New York City bill would raise minimum wage to $30, phase out tipped wages

A New York City server now paid a cash wage of $11.35 an hour could eventually be covered by a full $30 minimum wage, a shift that would strip out the tip-credit system that still shapes restaurant pay. The gap between the current cash wage and the proposed floor is $18.65 an hour before taxes, benefits and tips.

Councilmember Sandy Nurse and 11 other City Council members introduced Int. No. 757 on March 10, setting up the New York City Minimum Wage Act as a broad private-employer wage hike that would begin phasing in during 2027 and reach $30 an hour by 2030 for large employers. Smaller employers would follow a slightly lower schedule. The proposal would also phase out the tip credit for food-service workers, with the required cash wage rising each year starting January 1, 2032 until it matches the full minimum wage.

For restaurants, that is not just a policy tweak. It is a payroll reset. Under current New York State rules in 2026, food-service workers in New York City can be paid $11.35 in cash wages with a $5.65 tip credit, while the citywide standard minimum wage is $17. Moving to $30 would force operators to cover far more of each hour on the books, which would pressure staffing levels, menu prices and the split between front-of-house service and back-of-house labor.

The bill also comes with sharper enforcement tools than many restaurant owners are used to seeing attached to wage law. It includes anti-retaliation protections, longer recordkeeping requirements, daily fines, liquidated damages and a private right of action for workers. For servers, bartenders and hosts, that matters as much as the headline wage number. A higher guaranteed wage is one thing; the ability to challenge missing pay or retaliation without getting cut from the schedule is another.

The politics around the measure are already hardening. Labor unions and worker-rights groups launched the Living Wage Coalition to back a $30 minimum wage and the end of the tip credit, and One Fair Wage activists and restaurant workers staged a March event outside the New York Restaurant Show to push the campaign. Susan Sarandon joined One Fair Wage organizers and restaurant workers during that effort, giving the fight visibility well beyond labor circles.

Restaurant-industry opponents, including the Employment Policies Institute, have argued that ending the tip credit would hurt workers and employers. That clash is not new. New York ended the subminimum wage for many workers at the end of 2019, but tipped food-service workers stayed in a separate system. Int. No. 757 would take that fight directly into the city’s restaurant payroll math, where every hour on the schedule has a price.