbyist to be out there [pushing its position] than a restaurant worker with three jobs and a family to support,” said Fosque.

Indeed, industry representatives immediately spoke out against the New York increase, arguing it was too sudden for restaurants to accommodate without losing profit and would force establishments to close, fire workers, or pass the bulk of costs on to customers. However, such fears have proved unfounded. The greater wage does not result in perceptible increase in worker terminations. Small business owners generally prefer higher minimum wages, believing it improves employee retention, performance, and customer satisfaction. Businesses could pass costs on to customers, though at a rate customers may not discern; a minimum wage of $10.10 would result in an estimated 2.5 percent cost increase within three years. (The New York State Restaurant Association did not respond to inquiries for comment on this story.)

The Tipping System

Today’s rationale behind the nation’s subminimum wage policy is that tips make up for the shortfall of the lower wage, a far cry from its 19th-century aristocratic origins. But the wage has decreased in value by 40 percent since its implementation in 1991, thanks to inflation, and customers do not account for the shortfall: Today Americans tip less than ever, rarely leaving 20 percent. Seven states, including Hawaii, Minnesota, and Nevada, have eliminated the subminimum wage for tipped workers, raising their wages to the same minimum wage of all other workers. These workers still rely on tips, however, to supplement their income. For restaurants that pool tips, tips are reduced depending on the number of staff (though the system ensures every staff person takes home something).

“The whole tipping system is so arbitrary,” said Maia Buess, who has worked in coffee shops for ten years and relies on tips to flesh out her minimum wage earnings of $8.75 hour. (New York state will raise the minimum wage to $9.00 at the end of the year, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio argue is still too low for city workers.) Buess said that at a previous job, she and her coworkers would often negotiate so that the most attractive employee working that day was at the register and everyone would get more tips. “People don’t get tips because [workers] do a good job,” Buess said. “It’s a grab bag of how much you’ll get, on good days when people are in good moods. I’ve made the most beautiful drinks for people who don’t tip.”

Restaurant workers believe the pushback against higher wages partially lies in stigma against their labor: that it requires little skill, that workers are uneducated, and that only teenagers seek the work. But the majority of workers are older than 25, and a quarter are 40 or older. Nearly 40 percent have higher education degrees. Kimmie, who used to work in nonprofit management and public relations, said she often calls on those skills in her work. The job itself, as any server will say, does require experience and training. “It’s a skill,” said Meg Fosque of ROC-United. “Not every skill important for our society requires a four-year degree.”

Some advocates and workers are pushing not only to eliminate the subminimum wage in favor of a living wage, but to eliminate tipping altogether. Some restaurants have taken that step, including Restaurant Riki and Sushi Yahuda in New York City, Bar Marco in Pittsburgh, The Public Option in Washington, D.C., and chain restaurant Noodles & Co. in 38 states. California’s restaurant industry even has thrived without it. To offset the much higher wages, some of these establishments have raised meal prices, explaining to customers that service fees are included in these prices, while others have restructured their entire operating budgets to save on overhead and supplies.

Not only is begging for tips detrimental to workers, Fosque said, it’s unfair to restaurant customers to take on the burden of compensating workers for the shortfall in wages rather than restaurants, whose profit margins have continued to steadily grow. “Rather than have restaurant employers pay fair wages, it’s a pass-along cost to the customers—it’s a way of employing a free work force,” Fosque said. Customers have no legal obligation to pay a wage (by giving tips), so “the restaurant is not valuing the work that servers do, as opposed to a restaurant saying, ‘We’re going to give you a professional wage.’”

Additional Hurdles

Some restaurant workers warn against banning tipping altogether along with abolishing the subminimum wage. Kyle Marshall, a server based in Baltimore, is one of many tipped workers who supports the tipping system. He said he earned $85,000 one year while working as a server at a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. He could easily earn $60 for a two-person table, where the bill could reach $300. He believes these tips reflect the quality of his service, and pooling tips or banning tips encourages laziness in servers. But, he admits, the New York City dining scene offers many more lucrative options for employment. “If you were at Ruby Tuesday’s or [TGI] Friday’s, doing $5 [appetizers], you’re not going to make a whole lot. You have to be better at multitasking. It’s just a matter of figuring out where exactly you want to go.”

Indeed, many restaurant workers must settle for these less profitable restaurant jobs in other parts of the industry. The restaurant industry is booming, employing one in ten U.S. workers. But fast casual restaurants like Chipotle and Panera Bread are expanding the fastest, and workers at such establishments earn minimum wage but are generally not tipped at all. In these restaurants and casual restaurants, like Ruby Tuesday’s, a higher unified, living wage for restaurant workers would be especially critical, when tips cannot possibly make up the shortfall. This is increasingly important for women and women of color, who are the dominant servers in such restaurants nationwide, Fosque said. “They don’t earn as much in tips in those restaurants, so they have to work twice as hard.”

Even if more fine dining positions were available, certain workers might never be hired for them. Miranda Kitterlin of the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management explains that all restaurants hire workers whom they believe their customers wish to see, banking on “aesthetic labor” to earn more money from customers. This results in all types of discrimination, including based on race, perceived sexual orientation, and attractiveness level. “Establishments just want to hire the people that attract their clientele either way, to make more money,” Kimmie said. “It’s all capitalism.”

The last major hurdle for tipped work advocates is that of sexual harassment, which undoubtedly thrives in the industry. Half of women, 47 percent of men, and 60 percent of transgender restaurant workers experience “scary” or “unwanted” sexual attention from customers, other servers, or management. This attention includes being harassed, receiving pressure for dates, and being touched or pinched. Increasing wages might empower them to turn a customer down or report these interactions to management, as the fear of a reduced tip would diminish.

Today, the majority of restaurant workers ignore these interactions to avoid the hassle for fear of losing a tip, having their hours reduced, or getting fired, according to the ROC-United and Forward Together study. Others who cannot handle it “select out” of the industry to find other jobs if they can, Kitterlin said: “In smaller cities, where there are so few employment opportunities, people don’t have the option to select out, and they have to work somewhere.”