New study shows 93% of servers and bartenders in Ohio want to maintain the current tipping system of base wage and tips.
The Ohio Restaurant & Hospitality Alliance released the results of a survey earlier this week that received 990 responses from tipped employees working at full-service restaurants across Ohio. The online survey was conducted in April by national research and consulting firm CorCom Inc. and had a 3% margin of error.
The poll comes as signatures are being collected in Ohio to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in Ohio that would raise the minimum wage to $12.75 an hour on January 1, 2025 and eliminate tipping in Ohio. On January 1, 2026, the minimum wage will enhance to $15 per hour. Raise your pay is part of a national campaign run by One Fair Wage.
“We believe this would truly devastate our state’s third-largest industry, which employs approximately 550,000 Ohioans and is still trying to recover from the pandemic,” said John Barker, president and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance. “Our industry is currently trying to weather the cumulative effects of record high inflation over the last three years.”
Raise the Wage Ohio needs to collect more than 413,000 signatures by July and currently has more than that 410,000 signatures – he said Mariah Ross, executive director of One Fair Wage.
The current minimum wage in Ohio is $10.45 per hour for non-tipped workers and $5.25 for tipped workers. An Ohio employer can pay tipped employees half their starting wages, so tipped workers are guaranteed to receive the full minimum wage, but most earn significantly more.
“Employees in zero-hour restaurants earn less than the minimum wage by law. This has always been true,” he said Todd Bowen, ORHA’s managing director of external affairs and government relations.
They say the average income of a tipped worker in Ohio is $27 an hour ORHA.
“The current system works well, but this proposal would force waiters and bartenders to live on an hourly wage, which we know would reduce their income and almost triple labor costs in restaurants, bars and other businesses that employ tipped workers,” Barker said.
Raising the minimum wage would force restaurant operators to enhance menu prices by about 20-30%, he added.
The study also found that 83% of tipped workers earn $20 per hour or more, and 64% of tipped workers earn between $25 and more than $40 per hour.
Nearly 70% said they currently earn more than they could in another industry, and 64% like having a adaptable schedule.
“You can have a mom, you can have a student in college who can work whenever he wants and can make good money at the same time,” she said. Lloyd Corder, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who runs a consulting firm.
If tipped wages were eliminated, 91% fear that tipped workers would earn less, and 85% believe that customers would not pay tips on top of the mandatory service charge.
One Fair Wage said the results were misleading.
“This is a mischaracterization of the One Fair Wage proposal, which advocates the full minimum wage plus tips, rather than one over the other,” One Fair Wage said in a statement. “The survey contains questions that distort the true nature of the policy and is part of an ongoing strategy to mislead employees.”
Workers oppose increasing the minimum wage
Laurie Torres, owner and operator of Mallorca Restaurant in Cleveland, fears that raising the minimum wage could potentially close her restaurant. She said that if a minimum wage bill were passed, she would have to raise prices by more than 22%, which she shared with her customers.
“Time and time again, customers say they would visit us less often,” Torres said. – And fewer tip dollars. If the ballot initiative passes, my guests will pay more. My waiters would be paid less and there is a real chance I would have to close the restaurant and the doors to the place so many call home. … My restaurant is the same as your favorite restaurant. Are you ready to say goodbye to this?”
Lindsay Odell, a bartender at the Submarine House in Huber Heights, says she easily makes more than $30 an hour – more than her engineer husband.
“If this actually went through, it would change my life,” she said. “That would be terrible. I would never be a bartender, and I love being a bartender. That’s all I’ve ever done. That’s all I ever want to do.”
Bowen said a potential voting measure could have a “devastating impact” on communities.
“Often it’s a cool restaurant or a cool brewery that brings life to a neighborhood or a neighborhood or a small community, and anything that negatively impacts hospitality has a negative impact on those communities,” he said.
Senate Bill 256
State Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township officials recently introduced a bill aimed at stopping a proposed constitutional amendment.
Senate Bill 256 will raise the minimum wage for non-tipped workers to $15 and to $7.50 by 2028.
“We believe Senator Blessing’s approach is a slower, thoughtful and measured approach to $15 to be achieved over several years… but must be done without destroying Ohio businesses and the communities they rely on” – Bowen he said.
Follow the OCJ reporter Megan Henry on X.
