Lansing — A majority of Michigan voters said they back an increase to the minimum wage as well as mandated paid sick leave, according to a new statewide poll, but the support dipped significantly when it came to the elimination of Michigan’s tipped wage, a lower hourly rate paid to servers who receive tips.
The support by a margin of two-to-one for a minimum wage hike and paid sick leave law came about a month after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled a Republican-led legislative maneuver that curbed the 2018 minimum wage and paid sick leave initiatives was unconstitutional. The court ordered the original voter-initiated wage and sick time laws to go into effect on Feb. 21, even though they were never approved by voters.
The decision — particularly its implications for the $3.93 hourly tipped minimum wage and paid sick leave law — has caused angst in Michigan’s business community, which has argued the requirements of the paid sick leave law are administratively onerous and could upset more flexible paid time-off systems. They’ve also contended the replacement of the tipped wage with the minimum wage will drive up restaurant costs and result in servers making less overall because tips would likely decrease.
Nearly 45% of voters said they were likely to tip less as a result of the ruling, while another 45% said their tipping habits would not change, according to the poll conducted Aug. 26-29 by the Glengariff Group. The poll of 600 voters, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4), has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Across party affiliations, voters supported the Supreme Court’s July 31 ruling that found the Michigan Legislature cannot adopt and amend an initiative within the same session. Overall, nearly 56% supported the high court’s decision while about 24% opposed and almost 20% of voters were undecided.
“There’s not much that cuts across party affiliation these days, but the one thing that does is voter anger when the Legislature infringes on their rights,” pollster Richard Czuba said.
“Voters want to understand the issue, but what they don’t want the Legislature to do is to pull fast tricks on them.”
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The concerns stemming from businesses have been accompanied by pleas to the current Democratic-controlled Legislature for some sort of compromise that would speed up implementation of the minimum wage hike while maintaining the tipped wage and tweaking paid sick leave to make it more flexible for administrators and workers alike.
House Speaker Joe Tate told The News that it was unlikely the House would make any changes to the law before the Nov. 5 election.
“I don’t see us doing anything before the election because we’re just gathering feedback and listening to what our constituents say about the decisions,” said Tate, a Detroit Democrat.
John McNamara, vice president of government affairs for the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, said stakeholders understand changes to the law may not get debated until the Legislature’s post-election lame duck session in December. But that didn’t stop him and a couple dozen restaurant servers from gathering at a Lansing restaurant Wednesday to share their concerns with state Rep. Kara Hope, D-Holt, and Sen. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing.
“We’re going to try to give people some clarity, but we also understand that it is more than likely an issue that’s dealt with in December,” McNamara said.
Worker advocacy groups that pursued a state Supreme Court order restoring the original voter-initiated 2018 laws have pushed back against new efforts to alter them.
“Put that poll up against the 411,000 people who signed that petition,” said Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan Director Chris White, referring to the signatures gathered in 2018 in an effort to get the proposal on the ballot. When the 2018 Legislature adopted and amended the proposal instead of placing it on the ballot, ROC Michigan was one of several groups to file suit.
“411,000 people signed the petition and the court has spoken,” White said Wednesday. “Any effort to undo what the court has done, it would damage public trust in the system.”
Minimum wage, paid sick leave backed
About 61% of voters said they support the Supreme Court ruling when it comes to the requirement that businesses provide paid sick leave benefits, while 29% said they oppose it and about 10% remain undecided.
Individuals who participated in the survey were asked whether they support the high court’s ruling that would require businesses of any size to provide paid sick leave and they were informed that the current version of the law exempts businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
“We wanted to make sure voters understood this impacted small businesses,” Czuba said. “But there’s still strong support for this.”
On increasing the $10.33 hourly minimum wage gradually to $15 an hour by 2028, nearly 67% said they supported the increase and 30% opposed it; about 4% were undecided. That result is consistent with past polling that repeatedly shows strong support for minimum wage increases, Czuba said.
On the tipped wage, about 46% said they support gradually replacing the tipped wage with the minimum wage by 2029 and nearly 41% said they opposed the elimination of the tipped wage. About 14% said they were undecided.
Jacob Hodges, an Alma resident who considers himself a progressive Democrat, told pollsters last week that he supports the changes to minimum wage and the tipped wage based on his own experience making ends meet.
“It just never seems like enough,” Hodges said Wednesday of the minimum wage, “and, working just one job, it’s damn near impossible to afford anything. I make more than that and it’s still hard.”
Hodges said he’s overall supportive of the paid sick leave mandate but would like to see some small businesses with fewer than 20 or 30 employees exempt from the requirement. He said he’s comfortable with the current Democratic-led Legislature making tweaks to improve the law.
“I’m pretty happy with the Legislature we have in now,” Hodges said. “I feel like they actually have some of the smaller people in mind.”
Messaging appears to move the needle
Czuba attributed the relatively lower support for the elimination of the tipped wage to the restaurant industry’s “master class” messaging before and after the ruling on the effect the change could have on servers. The same messaging push has not been done on paid sick leave, Czuba said, and the effects the new sick leave law could have on absences without notice, paid time off flexibility and record keeping are not as well known.
“This is a monstrosity of a proposal that they have to figure out what to do with because it’s so unclear,” Czuba said. “But that’s not a conversation that’s been had with the voters.
“The tipped wage, that’s a conversation that’s been going on for months and voters are open to understanding some of the nuance here.”
April Milo, a Republican from Rockford, indicated to pollsters she somewhat opposed each of the changes — a minimum wage increase, paid sick leave mandate and the tipped wage replacement — but she said her position on the tipped wage was largely guided by concerns she heard from friends. She said she’d like to do more research on the topic, but her friends’ concerns were enough to tip the scales when pollsters asked her about the subject last week.
“I have a few friends who are restaurant owners who had posted that that would hurt their businesses,” Milo said of the tipped wage. “The small business piece of it is what really worries me.”
Wednesday’s “Save MI Tips” event with McNamara, servers and lawmakers at a Lansing restaurant was the eighth event of its kind since the Supreme Court decision was released July 31. Danielle Smith, a 33-year-old server at the People’s Kitchen in Lansing, told lawmakers and reporters that some loyal customers would continue tipping, but it would be a hard sell even for them if the cost of food went up so restaurants are able to pay the minimum wage rate for servers.
“Somebody’s not going to tip on food that has gone up 23% in price,” Smith said. “On top of that, they now think they’re paying our wage without tipping when they just paid $15 an hour.”
Polling appeared to back up the concerns voiced by restaurant industry workers who feared their take home pay would decrease under the new minimum wage structure. Among those polled, 45.3% said the knowledge that servers are making $15 an hour would lead them to tip less; 44.8% said they would tip the same and 9% said they were unsure.
About 42% of voters said they were being asked to tip too often and 52% said they are being asked to tip about the right amount of times.
There were no statistical differences by party affiliation on whether individuals were being asked to tip too much, but there was by age. More than 54% of 18-29-year-olds surveyed said they were being asked to tip too often — the highest percentage by age group.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
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Publish date : 2024-09-04 16:02:00
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