A Tax Break for Waiters Won’t Convince Working People to Vote for Trump

My first job was at Harrigan’s Grill & Bar in Amarillo, Texas. I was 7 years old. My mom waited tables and, like many single mothers, didn’t have child care when Grandma wasn’t available. So after school, on school holidays and weekends, my little brother and I would hang out at the restaurant until her shift ended. The other servers would pay us a few dollars in quarters to roll silverware, fill ketchup bottles, pick stray kale out of the salad bar, all the sidework that had to be done before they could go home, before our mom could take us home.

That wasn’t my last job at a restaurant. My siblings and I joke that waiting tables and tending bar is the family business. When you’re paid in tips, you’re never really sure if you’ll make rent. So you go to work sick. You go to work overtired. Sometimes your manager has a coke habit and sexually harasses you. Sometimes it’s the customers who grab your butt and ask you to sit on their laps. You smile anyway. You need the tip. Sometimes they leave more than a dollar.

At a rally last month in Nevada, Donald Trump announced that, if elected, he would exempt tips from federal taxes. Of the 20 “promises” in the 2024 G.O.P. platform, No. 6 is “Large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!” Republicans in Congress are already working on a bill designed to do just that. Last week, they introduced “Tax Free Tips Act of 2024,” which would end federal income and employment taxes on tips. The Senate bill, supported by both of Nevada’s Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, calls for an end to income tax on tips alone.

But unlike the Trump proposal to do away with all taxes on tips, the bill does not include an exemption for payroll taxes, Medicare and Social Security, the only taxes owed by most low income workers. The bill would only benefit the 50 percent of servers who make more than $32,000. The other half, which earns less than 32,000, already don’t pay federal taxes on their income. The bill would do nothing for the four out of 10 women working tipped jobs who live near or below the federal poverty line.

Efforts to ease the burden of tipped workers seem like attempts to pander to non-college educated white voters by offering a mostly meaningless solution to income inequality. The Senate bill has been enthusiastically endorsed by the National Restaurant Association, which I believe stands to benefit from quelling a growing movement and organizing effort to require a living wave for tipped workers.

I never did make enough in tips to owe much in taxes. I’ve had a few good nights, more often tending bar than waiting tables. I made $600 one night at a gay club in Washington, D.C. More often, I didn’t make enough in tips to afford a meal at any of the restaurants where I worked. Not that I had time to eat. There were ketchup bottles to fill. A table to clear. Drinks that needed to be refilled.