Why We Need Hospitality—Before, During, and After the Pandemic

As someone with over ten years in the industry, I still make $4.95/hour—plus tips.

The service industry is the antithesis of the corporate 9-to-5 world. Visible tattoos and piercings are not a problem, US citizenship is rarely required, working from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. is typical, and in most states, it is not illegal to drink on the job. But the biggest difference is, of course, how most of us are paid.

I’m thirty-one, and in July, I will have been a bartender for ten years. I’ve never been salaried, and aside from some odd jobs and the teaching I did as a graduate student, I’ve never not made a majority of my money in tips. I have budgeted my entire adult life by a fairly simple system: My paychecks, which include my hourly wages and all the tips from credit card transactions, cover Big Things, like rent, bills, airplane tickets, and my savings account; my cash tips, which can range from $30-$300 a night, go towards everything else. I’ve never had to wait for “payday,” because I’ve always had something to go home with at the end of the night.

But now? Now the safety net for times of crisis is failing to address the financial nuances and the societal value of the 15.6 million of us employed by the second-largest private industry in the country.

And it’s going to ruin thousands of us.

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The history of tipping in the US is long and fairly tragic, but the Cliff’s Notes version goes like this: Tips were tokens of appreciation given to servants and waitstaff by the wealthy, and the system evolved into a way to allow white employers to not pay Black Americans entering the workforce during Reformation. When the federal minimum wage was established in 1938, tipping was a deeply ingrained practice and a major point of contention between business owners and employees. Tips, businesses claimed, were wages; therefore, as long as their employees made at least minimum wage including tips, they shouldn’t be required to pay their staff the minimum hourly wage. In 1942, the Supreme Court codified that stance, ruling that in accord with the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers were required to pay the established minimum wage, but that tips could be included in wages, allowing businesses to pay employees well below the minimum wage; if anything at all.

The safety net is failing to address the financial nuances and the societal value of the 15.6 million of us employed by the second-largest private industry in the country.

In much of the country, not a whole lot has changed.

In Massachusetts, and in a majority of states, tipped workers still make a legally sanctioned sub-minimum wage: As someone with over ten years in the industry, I still make $4.95/hour—plus tips. As long as I average at least $12.75/hour (Massachusetts’ current minimum wage), the people signing my paychecks are under no legal obligation to pay a higher hourly wage.

And honestly? A lot of the time it doesn’t matter: I usually clock between $27-$45/hour. While my industry doesn’t operate on raises or promotions, the better you are at your job, the more opportunities you have to not only work in places that are doing really cool shit, like rotating staff-designed cocktails, seasonal pop-up menus, designated nights for guest bartenders from around the city, or, you know, dental insurance, but also in places that have consistently high sales averages, which means bigger tips. (That ‘dollar a drink’ rule? That comes from a dollar being 20 percent of the cost of a drink several decades ago. Even just factoring in inflation and modern-day cost of living, a dollar a drink is substandard, and while I understand it for shots or glasses of wine where all I did was open a bottle and pour it in a glass, tips should be based on check averages. Always.)

And if you can do it, most of us would prefer cash tips. The time it takes to run a credit card seems slight, per transaction, but think of a time you were in a crowded bar vying for the attention of a bartender. How much less time would it have taken for you to be next, if the five people in front of you all paid with cash? It’s a quicker exchange, hands down; a win for everyone.

From my side of the bar, cash is preferred for two more simple reasons: I get to take it home with me at the end of the night, and there’s a good chance I won’t be taxed on all of it. And in today’s political climate, I think that’s fair—particularly in a system that allows and encourages a highly skilled sector of the workforce to be paid less than $5/hour.

I’ll never be wealthy or have a corner office, and I’m fine with that. One way we’re compensated for that lack of trajectory or reward is by having our skill, endurance, and personality rolled into our hourly wage via tips—and yes, by maybe cheating the system just a little.

Because, honestly, we get cheated by the system every single day.

The restaurant industry is the largest source of sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Center, but that number pales in comparison to the gestures, comments, and advances made by guests who, because so many of us are tip-dependent, know they’ll likely get away with it. Wage theft is rampant. We work holidays and weekends, no questions asked. My overtime hourly is still less than the state minimum wage.

We get cheated by the system every single day. 

‘Taking a personal day’ is not an option. Until COVID-19, if you woke up with a fever, you would still go to work—at least until you could find someone to cover your shift. Because if you didn’t, not only were you not earning money, but you’ve also left your coworkers—your teammates, your work family—at a disadvantage.

The government has offered relief for small businesses, restaurants and bars included, but these measures—even before the money ran out (though there are possibly new funds on the way)—ignore the inner workings of industry financials. This loan is largely contingent on the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP), forgivable loans for payroll expenses that enable restaurant operators to continue to pay their staff.

But for PPP to function as a grant and not a loan, which is far more beneficial, businesses must have approximately the same number of employees on payroll by this June as they did pre-COVID-19. No one knows if bars and restaurants will be open by the end of June, let alone be able to staff them at pre-COVID levels: Staffing depends on predicted business volume, and we have no idea what that will look like. On top of that, only 25 percent of the PPP was allowed for rent—often the largest expense of independent big-city establishments.

The hospitality industry establishments that benefited from the CARES Act, before the money went dry, were household names of the uber-wealthy corporate conglomerates: the antitheses of the “small businesses” the loan was supposed to be helping.

The same ignorance shows through state-run benefit programs for individuals. When I applied for unemployment I was told I was ineligible for benefits because “records show that [I] have not earned enough wages to qualify.” I’ve since learned that my W2s for half my 2019 work history are required, and submitting those should change the eligibility of my claim, but even, then the situation for many is bleak: I’ve seen posts in online industry communities of people qualifying for as low as $50 a week.

Is part of that because we don’t declare all of our tips? Yes. But part of it is also because many of us are still paid far below the minimum wage. And part of that is because while the drinking and dining public love to go out and eat and drink, the people who make those nights out so enjoyable are still being told—by our peers and by our government—that we need to get a real job.

When people who work in hospitality go to work, they don’t just make drinks, or food, or carry said drinks and food to a table. When we go to work, particularly those of us who are tip-dependent, we’re there to build an experience for every person who walks through the door. We have one collective goal in mind: to be a space that welcomes people, somewhere people can come to celebrate as well as find solace and a friendly ear.

What could be more real than that?

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I once had a guest look at me in the middle of a Saturday night rush, the kind of evening where I felt like an octopus in an apron I was making so many drinks, and say, You’d have made a great ER doctor. I’ve been watching you triage.

I’m pretty sure I’d make a terrible ER doctor: I don’t have a lot of patience for tears, vomit skeeves me out, and all discussion of the circulatory system makes my skin crawl. I’m not putting my life at risk by working on the front lines of a pandemic. Nobody is going to bleed out if I take my time stirring their martini or possibly die from preventable complications if I forget to ask about any medications they’re allergic to (okay, maybe that isn’t the best comparison: Seriously, folks, if you’re allergic to nuts, fucking tell me).

But hospitality shares the Latin root for guest—hospes—with hospital for good reason: Both imply an act of service—to help people feel better.

That has to be worth saving. Everyone who wishes they could go down to their favorite neighborhood bar for a quick drink knows that what they miss isn’t the drink, it’s the community and connection that bars and restaurants and the people who work in them create. Yet if the way our work is valued—socially and economically—doesn’t change, too many of us won’t make it back out there.

There won’t be anything to go back to.