Aligns minimum wages of service workers receiving tips, including employees who are resort service workers, with the statewide minimum wage requirement beginning in January 2023.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A4547
SPONSOR: Rodriguez TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the labor law, in relation to the minimum wage for
service workers receiving tips
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to bring tipped service workers minimum pay
into line with the statewide minimum wage so that all workers who do
their job are guaranteed a fair wage.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Sections 1 and 2 amend labor law to align minimum wages of services
workers receiving tips, including employees who are resort service work-
ers, with the statewide minimum wage requirement beginning in January
2021. Amendment S652 Lab L Aligns minimum wages of service workers
receiving tips, including employees who are resort service workers.
JUSTIFICATION:
As it stands today, the statewide minimum wage in New York is $8 per
hour. The minimum wage tipped food service workers is $5 per hour and
$5.65 per hour for service employees. Workers are expected to make up
the difference between their hourly pay and the statewide minimum wage
through tips. If they do not reach that minimum wage, employers are
required to pay the difference. Nevertheless, troubling reports show
that employers do not always Okay the difference, and tipped service
workers are often toiling in poverty.
According to a Community Service Society report, in New York City and
state, tipped workers are more than twice as likely to live in poverty
compared to non-tipped workers. Thirty percent of tipped workers in the
state make $8.88 per hour. At that wage, a full-time, year-round worker
would earn just under $18,500 annually. These tipped workers, skating by
at or below the poverty line, rely heavily on public benefit programs
provided by the state. The result of their reliance on public programs
is a shifting of labor costs from employers onto taxpayers. This bill
seeks to align tipped workers' wages with the minimum wage required by
the state. The result will ensure that everyone who does a job is paid a
fair wage.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
A 4326 OF 2016 A831 2017/18 referred to labor
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
4547
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 4, 2021
___________
Introduced by M. of A. RODRIGUEZ -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Labor
AN ACT to amend the labor law, in relation to the minimum wage for
service workers receiving tips
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 4 of section 652 of the labor law, as amended
2 by section 2 of part K of chapter 54 of the laws of 2016, is amended to
3 read as follows:
4 4. Notwithstanding subdivisions one and two of this section, the wage
5 for an employee who is a food service worker receiving tips shall be a
6 cash wage of at least two-thirds of the minimum wage rates set forth in
7 subdivision one of this section, rounded to the nearest five cents or
8 seven dollars and fifty cents, whichever is higher[, provided that the
9 tips of such an employee, when added to such cash wage, are equal to or
10 exceed]; and equal to the minimum wage in effect pursuant to subdivision
11 one of this section [and provided further that no other cash wage is
12 established pursuant to section six hundred fifty-three of this article]
13 on or after January first, two thousand twenty-three.
14 § 2. Section 652 of the labor law is amended by adding a new subdivi-
15 sion 3-a to read as follows:
16 3-a. Notwithstanding subdivisions one and two of this section, the
17 wage for an employee who is a service worker, including an employee who
18 is a resort service worker, receiving tips shall be a cash wage equal to
19 the minimum wage in effect pursuant to subdivision one of this section
20 on or after January first, two thousand twenty-three.
21 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD03053-01-1
