The Michigan House approved two bills on tipped wages and paid sick leave, aiming to counter upcoming Supreme Court changes.
The announcement was made on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025.
Still, if lawmakers don’t act by Feb. 21, we’ll see changes like phasing out the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers by 2030, expanding sick leave for small business employees, and increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2028.
Those changes follow a Michigan Supreme Court ruling. However, the legislation passed by the House would keep tipped worker wages at 38%, delay the wage increase by a year, and limit sick leave changes.
The vote was mostly along party lines, with Republicans supporting and most Democrats opposing.
The Michigan League for Public Policy strongly opposed House Bills 4001 and 4002.
“We remain strongly opposed to and deeply concerned about House Bills 4001 and 4002 and any similar legislation that seeks to strip minimum wage and earned paid sick time protections away from working Michiganders. Any attempt to weaken what the Michigan Supreme Court established with its ruling last year in the Mothering Justice v. Attorney General case will only cause further harm to our state’s workers and their families, who have been waiting six long years for these hard-fought protections.
“HB 4001 would effectively cut the annual pay of Michigan workers by $1,000 to $2,400 over the next several years, while also maintaining subminimum tipped wages. This harmful legislation is being proposed at a time when Michigan’s wages continue to lag behind inflation and nearly half of Michigan households–41%–are struggling to make ends meet. This legislation also comes at a time when our state’s gender wage gap is one of the worst in the country and will only further exacerbate pay inequities in our state, given that women and, especially women of color, are overrepresented in low-paying jobs and 74.3% of all tipped workers in Michigan are women.
“HB 4002 proposes to exempt the vast majority—96%—of Michigan businesses from having to provide earned paid sick time provisions to their employees, which will effectively strip these important protections away from nearly 1.5 million Michigan workers. Without these protections, many workers will have to continue to decide between going without pay or going to work sick, both of which are unsafe choices that can have serious consequences for economic security and public health. It remains as important today as it did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide paid sick time for all workers in order to prevent contagious illnesses from spreading in workplaces, schools, and public spaces.
“We and many of our partners across the state are urging members of the Michigan Senate to reject HBs 4001 and 4002 and any similar legislation for the sake of workers, families, local economies, public health, and our state as a whole.”
Monique Stanton, President and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy.
The bills now move to Senate. Despite the vote on Thursday, the bills face an uphill battle in the state senate, which is still controlled by Democrats.
