Saru Jayaraman on Taxing Tipped Wages

KPFA - CounterSpin

This week on CounterSpin:

Donald Trump told a Las Vegas crowd earlier this month that, if elected, the “first thing” he would do would be to end the IRS practice of taxing tips as part of workers’ regular income. Unfortunately, Trump can count on a general haziness in the public mind on the impact of “tipped wages,” more helpfully labeled subminimum wages. That’s partly due to a corporate press corps who, through the decades-long fight on the issue, always give pride of place to the industry narrative that, as a Chicago Sun-Times headline said, “Getting Rid of Tipped Wages in Illinois Would Be the Final Blow to Many Restaurants.”

As president of the group One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman is a leading mythbuster on the history, practice, and impact of tipping. CounterSpin talked with her in November 2015. We’ll hear that conversation again today, when much of what she shares is still widely unexplored and misunderstood.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at coverage of child labor.

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