The Bezos-owned Washington Post’s business columnist is warning that eliminating taxes on tips could inadvertently hurt service workers. The piece follows a familiar pattern of woke experts attempting to mislead Americans that Trump’s economic policies are bad for their pockets.
During the campaign, the proposed policy received widespread support from service workers, prompting the Democratic Party’s failed candidate Kamala Harris to adopt it.
“It is my promise to everyone here that, when I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America,” Harris said. “Including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
However, some on the left think that eliminating tax on tips could harm tipped workers more. The Washington Post’s Shannon Najmabadi claims Trump’s policy could prompt employers to lower salaries by reclassifying employees as tipped workers, or fail to raise the minimum wage, ultimately hurting their pockets.
“Some advocates for restaurant workers and labor law experts call it a gimmick that could push employers to reclassify some salaries as tips and lock in a controversial practice that allows them to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 an hour,” she wrote.
Some states, such as Delaware, have a lower minimum wage for tipped workers. Although the policy varies from one state to another, in some states, employers are required to top up the balance if the worker fails to reach the minimum wage through tips.
Therefore, the left’s narrative is likely intended to cause panic among service workers and undermine the popular policy initiated by President Trump.
Additionally, the “No Tax on Tips Act” or Senate Bill 129 received unanimous bipartisan support in the upper chamber and currently awaits approval from the House of Representatives. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which narrowly passed in the House on a 215-214 vote, also aims to eliminate taxes on tips.
If passed, Senate Bill 129 would introduce a new individual tax deduction of up to $25,000 for tips and give business tax credits for the portion of payroll taxes that an employer pays on certain tips.
Some Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, which has the highest concentration of tipped workers, have strongly supported the “No tax on tips” bill.
“Nevadans, our families, are being squeezed, and we need real relief. For some, many service and hospitality workers, tips aren’t extra; it’s part of their income that they use to make ends meet,” she said.
“We have the highest percentage of tipped workers than any other state,” she added. “It’s important that working people get more of the money they earn in their pockets.”
She also refuted claims that the bill would benefit wealthy employers by highlighting that existing mechanisms would prevent its exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
“This legislation also includes guardrails to ensure that it benefits Nevadans who need it most, and not CEOs and wealthy individuals.”
Essentially, the bill would benefit both the worker and employers without adding any extra financial obligations for businesses, unlike the left’s proposed runaway minimum wage increases, which would also cause inflation. Seemingly, the WaPo columnist resorted to the lamest excuse to oppose the historic Trump policy.
However, she likely borrows a leaf from another woke economic expert, David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute, who claims that the measure would make tips more attractive for employers than salaries.
Clearly the D’s have never actually worked and depended on tips.
They can’t figure out why middle class voters turned on them. It’s because the D’s haver turned on the middle class, and the middle class voted their pocket book.
Only a moron supports minimum wages. It’s really simple, so simple in fact that my children at age 5 could understand it. When you increase the wages of the hamburger flipper the cost of the hamburger goes up. Always. When the hamburger costs more, the secretary catching her quick lunch at BK, pays more and goes back to work to ask the boss for a raise so she can afford the burger. The checkout clerk at the grocery store does the same thing for the same reason and so do the truckers delivering the hamburgers to BK and the stuff to the grocery store and the deliveries to the office the secretary works in. The trucking company, boss and grocery store owner raise their prices to accommodate the raises and pass that increase on to the grocery store, the boss, and every other customer. Minimum wage increases the cost of everything across every sector of the economy from the bottom to the top. This always happens and you simply need to look at history to see it. You don’t even need to do that if you simply think about it. There are only two things that harm the lowest earning workers of the world and those two things are minimum wage and the Democrat Party of the United States. If you vote Democrat, the high cost of living is your fault.