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Christine Thurman is a mother of three. She鈥檚 engaged and is the breadwinner in her Chicago household. She also works as a waitress, living primarily off of tips because she鈥檚 paid a subminimum wage of $2.13 per hour. 

She can neither raise her children nor put food on the table on that hourly rate. That鈥檚 in part why she鈥檚 fighting to get fairer wages.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but federal law allows an employer to pay well below this hourly rate as long as an employee makes at least $30 in tips per month.

The subminimum wage is just one manifestation of the systemic racism that has been entrenched in the United States鈥� identity since its founding. . But the concept of tip wages is even older鈥攁 . After emancipation, tipped wages were used as a way for businesses to not have to directly pay formerly enslaved people. Their income was dependent on the generosity of strangers.

Then when the concept of a minimum wage was introduced, these workers were left behind. In order to get support for the New Deal from Southern Democrats, Franklin Roosevelt  for workers, but excluded industries dominated by communities of color, like domestic and agricultural work.

This deeply entrenched problem leaves people like Thurman, who works a full 40-hour week, feeling underpaid for the time she puts in. 鈥淚f you work hard you should be paid fairly,鈥� Thurman says. 

Some restaurateurs recognize that. Chef Russell Jackson, who owns Reverence in New York City, pays his staff a high and livable wage of $22.50 per hour, nearly twice the state minimum wage of $12.50. New York state eliminated the subminimum wage for many tipped industries in 2020, but the from the change in law. 

With 40 years of experience in the food industry, Jackson says he鈥檚 never seen such an impact of his wage policy on his employees. He believes paying a living wage fosters a sense of financial pride that is rare in the restaurant industry.

鈥淲e need to look at long-term wealth, to look at wealth-building and not think about it as a short-term solution or a short-term dollar, but think about the bigger picture,鈥� he says.

Jackson put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, by opening an investment account for his employees. 鈥淲hat we do in the afternoon while we鈥檙e prepping鈥攚e鈥檙e talking about trading stocks and crypto.鈥�

Jackson is an outlier, however鈥攏ot many restaurateurs make the additional effort and investment in their staffs鈥� financial well-being. But he isn鈥檛 necessarily alone. Jackson is part of a bigger effort led by some of the most passionate voices in the fight to reform wages, including the national One Fair Wage coalition and its president, Saru Jayaraman. 

Founded in the days after 9/11, One Fair Wage was built to help restaurant workers who struggled after the national tragedy. A total of 79 chefs, waiters, and other staff working at the Windows on the World restaurant, on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, lost their lives in the attack.

The organization has since blossomed into a full-fledged national movement led, in part, by the staff who weren鈥檛 at work on that day and thus survived. Twenty years after 9/11, the founders of One Fair Wage say the struggle for restaurant workers is ongoing鈥攐nly now it鈥檚 pegged to the day-to-day tragedy of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a massive disruption of the restaurant and hospitality industries.

That鈥檚 not only translated into lost jobs and wages, but it also exacerbated existing problems within the industry, including sexual harassment of staff by both owners and customers.

Relying on tips to earn a living, creates a 鈥減ower dynamic between male customers and female servers, which is the source of the sexual harassment. It got so much worse with the pandemic,鈥� Jayaraman says. 

According to a study from One Fair Wage in December 2020, 71% of women in the food service industry have during their time in the business. 

This is a longstanding problem, according to a, as many as 90% of women and 70% of men in the restaurant industry reported experiencing some kind of sexual harassment on the job. And according to One Fair Wage, incidents of reported increased by 31% over the last year. 

鈥淭ips went down 15%鈥�75%, and a huge, overwhelming majority [of servers] said customer hostility went way up; obviously health risk went up,鈥� Jayaraman adds. 鈥淥ver 50% of women said sexual harassment just skyrocketed. Thousands of women said that male customers repeatedly said, 鈥榯ake off your mask so I can see how cute you are before I decide how much to tip you.鈥欌�� 

That hostility continues to escalate, especially in locales where restaurant workers have been tasked with enforcing vaccine mandates like those in New York City. In part because the city is conducting surprise inspections and each violation could come with a fine of up to $1,000, . 

But that means low-wage workers are being tasked with checking vaccination cards, and in some cases being forced to turn people away, which has already happened at restaurants across the country.

While activists hope that Jackson鈥檚 model of paying higher wages is a sign of the future of the food service industry, counting on restaurant owners to voluntarily raise their wages isn鈥檛 reliable, and any systemic changes would have to be addressed in federal wage laws. 

鈥淭hese types of policies where they are just doing it on their own is no substitute for actual minimum and subminimum wage policy,鈥� says Sylvia Allegretto, an economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Some political leaders are at least trying to do something to raise worker pay. 

In January 2021, , which would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour and raise the tipped wage to $12.50 per hour by 2025. The act would also phase out the subminimum wage. A vote to include the measure in the third COVID-19 stimulus bill failed, however.

In April, President Biden issued an for all federal government employees and contractors to $15 per hour. 

On the state level there鈥檚 a different story, at least for workers with disabilities. Colorado, California, and Hawaii, among other states have passed for disabled workers, but not across the board. 

Some private companies also have stepped up to raise wages at their restaurant chains. In June, Chipotle raised its , up from $11 per hour. The wage increase is specifically for employees who otherwise would make $11鈥�$18 per hour. , raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour for its company-owned and -operated restaurants. The new minimum wage does not apply to independent franchises.

Those initial steps haven鈥檛 come easily, and momentum to enact a national policy to provide livable wages face opposition from , that food service workers have been making more money on unemployment insurance and other financial assistance. 

According to One Fair Wage, a staggering 63% of restaurant workers had challenges accessing unemployment insurance because workers in most states, including New York, have been told they can鈥檛 even qualify for unemployment insurance because their subminimum wages are too low. Much of the financial relief workers have received has come from relief funds launched by nonprofit organizations.

Jackson鈥檚 approach to wages is much like what鈥檚 used in traditional Japanese restaurants.

In Japanese culture, because it suggests that customers don鈥檛 think the workers make a livable wage, or it comes across as arrogant. Many Japanese restaurants in the U.S. have adopted this practice, too. In New York City, this has been common practice for almost a decade. embraced this practice in 2013, and since then, in the city have taken on similar strategies.

It鈥檚 not just limited to New York. Restaurants across the country have changed their business models to eliminate tipping in recent years, including the Mediterranean restaurant , and , a farm-to-table restaurant in Wichita, Kansas. 

Using this strategy, restaurants factor a livable wage into the prices on the menu, rather leaving it to the discretion of the consumer. 

But at the end of the day there鈥檚 only so much that can be done without a change in the federal law. Whatever the law ends up being, Jayaraman has offered up a name鈥擳he Windows on the World Act鈥攚hich would commemorate the restaurant workers who lost their lives on 9/11.