CashoutTipped minimum wage / Massachusetts
Massachusetts tipped minimum wage
What employers must pay
In Massachusetts, the minimum wage is $15.00 an hour. An employer can pay a tipped employee as little as $6.75 an hour in cash, as long as tips bring the total to at least $15.00. The difference, $8.25, is the tip credit.
Who counts as a tipped employee: more than $20 a month in tips.
If your cash wage plus tips comes up short of $15.00 an hour in a workweek, your employer has to make up the difference.
What changes next
No change to the Massachusetts minimum wage is scheduled. A change would need the legislature or a ballot question.
Tip pooling and service charges
Tips and tip pools may go only to wait staff, service employees and service bartenders. Anyone with managerial responsibility that day, and kitchen or administrative staff, may not share in tips. Tips must be paid out by the end of the same business day.
A service charge, or any fee a customer could mistake for one, must go entirely to the wait staff, service employees or service bartenders unless the employer clearly tells customers it is not a tip.
Overtime
Massachusetts overtime law doesn't cover restaurant workers, but federal law still does: time and a half after 40 hours a week. Overtime is figured on the full $15.00, so your cash wage for an overtime hour is at least $14.25 ($22.50 minus the $8.25 tip credit).
Taxes on your tips
Massachusetts taxes wage income, and tips are wages, so its income tax applies to your tips. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply. The federal tip deduction can cut the income tax part: see how the No Tax on Tips deduction works.
Check a week's pay
Enter one workweek to see whether your cash wage plus tips reached Massachusetts's minimum of $15.00 an hour.
You reached the minimum this week.
You came up short. Your employer owes you at least
If you are underpaid
Start by comparing your pay stubs with your own record of hours and tips. If the numbers don't add up, you can file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, Fair Labor Division: how to file. You can also call the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, at 1-866-487-9243.
