“One Fair Wage”
Jake Sheridan,
Chicago Tribune
Mon, June 23, 2025
Mayor Brandon Johnson reaffirmed his support Monday for Chicago’s plan to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers, rejecting calls from hospitality business groups for City Hall to reverse course.
Johnson pledged to continue the planned gradual raises for tipped worker minimum pay, including an hourly raise from $11.02 to $12.62 going into effect next week. He said he wanted to be “crystal clear” in his commitment to the ordinance set to bring pay for tipped workers in line with citywide minimum wages in 2028.
“We’re not going back to the days where the government believed that some workers deserve less,” Johnson said. “Over the next several years, we’re going to continue to raise the wages of workers.”
But as Johnon and allies lauded the so-called “One Fair Wage” ordinance passed by the City Council in 2023, restaurant groups argued it has forced businesses to shutter and led to a decrease in hospitality jobs.
Full-service restaurant employment in Chicago has dropped to its lowest level since 2023 and more than 100 restaurants have closed since 2024, the Illinois Restaurant Association wrote in a news release Monday.
The restaurant group is backing a push to pause implementation of the ordinance and the gradual raises it enforces each year. Earlier this month, Washington, D.C.’s city council voted to take such a pause, delaying a pay bump from $10 to $12 for tipped workers from July to October. The city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has called for the pay increases that easily passed in a 2022 ballot measure to be repealed.
A similar fight might be playing out in Chicago, as restaurant groups become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the ongoing pay hikes that first took effect last July.
“It is an incredibly difficult time for restaurants. Many are struggling to stay open,” Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia wrote. “The policy is pushing independent restaurants to the brink, driving up prices for consumers and putting thousands of tipped employees out of jobs.”
For the city’s bars, the number of liquor licenses has flatlined in recent years, according to Pat Doerr, director of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago.
Staff are seeing fewer days and shorter hours as higher wages make it harder for owners to make ends meet, Doerr said. And with lower property taxes, access to video gambling and fewer worker compensation requirements elsewhere, competition for Chicago taverns is opening up right across the city’s border, he added.
“If the acceptable trade-off is fewer jobs making slightly more money is the policy City Council wants to pursue, that is their choice right now,” Doerr said.
But data shared by One Fair Wage, the group leading efforts across the country to outlaw subminimum wages for tipped workers, painted a far different picture of how the ordinance has played out in its first year.
The number of Chicago restaurant license cancellations was cut in half last year, while the city issued 856 retail food licenses and saw a steady rate of license renewals, according to a One Fair Wage report that cited Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection data.
The report also determined Chicago tipped workers have seen a 49% income increase since 2021, the largest tipped worker pay bump in the country, citing ADP payroll data.
Advocates have pushed for the last two years to enact the policy statewide, but have so far failed to pass a law. Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps urged listeners Monday to defend Johnson’s One Fair Wage ordinance and promised to push for similar pay rules countywide.
“I refuse to let a cook in Cicero, or a waitress in Maywood, or a child care worker in Austin be left behind simply because of a boundary line,” Stamps said. “It’s about more than just paychecks. It’s about how we define value in our society. It’s about whether we believe Black and brown workers, immigrant workers, women, young people all deserve to live out the fullness of their labor.”
Ald. Bennett Lawson, 44th, introduced an ordinance in May seeking to overturn the pay increases, though Johnson allies used a parliamentary maneuver to delay its consideration. Lawson’s ordinance would end the planned pay increases and instead allow restaurants and bars to count tips as up to 32% of the citywide minimum wage.
Lawson argued Monday that in a restaurant industry still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pay hikes are making it harder for full-service restaurants to employ tipped staff who make far above minimum wage. The wage rules tighten slim margins and make it harder to stay in business, he said.
“It’s much, much harder to be successful, to keep the lights on, to deal with the price of eggs or beef,” Lawson said. “We got to be realistic … We should be listening to the restaurants in our neighborhoods.”
That repeal effort will face stiff pushback from Workforce Development Committee Chair Ald. Michael Rodriguez, who committed Monday to fight any effort to overturn the tipped worker pay increases.
“We’re the only country that has this system. We need to move away from that system, and Chicago’s going to lead,” Rodriguez, 22nd, said. “We had a deal with the restaurant industry to phase this over five years. We should stick to our deals.”
