Recent policy debate on minimum wages has focused not only on raising the minimum wage, but on eliminating the tip credit for restaurant workers. We use data on past variation in tip credits—or minimum wages for restaurant workers—to provide evidence on the potential impacts of eliminating (or reducing) the tip credit. Our evidence points to higher tipped minimum wages (smaller tip credits) reducing jobs among tipped restaurant workers, without positive earnings effects on those who remain employed sufficiently large to raise total earnings in this sector. And most of our evidence provides no indication that higher tipped minimum wages would be well targeted to poor or low-income families or reduce the likelihood of being poor or very low income.

中文翻译：

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减少或取消最低工资小费抵免对就业和再分配的影响

最近关于最低工资的政策辩论不仅集中在提高最低工资上，还集中在取消餐馆工人的小费抵免上。我们使用有关小费抵免的过去变化的数据（或餐厅工人的最低工资）来提供有关消除（或减少）小费抵免的潜在影响的证据。我们的证据表明，较高的小费最低工资（较小的小费抵免额）会减少小费餐厅工人的就业机会，但对那些仍然受雇的人来说，并没有产生积极的收入影响，足以提高该行业的总收入。我们的大多数证据都没有表明，较高的小费最低工资将很好地针对贫困或低收入家庭，或减少贫困或收入极低的可能性。