Instead of Ending Taxes on Tips, Pay a Living Wage
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has offered up an idea for from taxes. Trump claimed he thought of it after an interaction with a Las Vegas server. Now his opponent Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, says she with him about ending taxation on tips.
But experts on economic inequality—and activists working to end it—say such a policy would do little to help workers relying on tipped wages. Instead, the question arises, what would it take to achieve an economy where tipping is simply not part of the equation, because everyone is paid a fair living wage?
Saru Jayaraman, president of and director of the at University of California, Berkeley, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about ending what she calls “sub-minimum wages.â€
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent ÎÞÂëÊÓƵ Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host†in her 2014  of the same name.
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