June 12, 2018

Waiters Are the Third-Lowest Paid Occupation In Washington DC

Yesterday I ran across a piece at the Intercept about a campaign to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers in Washington DC. It currently stands at a mere $3.33, which is justified by the belief that waiters and waitresses are able to make up for this low minimum wage via tips. But this got me curious. Counting all those tips, how much do waiters in Washington DC make? Luckily, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the median wage in DC for 462 different occupations:

There you have it. Waiters make less than parking lot attendants. Less than cashiers. Less than telemarketers. They are the third-lowest paid profession in the entire city. So should they get a raise? It’s hard to see why not.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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