Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., has introduced a bill that would boost the minimum wage for the first time in two decades for employees who live off tips.  The lawmaker on Thursday introduced H.R. 631, the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services Act, to increase tipped employees' minimum wage, which has remained at $2.13 an hour since 1991.

“My bill makes significant gains toward closing the wage gap between tipped employees and all other workers,” Edwards said in a letter to her colleagues. “Restaurant workers, including waiters, waitresses, bussers and other servers, are the largest group of tipped workers, and they have been hit especially hard by the flatlining of their minimum wage.”  Edwards' WAGE Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to establish for tipped workers a base pay of $3.75 an hour, effective three months after the bill is enacted. The base salary would increase to $5 an hour a year after enactment. In two years, the base would be at least $5.50 an hour, or 70 percent of the federal minimum wage.

Edwards criticized Congress' 1996 decision to revoke a wage system that paid tipped employees based on the federal minimum wage and lock in a $2.13-per-hour base salary.  “As a result of this wage freeze, the value of wages for tipped workers will be less than half of what it would have been had Congress left wages undisturbed,” Edwards said. “It is time to ensure that all employees are paid fair wages for their hard work.” (click on link to read full story)