Every person who works in America should be paid at least a full, fair minimum wage from their employer with tips on top.

One Fair Wage is a national organization of nearly 300,000 restaurant and service workers, nearly 3,000 restaurant owners, and dozens of organizations nationwide all working together to end all subminimum wages in the United States and improve wages and working conditions in the service sector in particular. One Fair Wage policy would require all employers to pay the full minimum wage with fair, non-discriminatory tips on top, thus lifting millions of tipped and subminimum wage workers nationally out of poverty.

The One Fair Wage coalition includes all workers for whom tips are considered wage replacement – including restaurant workers, nail salon technicians, car wash workers, tech platform delivery workers and drivers, hairdressers, massage therapists, and many more – as well as other subminimum wage workers, including disabled, incarcerated and youth workers. One Fair Wage conducts policy advocacy, voter engagement, worker and employer organizing, and culture shift activities to ultimately lift millions of tipped workers out of poverty nationwide and engage them in the political process that governs their lives.

One Fair Wage book

Written by One Fair Wage President, Saru Jayaraman

About the Book

One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America (New Press, 2021) uplifts the stories of subminimum wages workers across many sectors — including tipped restaurant, nail salon, parking attendant and airport wheelchair attendant workers, gig workers, workers with disabilities, incarcerated workers, and youth workers. These stories, paired with facts from years of research, advance the narrative of racial capitalism and the idea that all of the subminimum wages in different sectors are a reflection of America’s devaluation of people of color, workers with disabilities, youth, and immigrants as subhuman. The book also reveals the solution to addressing racial capitalism which is paying everyone a full minimum wage.