THE VOTERS TOLD US WHAT THEY WANTED

Quick question for you. If your whole brand is “let the people decide,” what do you do when the people decide twice? Take the red pill with me this morning. Gratuity not included.

“Twice”

In 2022, Washington, D.C., voters passed Initiative 82 with nearly 75% of the vote, Washingtonian reported. It would have phased out the lower “tipped” wage and paid servers the District’s full minimum wage by 2027, per Reason. Before it passed, a D.C. server’s base pay could be $5.35 an hour.

Then the people who campaign on democracy met the people who own restaurants. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed knocking the tipped wage back to $5.95. On July 28, 2025, the D.C. Council voted 7 to 5 to partially repeal the initiative instead: the tipped wage stayed at $10 until July 2026, then moves to 56% of the minimum, 60% in 2028, and a permanent cap at 75% in 2034. Under the new law, the servers voters said should get the full wage in 2027 never get it.

It wasn’t the first time. The council also overturned Initiative 77, a nearly identical ballot measure voters passed in 2018.

Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, one of the five no votes, said it best: “The voters told us what they wanted when they voted overwhelmingly for I-82,” she said, noting they had done it twice, “and this is not it.” Then the line every council in America should tape to the dais: “This council should not keep on telling the voters they don’t know what’s best for themselves.”

Today, per the Labor Department’s tipped-wage table, a D.C. server’s base pay is $10.30 on an $18.40 minimum.

THE VOTERS TOLD US WHAT THEY WANTED: the council told them to check back in 2034.

The John A. Wilson Building, home of the D.C. Council, which voted 7-5 on July 28, 2025, to cap the tipped wage voters approved in 2022. It also overturned Initiative 77 in 2018. Credit: APK, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Chicago and Michigan: the same U-turn

Chicago moved to eliminate its tip credit too. Then, Reason reports, an Illinois Restaurant Association survey found 89% of the city’s restaurants raised menu prices and 79% cut worker hours. The City Council voted to freeze the phaseout. Progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson vetoed it. On May 20, 2026, the council passed a compromise 49 to 1, freezing tipped pay at 76% of the minimum wage for two years at large restaurants and four more years at small ones, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Johnson’s verdict: “No one is satisfied.” Also: “I believe that workers deserve raises, particularly at a time when affordability remains the top issue.” Reason notes the pause punts the fight until after Johnson faces voters again. The lone no vote, Budget Chair Jason Ervin, called the freeze “an economic betrayal and a moral failure.” His summary: “There’s a difference between compromise and caving in.”

A tip jar at a deli in Fort Hunt, Virginia, 2024. In D.C., Chicago and Michigan, the promise to end the lower tipped wage was scaled back after it passed. Credit: Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

In Michigan, a 2024 state supreme court ruling put the tip credit on a path to zero by 2030. Lawmakers stepped in with bipartisan votes and kept a 50% credit for good after 2031, Reason reports, and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed it. Check who funds both delegations on our Michigan Money Map and Illinois Money Map.

In fairness, the damage numbers are disputed. The roughly 5% drop in D.C. full-service restaurant jobs and $11.8 million in lost earnings come from the Employment Policies Institute, a group that opposed Initiative 82. D.C.’s own budget director wrote that the industry “remains healthy,” per Washingtonian. But you don’t vote to cap a raise for an industry you think is healthy.

Progressive at the ballot box, pragmatic in the back room. Pick one, and tell voters which before they vote.

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The red costume: No Tax on Tips, no raise on $2.13

Here’s the part that should bug you no matter how you vote. Republicans love tipped workers in April. President Trump held a No Tax on Tips roundtable in Las Vegas on April 16, 2026, under a banner the size of a buffet.

Read the fine print. Per the IRS, the deduction tops out at $25,000 and phases out above $150,000 in income. It only covers tax years 2025 through 2028, per IRS Notice 2025-69, so it expires six years before D.C.’s capped wage even finishes phasing in. And under the IRS final rules, “qualified tips do not include service charges” the customer can’t decline. Reason reports many D.C. restaurants answered Initiative 82 with exactly that: mandatory 10% to 20% service fees. The GOP tax break doesn’t cover the fee the progressive wage law created.

Then there’s the base pay. The federal minimum cash wage for tipped workers is still $2.13 an hour, a number Congress locked in back in 1996, per the Congressional Research Service. It’s still the floor in Texas, Georgia, Tennessee and more than a dozen other states on the Labor Department’s table. No Tax on Tips is a tax deduction. It didn’t touch that number.

A tax break on tips is only worth something if somebody leaves one.

President Trump at a No Tax on Tips roundtable at the AC Hotel Las Vegas Symphony Park, April 16, 2026. The deduction is capped at $25,000, ends after 2028 and excludes mandatory service charges; the $2.13 federal tipped wage is unchanged. Credit: Daniel Torok, The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Both costumes

Here’s the adult version.

In D.C. and Chicago, progressives sold “one fair wage” as justice, then Democratic leaders rewrote it once the menu prices showed up. In Michigan, a Democratic governor signed the rollback. If you think the tip credit should survive, say so on the ballot, not after it. Republicans sold “no tax on tips” as a gift to servers, with an expiration date, an income cap, a service-fee loophole, and a $2.13 base wage nobody in the party seems in a hurry to touch.

The boring standard: if voters approve it, keep it or campaign openly to repeal it. If you love tipped workers, raise the floor, not just the slogan.

Check your own state’s tipped wage on the Labor Department’s table, then ask your candidates which number they’d change. Our Money Map and electoral map will show you who’s paying for their answer. We wrote about the other half of this habit, taxing the rich somewhere else, in ANYWHERE BUT CALIFORNIA.

Receipts

• Reason (C. Jarrett Dieterle), Oct. 17, 2026. Initiative 82 design, $5.35 prior wage, Initiative 77, Illinois Restaurant Association 89% / 79%, Johnson veto and two-year pause, Michigan’s 50% credit and Whitmer, 10% to 20% service fees.
• Washingtonian (Jessica Sidman), July 28, 2025. 7-5 vote, $10 freeze, 56% / 60% / 75% schedule, Bowser’s $5.95 proposal, nearly 75% vote, EPI and budget director figures, Nadeau quotes.
• Chicago Sun-Times (Fran Spielman), May 20, 2026. 49-1 compromise, 76% freeze, Johnson and Ervin quotes.
• U.S. Department of Labor, tipped minimum wage table, July 1, 2026. D.C. $10.30 on $18.40; federal $2.13.
• Congressional Research Service, The Tip Credit Provisions of the FLSA. $2.13 fixed by the 1996 FLSA amendments.
• IRS, No Tax on Tips; IRS final regulations, April 10, 2026; IRS Notice 2025-69. $25,000 cap, $150,000 phaseout, service charges excluded, tax years 2025 through 2028.
• Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: ANYWHERE BUT CALIFORNIA; Will the REAL Socialists Please Stand Up?. Reader tools: Michigan Money Map; Illinois Money Map; Money Map and electoral map.

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Originally published on Substack.