The D.C. Council moved to pause a planned increase in the tipped minimum wage as Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District’s restaurant industry both argue to repeal outright a law they say is hampering the city’s dining scene.
The council voted 8-4 Tuesday to postpone a minimum wage increase from $10 to $12 that was set to kick in July 1.
The increase is now scheduled to take effect in October.
The minimum wage increases come from a 2022 ballot measure known as Initiative 82 that passed with 74% of the vote.
The waiters, bartenders and other workers who traditionally rely on tips for income would receive a minimum wage of $17.50 once the gradual increases are fully made in 2027.
But Council member Robert White, an at-large Democrat who supported the pause, said his office put out a survey to D.C. restaurant workers and found many of them had seen their income go down.
“When incomes fall due to changes in tips or hours, it doesn’t just affect the paycheck,” he said. “It affects the livelihood of people living in a very expensive city in a time where rents continue to go up and it is harder and harder for average people to make it here.”
Those who voted in favor of the pause said they wanted to see how federal legislation addressing no taxes on tips would affect local restaurants. They also believed putting the wage increases on the same timeline as the new fiscal year would keep any restaurant-oriented funding in lockstep.
Each time someone spoke in favor of the pause, audience members opposed to the delay would loudly boo them, prompting gavel slams from Chairman Phil Mendelson. At least one person was escorted out for their vocal opposition to the measure.
Council member Janeese Lewis George rebuked arguments for a pause, saying more than 100 new restaurants have opened in the District since the I-82 took effect in spring 2023.
She also said more eateries opened last year than in any of the previous 10 years, which she said is proof that the restaurant industry is growing, not shrinking.
“The fact is that this is chipping away at I-82 and it’s laying the groundwork to overturn the will of the overwhelming majority of voters who have spoken twice in support of a fair wage for the District’s tip workers,” said Ms. Lewis George, Ward 4 Democrat.
Ms. Bowser, a Democrat, proposed repealing the law in her fiscal 2026 budget proposal, which was officially shared with the council last week.
She has said mandatory minimum wage increases for tipped workers put the District at a disadvantage to restaurateurs looking to set up shop in the region.
Ms. Bowser also cited the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal government, which is forecasted to cost the District roughly $1 billion in tax revenue over the next three years, as forcing the city to pivot to a more hospitality-based economy.
The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington has loudly supported a repeal of I-82.
The organization welcomed the pause following the council’s vote Tuesday.
“Economic conditions have changed drastically since Initiative 82 was on the ballot in 2022,” RAMW said in a statement. “It’s our shared responsibility to consider the world as it is rather than as it was.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.