The Great Black Restaurant Worker Exodus
The Great Black Restaurant Worker Exodus
The restaurant industry has been in chaos since the onset of the pandemic. Numerous studies have documented how chronic low wages, sexual harassment, and forcing tipped workers to enforce COVID policies on the same customers from whom they have to earn tips in order to earn at least the minimum wage has resulted in workers fleeing the industry en masse. This report adds to this growing body of evidence demonstrating how the subminimum wage for tipped workers, a vestige of slavery, and the racial bias it creates, has led to an even greater exodus of Black tipped workers than other workers from the restaurant industry.