ABSTRACT
The restaurant industry is both the largest segment of tipped workers and the second largest and absolute fastest growing sector of the US economy overall, but it is also the lowest paying. The two-tiered wage system in restaurants thus sets the standard for a woman’s worth economy-wide. In December 2019 people worked with Lake Research Associates to again conduct polling of tipped workers broadly in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and Mississippi, and found that an overwhelming majority of tipped workers in each of these states reported that One Fair Wage would be an issue that would motivate them to vote. As low-wage workers who stand to benefit from many of the policies the Democratic Party purportedly espouses, they might be prime candidates for Democratic-leaning voters, but the disengagement is mutual: the Democratic Party has largely ignored them as “unlikely voters,” and these workers largely do not vote and do not trust the Democratic Party.
