one of the stories in my book is a woman named claudia munoz, an immigrant from mexico who ended up becomingn my organization, ro to c. and when she was in graduate school in houston, texas, she worked at the ihop earning $2.13 an hour. now, the law says that restaurants are supposed to make sure that tips make up the difference between that tip minimum wage of 2.13 and the regular minimum wage of 7.25. the u.s. department of labor reports an 84% violation rate with regard to employers actually making up that difference. and, in fact, in claudia's case, the ihop, mega corporate that it is and even though it is legal, said to claudia we don't want to have to be held liable for making sure that tips make up that difference, so we're going to report that you're earning $7.25 regardless of what you actually earn. which means claudia was taxed at 7.25, and like most tipped workers, received a pay stub every week that said this is not a paycheck. and it says zero. because when you earn 2.13 or 3.63 as any tipped worker will know, your wages are so low, they go entirely to taxes, and you live off o

one of the stories in my book is a woman named claudia muÑoz an immigrant from mexico who ended up becoming my organization. when she was in graduate school in houston texas she worked at the ihop earning $2.13 an hour. now, the law says that restaurants are supposed to make sure that tips make up the difference between that tipped minimum wage of $2.13 in the regular minimum wage of $7.25. the u.s. department of labor report and 84% violation rates with regard to employers actually making up that difference and in fact in claudia's case the ihop mega-corporation even though it is legal said we don't want to be held liable for making sure that tips make up that difference so we are going to report that you are earning $7.25 regardless of what you actually earn. which means claudia was taxed at $7.25 and received a paste of every week is said this is not a paycheck. when you earn $2.13 or $3.63 your wages are so low they go entirely to taxes and you live off of your tips. claudia lived off of her tips which were sometimes $5 an hour, sometimes $4 an hour and sometimes $0 an hour when she was