Baltimore City Councilman John Bullock said he will continue to fight to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers next year. But the move comes after an election in which Marylanders raised concerns about the cost of food and Massachusetts voters rejected a similar plan.

Efforts to raise the base pay of service-sector workers have faced headwinds in Maryland and beyond. The failed measure in Massachusetts would have gradually increased wages for tipped workers from $6.75 an hour to $15 an hour by 2029. In Michigan, there are a new bipartisan effort to stop the state’s plan Gradually increase the base wage of tipped workers until it reaches the state’s standard minimum wage in 2030.

The Bullock bill, introduced in June, remained in abeyance until the next city council term begins next month. He proposes raising the tipped minimum wage from $3.63 an hour to $15 an hour, plus tips, by 2029. While voters in other places have rejected tipped wage increases , in Baltimore, the city council would make the final decision.

Other council members supporting Bullock’s efforts include Ryan Dorsey, Odette Ramos and Phylicia Porter. In the months since the bill was introduced, no request for a public hearing has been received – an important next step – and the soon-to-be-departing City Council president has not helped make move forward with the project.

“We think there is a potential path forward by looking at what other cities have done,” Bullock said. “Some have been successful in getting legislation like this passed. Others, not so much.

Last year, the Chicago City Council votes to increase tipping in a way similar to what Baltimore is trying to do. And in a victory for service industry workers, Arizona voters this month rejected a ballot measure that would have lowered the tipped minimum wage.

Bullock said there is an appetite for this legislation in Baltimore. However, this has not been the case in the Maryland General Assembly.

The Fair Pay Act of 2024 was introduced in January, but the House and Senate versions of the bill have not moved forward. Prince George’s County Council examined, but finally filed, by increasing tipped wages there last year. In neighboring Washington, D.C., residents voted to eliminate the minimum wage for tipped workers in 2018, but the D.C. City Council overturned it. Voters approved it again in 2022, raising the base wage from $5.35 an hour to $16.10 by 2027.

Efforts to raise the minimum wage have generally been popular in recent years. Governor Wes Moore accelerated state-mandated base pay this year at $15 per hour, from a minimum of $12.80. The Economic Policy Institute estimated more than 341,000 workers were affected by the increase in Maryland.

The exception to this increase is tipped workers, who often work in the restaurant industry and rely on the generosity of customers to make up the difference in pay. Many service industry employers use tipping to ensure that their employees receive tips. minimum wage.

Bullock’s bill, entitled Fair Wages for Tipped Employees, proposes to increase the minimum wage to 6 dollars per hour from July 1, 2025, increasing by $2 per year through 2029. Once wages reach that point, employers cannot deduct any tip credits from the state-mandated $15 hourly wage.

“The idea, essentially, would be to phase out the tipped minimum wage, or lower wage,” Bullock said. “Again, this would not take away the ability to tip. »

The Restaurant Association of Maryland has made its voice heard against the modification of the tipped minimum wage or the tip credit, as it is also called. The organization was against the efforts in Howard County, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County and statewide.

“Despite what activists who support this legislation say, there is no such thing as ‘lower pay’ for tipped restaurant workers,” said Melvin Thompson, senior vice president of government affairs and public policy at the Restaurant Association of Maryland.

Eliminating the tip credit would “quadruple labor costs for full-service restaurants” and “significantly decrease” server tips, Thompson said. He points to service charges that have become more popular at restaurants across the country, adding that customers are less likely to tip on top of these extra charges.

Menu prices could rise and some businesses may have to cut jobs, Thompson said.

One Fair Wage advocated for higher wages in Baltimore and elsewhere, including Massachusetts, where it simply failed. Saru Jayaraman, president of the Fair Wage Council, said he hopes to get a Ways and Means Committee hearing in early 2025, once the new council members are seated for the next term.

“Currently, the rate of $3.63 an hour is so outdated and so out of step with the true cost of living in Baltimore that it would be in every elected official’s best interest to move forward with this initiative , this bill,” she said.

According to the US Census Bureau, in the past, restaurants workers were paid more due to higher payrolls and often higher prices. But employees are generally not laid off, and the likelihood of bankruptcy does not increase simply because the minimum wage increases.

Sebastian Martinez Hickey, state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, agreed with some of those findings, but noted that the minimum wage is not a simple issue for workers.

Although employers are required by law to ensure this loophole is closed, he said it was “very difficult to enforce” because employees have to know the law and make their own calculations. If there is a discrepancy, workers must confront their employers.

“The tipped minimum wage inherently presents a structural disadvantage to workers, which both results in economic harm and places workers in situations where they may experience physical or verbal abuse,” Martinez Hickey said.