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"This would make a major difference for the affordability crisis so many face," said Rep. Ro Khanna.
Congressman Ro Khanna expressed hope on Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris' pledge to "fight to raise the minimum wage" on her newly released list of policy proposals would not be her last word on the matter, and urged her to speak out more specifically by backing a $17 minimum wage at the first presidential debate between her and Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Khanna (D-Calif.) said the Democratic nominee must send a clear message to many "voters who are living paycheck to paycheck in swing states," by showing that she is committed to improving their day-to-day lives with concrete economic policies.
Attaching a dollar amount to her promise to raise the minimum wage would show voters that she aims to "make a major difference for the affordability crisis so many face," said Khanna.
Several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, have minimum wages that match the federal minimum pay—$7.25 per hour—which hasn't been updated in 15 years.
Harris backed a $15 federal minimum wage when she ran for president in 2020, eight years after fast food workers launched the Fight for $15 national campaign.
But last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) proposed raising the federal floor for wages to $17 per hour within five years, with Sanders saying, "A job should lift you out of poverty, not keep you in it."
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Living Wage Calculator, even people in states with relatively low costs of living would need to earn significantly more than $15 per hour to enjoy a decent standard of living.
In both Mississippi and Alabama, for example, one adult with no children would need to earn more than $19 per hour to make a living wage. Two working adults raising one child would need to make $17.89 each, but they would need to make more than $21 each per hour if they had a second child.
"Raising our federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $17 is not radical," said Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), last year.
At HuffPost on Tuesday, Dave Jamieson noted that providing specifics about her plans to raise the wage floor would further clarify for swing state voters how Harris differs from her GOP opponent on this issue, as Trump has "never had a coherent vision for the minimum wage" and "has contradicted himself so often on the issue that The Washington Post's fact-checking operation once created a 'guide to all of Donald Trump's flip-flops on the minimum wage.'"
While campaigning for president in 2016, Trump said at various points that he did not support any federal minimum wage, that raising it would be a "big, big problem," and that that he was "looking at" raising it.
One Fair Wage (OFW), which has campaigned on ending the subminimum wage of just $2.13 for tipped workers, applauded Harris for her support for that policy, saying it offers a clear contrast to Trump and could appeal to 14 million service workers, including millions in swing states, who could sway the election.
"While both campaigns have called for the elimination of taxes on tips, this policy alone would only benefit about one-third of tipped workers," said the group. "Most workers wouldn't see any real relief, as their earnings are too low for them to benefit from a tax cut. That's why the Harris-Walz campaign's commitment to ending the subminimum wage stands out—it acknowledges that eliminating taxes on tips is not enough, and that workers need a true wage increase by ending the $2.13/hr subminimum wage for tipped workers, allowing them to earn a full minimum wage with tips on top."
"By taking this bold stance, the Harris-Walz campaign is aligning itself with a growing movement of workers and advocates fighting to create an economy where everyone can thrive," said OFW.
Saru Jayaraman, president of the organization, added that the policy would "lift millions of people out of poverty, close racial and gender pay gaps, and provide a foundation for economic security that all working people deserve."
"Raising wages resonates with millions of Americans who have been left behind by the current system, and the Harris-Walz campaign's commitment to this issue will not only energize voters but set the stage for a fairer, more equitable economy," she added.
Last week, Sanders toldRolling Stone that in the last eight weeks of the campaign, he hopes Harris will "expose Trump for the fraud that he is" and "develop an agenda for working-class people and trade unionists that will be very much in contrast with Trump."
"Raising the minimum wage to a living wage," said Sanders, "will improve wages for many millions of lower-income Americans."
"Focusing on tax relief distracts from the real solution: the need to end the subminimum wage, which is a direct legacy of slavery and contributes to the worst sexual harassment of any industry in America," said the president of One Fair Wage.
Economic justice advocates expressed appreciation for U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' elevation of working class issues in her campaign at a rally in Las Vegas over the weekend, but called on the vice president to go beyond promises her Republican opponent has made and instead counter them with a plan to eliminate subminimum wages across the economy.
On Saturday, Harris expressed support for eliminating taxes for tips. The median tipped worker earns just $15,198 per year.
"It is my promise to everyone here when I am president, we will continue our fighting for working families of America including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers," said Harris.
The vice president's pledge came weeks after One Fair Wage (OFW), a grassroots group fighting for policies that would "require all employers to pay the full minimum wage," published a report showing that ending taxes on tips would not help many of the people earning subminimum wages, as people across the restaurant industry and hundreds of thousands of workers with disabilities do—partially because many of these workers don't earn enough to pay income taxes in the first place.
"It's encouraging to see the Harris-Walz campaign focusing on the economy and the needs of tipped workers," said Saru Jayaraman, president of OFW, on Sunday. "The fact is two-thirds of tipped workers don't earn enough to pay income tax—and that's because of the racist, sexist subminimum wage that really should be the focus of Harris and [vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim] Walz's ire."