Mon, June 23, 2025
Mayor Brandon Johnson reaffirmed his support Monday for Chicago’s plan to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers, rejecting calls from hospitality business groups for City Hall to reverse course.
Johnson pledged to continue the planned gradual raises for tipped worker minimum pay, including an hourly raise from $11.02 to $12.62 going into effect next week. He said he wanted to be “crystal clear” in his commitment to the ordinance set to bring pay for tipped workers in line with citywide minimum wages in 2028.
“We’re not going back to the days where the government believed that some workers deserve less,” Johnson said. “Over the next several years, we’re going to continue to raise the wages of workers.”
But as Johnon and allies lauded the so-called “One Fair Wage” ordinance passed by the City Council in 2023, restaurant groups argued it has forced businesses to shutter and led to a decrease in hospitality jobs.
Full-service restaurant employment in Chicago has dropped to its lowest level since 2023 and more than 100 restaurants have closed since 2024, the Illinois Restaurant Association wrote in a news release Monday.
The restaurant group is backing a push to pause implementation of the ordinance and the gradual raises it enforces each year. Earlier this month, Washington, D.C.’s city council voted to take such a pause, delaying a pay bump from $10 to $12 for tipped workers from July to October. The city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has called for the pay increases that easily passed in a 2022 ballot measure to be repealed.
A similar fight might be playing out in Chicago, as restaurant groups become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the ongoing pay hikes that first took effect last July.
“It is an incredibly difficult time for restaurants. Many are struggling to stay open,” Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia wrote. “The policy is pushing independent restaurants to the brink, driving up prices for consumers and putting thousands of tipped employees out of jobs.”
For the city’s bars, the number of liquor licenses has flatlined in recent years, according to Pat Doerr, director of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago.
Staff are seeing fewer days and shorter hours as higher wages make it harder for owners to make ends meet, Doerr said. And with lower property taxes, access to video gambling and fewer worker compensation requirements elsewhere, competition for Chicago taverns is opening up right across the city’s border, he added.
“If the acceptable trade-off is fewer jobs making slightly more money is the policy City Council wants to pursue, that is their choice right now,” Doerr said.
But data shared by One Fair Wage, the group leading efforts across the country to outlaw subminimum wages for tipped workers, painted a far different picture of how the ordinance has played out in its first year.
The number of Chicago restaurant license cancellations was cut in half last year, while the city issued 856 retail food licenses and saw a steady rate of license renewals, according to a One Fair Wage report that cited Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection data.
The report also determined Chicago tipped workers have seen a 49% income increase since 2021, the largest tipped worker pay bump in the country, citing ADP payroll data.
Advocates have pushed for the last two years to enact the policy statewide, but have so far failed to pass a law. Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps urged listeners Monday to defend Johnson’s One Fair Wage ordinance and promised to push for similar pay rules countywide.
“I refuse to let a cook in Cicero, or a waitress in Maywood, or a child care worker in Austin be left behind simply because of a boundary line,” Stamps said. “It’s about more than just paychecks. It’s about how we define value in our society. It’s about whether we believe Black and brown workers, immigrant workers, women, young people all deserve to live out the fullness of their labor.”
Ald. Bennett Lawson, 44th, introduced an ordinance in May seeking to overturn the pay increases, though Johnson allies used a parliamentary maneuver to delay its consideration. Lawson’s ordinance would end the planned pay increases and instead allow restaurants and bars to count tips as up to 32% of the citywide minimum wage.
Lawson argued Monday that in a restaurant industry still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pay hikes are making it harder for full-service restaurants to employ tipped staff who make far above minimum wage. The wage rules tighten slim margins and make it harder to stay in business, he said.
“It’s much, much harder to be successful, to keep the lights on, to deal with the price of eggs or beef,” Lawson said. “We got to be realistic … We should be listening to the restaurants in our neighborhoods.”
That repeal effort will face stiff pushback from Workforce Development Committee Chair Ald. Michael Rodriguez, who committed Monday to fight any effort to overturn the tipped worker pay increases.
“We’re the only country that has this system. We need to move away from that system, and Chicago’s going to lead,” Rodriguez, 22nd, said. “We had a deal with the restaurant industry to phase this over five years. We should stick to our deals.”
