Tipped minimum wage debate rages across the country

Ji Hye Kim launched her Korean restaurant Miss Kim, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, six years ago and decided not to use tips, instead offering a higher minimum wage of $14 per hour. She had felt that the tipped minimum wage was unfair and hadn’t moved upward for decades; federal “tipped minimum wage” has remained at $2.13 an hour since 1991. As someone who had worked for tips, Kim knew that any work that took away from serving tables cut into how much she made. Meanwhile, workers who worked in the kitchen had to work for the same amount on busy nights when servers netted more, despite all the workers being just as productive, she added. It was also hard to take tips and then switch to a system without them, she said.