New York

As New York has diminished its tip credit and raised regular and tipped minimum wages over the last several years, the state’s full-service restaurant industry, which employs the majority of tipped workers, has experienced declines in both annual employment and annual establishment growth. New York has the smallest tip credit…

Economists agree that major minimum wage hikes cost employees their jobs – especially for teens. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows this happening in real time: states with the largest minimum wages in the nation are also experiencing the highest unemployment rates for workers aged 16…

Recent proposals to raise the minimum wage in New York state and the Big Apple have threatened to eliminate the tip credit, which mostly affects tipped restaurant employees’ ability to earn substantial income. Advocates argue eliminating the tip credit in New York City and beyond would bolster recovery from the…

As state legislators in New York deliberate on a bill to raise the New York minimum wage even higher statewide, Governor Kathy Hochul has weighed in on the debate. Hochul announced during her 2023 State of the State address that not only should wages rise in the Big Apple, but…

The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) and its affiliated non-profit One Fair Wage (OFW) have relentlessly demanded that New York state lawmakers scrap the tip credit, which allows restaurant employers to count tips towards the minimum wage requirement. While it aggressively pushed Governor Andrew Cuomo to raise the state minimum wage…

July 1st marks a scheduled raise to a $15 minimum wage for all fast food workers across New York State. Eighteen other states and localities saw minimum wage hikes yesterday too. But areas considering their own wage increases should be wary of the impact $15 can have, as…

Recently-released data from the New York State Department of Labor show that New York City suffered its second straight year of declining employment in the full-service restaurant industry. Nearly 5,000 full-service restaurant jobs have been lost in the city since 2017. The city hasn’t experienced consecutive years…

In a recent blog post, a team of researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conclude that the state’s experiment with rapidly-rising minimum wage levels had “no discernible effect on employment.” The researchers draw this conclusion after comparing “leisure and hospitality” employment in bordering counties between…

A full-page ad in today’s New York Post exposes the true motives behind the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) and its push to eliminate the tip credit. (For those not acquainted with the tip credit debate, a primer is available here.) ROC’s founder, Saru Jayaraman, has been a long-time…

Governor Andrew Cuomo is eager to abolish New York’s tipped wage. So eager, in fact, that he’s willing to justify his agenda with false data analysis from the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC). A new policy brief from the Employment Policies Institute outlines the problems with eliminating tip wages and explains…