Is it legal for tip pool to be sole wage?

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Is it legal for tip pool to be sole wage?

At the establishment I work at, Team Assistants, who function primarily as
busboys, are paid solely from the tip pool from the servers at the end of
the night. Is it legal for them to be paid just from tipping out or are they
required to have a set wage as well?

Asked on April 12, 2016 under Employment Labor Law, Virginia

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 8 years ago | Contributor

In your state, even if you are a tipped employee (e.g. a busboy or server), you must be paid a base wage of at least $2.23 per hour, in addition to your tips. If you have not been paid that, you could contact the state department of labor and file a wage claim for all the back wages for the last, I believe, two years which you should have been paid. (E.g. say you worked there 40 hours/week for 50 weeks: you should have received around $84.00 per week in wages per week, or around $4,200 for 50 weeks; you could possibly recover that with a wage claim.)


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