The report published in July by OFW—Short Changed: Ending Income Taxes On Tips Will Not Make Subminimum Wages Livable—was aimed at debunking the claim by Republican nominee Donald Trump and other Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), that ending taxes on tips would meaningfully increase tipped workers' earnings.
A bill proposed by Cruz would leave out 95% of low- and middle-wage workers, the report noted, and "even among the one-third of tipped workers who would benefit from this tax relief, this tax relief would be experienced once a year at tax time, and would not relieve their need to pay rent and bills all year round."
Unlike exempting tipped workers from taxes, "providing these workers with a full, livable minimum wage with tips on top would significantly improve their economic stability and workplace safety," reads the report.
As Common Dreams reported in June, OFW dismissed Trump's pledge to eliminate income taxes on tips as "pandering" to low-income households, and the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 said that while "relief is definitely needed for tip earners... Nevada workers are smart enough to know the difference between real solutions and wild campaign promises."
David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, noted that the culinary union supports eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped workers, which Nevada did at the state level last year.
"If Harris was looking to counter Trump's no taxes on tips, she could've endorsed ending the subminimum wage, which is much better policy," said Dayen.
The culinary union announced its endorsement of Harris last Friday, ahead of the vice president's rally, saying its members believe Harris will "tackle issues that are important to guest room attendants who clean hotel rooms, cooks who make gourmet food, and the tip-earning servers who deliver cocktails and unparalleled hospitality."
The union noted on Sunday that Harris had also pledged at the rally to "raise the minimum wage across the country."
The Nevada Current reported on Monday that the union and other advocates for economic justice, including U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), "hope to capitalize on a popular proposal to eliminating taxes on tips to push for a federal ban on letting employers pay tipped workers subminimum wages."
Horsford told the outlet that he is working with other House members to draft a bill that would end the federal subminimum wage, which is $2.13 per hour for tipped workers.
"Some of these employers are trying to keep workers at poverty wages," he told the Current. "We need to break that. We need to break this idea that people can work for less than a fair minimum wage and for me that's a livable wage."
Supporting such legislation, said Jayaraman, "is where the Harris-Walz campaign can make their mark—and make a real, meaningful difference in the lives of tipped workers."
"Focusing on tax relief distracts from the real solution: the need to end the subminimum wage, which is a direct legacy of slavery and contributes to the worst sexual harassment of any industry in America," said Jayaraman. "The Harris-Walz campaign should be calling for all workers to be paid a livable minimum wage with tips on top."
"In contrast, low-wage voters will be asking, What are Democrats providing as an alternative?" said the head of the group that published the report.
Most U.S. workers who rely on tips to supplement their often meager incomes would see no benefits from a tax exemption proposed by former President Donald Trump that the authors of a report published Tuesday called a "hollow promise."
The report—published by One Fair Wage and the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley—details how the proposal by Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) related No Tax on Tips Act would deliver little relief to tipped workers.
According to One Fair Wage, "66% of tipped restaurant workers would not benefit from tax exemptions on tips because they or their households do not earn enough to pay income taxes."
"Trump tried to make tips the property of owners the last time he was in office, so he's clearly NOT a genuine advocate for working people."
While the proposal may seem beneficial to tipped workers, the group said it "falls too short of having a real impact and fails to address the fundamental issue facing working-class Americans: the need for a stable, living wage."
According to One Fair Wage, the report's key findings include:
While Trump has picked Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate in an apparent bid to win over working-class workers, President Joe Biden on Sunday left the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
"Regardless of who's on the ticket, it's clear that candidates who want to win this cycle should address the needs of working people," One Fair Wage president Saru Jayaraman said in a statement. "Let's remember that for his part, Trump tried to make tips the property of owners the last time he was in office, so he's clearly NOT a genuine advocate for working people."
"In contrast, low-wage voters will be asking, What are Democrats providing as an alternative?" Jayaraman added. "In order to reach this critical voting bloc, their response should be loud and clear: It is time to raise the minimum wage and end the subminimum wage for tipped workers."
In a recent interview, Jayaraman toldCommon Dreams that "the restaurant industry has used tips for 150 years in place of what people need, which is a stable base living wage with tips on top."
"It is helpful, for sure, to not have your taxes tipped, but that is a red herring," she added. "That should be on top of what workers really need."
Last week, the Center for American Progress (CAP) published an analysis that found Cruz's bill is "deeply flawed": In addition to excluding 95% of low- and moderate-wage workers who are not working tipped jobs, "it contains few, if any, guardrails to prevent high-income professionals such as hedge fund managers from shifting their compensation to a tax-free tipping model."
"The No Tax on Tips Act potentially kicks the door wide open for tax abuse by the wealthy and fails to deliver any meaningful tax cuts for low- and moderate-wage workers," said CAP senior director for economic policy Brendan Duke. "Just 5% of all workers making less than $25 per hour receive tips. And even among those that do receive tips, the tax cuts would be minimal at best."
Duke asserted that restoring the American Rescue Plan's earned income tax credit and child tax credit expansions would broadly benefit "both tipped workers such as waiters and nontipped workers such as home health aides."