Why I’m voting YES on Initiative 77 & I hope you do too.

This has been confusing. For all of us. And we need a better solution.

I’ve talked to waitstaff and back-house staff at places I eat and drink, and I’m not sure they’re any more certain what’s best than the rest of us are. I’ve tried to read every article and hear every perspective. And full disclosure: I’ve spent quite a bit of time both as a tipped worker, bartending, and as an hourly hospitality worker, on the line in a kitchen.

The fundamental problem with I-77 is a policy problem. It demands a yes/no answer to a multiple-choice question. The solution doesn’t fit the problem.

In DC, we have a real hospitality industry that’s both appreciated and economically important. That’s relatively new, and it’s great. It means that professionals with skills can move up the ladder and make a decent living. Those who have done so want to protect the means by which they’ve advanced: tips for professionalism.

At the same time, we still have a significant number of people in jobs that don’t allow them to make a decent living. Much of this is dependent, unfortunately, on circumstance. Being a great maid or a great nail tech or a great Thai delivery driver isn’t as economically valued as being a great craft bartender or waiter.

There’s a circumstantial differential in what we value and pay for that is not attributable to merit. There’s a whole literature on this, and why we’ll pay for high-end bourbon drinks, but cap out at $8 for Chinese food. But that’s a story for another day.

The point is: this differential means, in policymaking terms, that the tipped wage market in DC is bimodal rather than normal. We don’t have the usual bell curve in the middle of the wage distribution. Instead, we have a bunch of folks at the low-mid and a bunch of folks at the high-mid. And, I-77 puts those two peaks in conflict.

We have the folks working at the lower hump of the tipped wage supporting I-77 and the additional income it would provide, while the folks in the upper hump are opposing it because it might lower their income. Here, “splitting the difference” is poor policy that pits tipped workers against one another.

So who’s right?

Well, my tendency is to suggest that public policy should be used to help the least-well-off. But that might not make sense here. Based on my conversations, the “more well off,” higher-peak servers and bartenders and other tipped workers at the fancy bars and restaurants aren’t feathering their nests and planning their retirements. Not at all. DC is unaffordable for them too, and they’re just as cost-burdened (housing+transportation+food) as the lower-peaked group. They’ve just made different choices that keep them treading financial water at a slightly higher level.

Let’s be honest. Their circumstances differ, but both groups are just trying not to drown. So perhaps a ballot-initiative that pits them against one another isn’t the best choice of public policy to serve the greater good. A ballot initiative is a blunt object, and I suggest that we can do better with a bit of nuance. Our Mayor and most of our Council have said that they oppose the Initiative. While I suspect that stems largely from the greater voice and visibility of the “upper peak” of our two groups: it matters.

If we vote no on I-77, the issue will die until advocates for the lower-peak tipped workers who have a legitimate claim of unsustainable wages can get the issue back onto the agenda of decision-makers. That would be unjust.

But if we vote yes on I-77, our most powerful local officials who have publicly stated their disagreement will have an incentive to fix things and, importantly, they will have the more nuanced legislative process with which to craft a legislative solution that actually makes sense. They can do economic analysis and see the bimodal distribution of wages that calls for a more nuanced policy. They can hold hearings and conduct outreach to discern what might make legitimate ceilings or floors, minimums or incentives.

In short, they can craft a better policy. Because whatever my gut-level beliefs in fair wages, I-77 is too blunt an object to well-serve the needs of our varied tipped-wage workers.

I’m voting yes on I-77 to assure a minimum. But I’m counting on our Mayor and Council to take that as a signal to bring evidence, data, and process to the question.

I will vote yes only because I can’t vote for anything more nuanced than that.