Rhode Island Restaurant Workers

Where this stands

A coalition is forming in Rhode Island around a $25 minimum wage for every worker in the state, with no subminimum carve-out for tipped workers. One Fair Wage is a contributing partner, not the lead. The coalition is still coming together, and the legislative path, the partner list, and the timing are not settled yet.

This page will be updated as that work develops. If you work in a Rhode Island restaurant, bar, cafe, or diner, the useful thing you can do right now is get on the list, so the coalition knows who is out there when it moves.

The gap

Rhode Island’s minimum wage reached $16.00 an hour on January 1, 2026 and is scheduled to reach $17.00 in 2027. MIT’s Living Wage Calculator puts what a single adult in Rhode Island actually needs at $25.01 an hour — about $9 an hour apart, before you add a child, a car repair, or a rent increase. For a household with children, the gap widens sharply.

Tipped workers start lower still. Rhode Island keeps a separate, lower cash wage for tipped workers, with tips expected to carry them the rest of the way to the minimum. That means a slow shift, a bad section, or a manager who does not make up the difference comes out of the worker’s pocket. Ending that two-tier system is the core of what One Fair Wage organizes for, in Rhode Island and everywhere else.

What the research says about the subminimum wage

One Fair Wage’s 2021 analysis of leisure and hospitality business closures found that the five states with the highest closure rates in the first year of the pandemic were all states that kept a subminimum wage for tipped workers. Rhode Island ranked third, with a 61.2% closure rate. Connecticut and Massachusetts were on the same list.

That is the opposite of what the restaurant lobby argues. The places that paid tipped workers a full wage held on to more of their restaurants, not fewer. Washington, D.C., is the clearest live test: after D.C. began phasing out its tipped subminimum wage under Initiative 82, full-service restaurant employment hit an all-time record and median tips ran above the national average.

What One Fair Wage does for workers in Rhode Island

Membership is free and it is open to you whether or not a campaign is running in your city yet.

• Wage and tip questions. If you are not sure your paycheck is right, OFW can walk through what you are owed. Start at the services hub.
• Legal referrals. When a case needs a lawyer, we connect you with partner attorneys we trust. The referral is free, and the lawyer takes it from there. See legal help.
• Training. Free food safety and English-language training for restaurant workers.
• Organizing. When the Rhode Island coalition moves, members are the first people contacted.

Three reports to start with