One Job Should Be Enough. In America, It Isn’t.
We grew up believing something pretty simple: if you work hard, you can support yourself and build a stable, thriving life. The house, the kids, maybe even the dog — it all felt within reach.
And then reality hit.
You can do everything right and it’s still not enough.
Because in the United States, we’ve normalized something that should feel unthinkable: that someone can work full-time and still not be able to afford to live.
Let’s start with the numbers because they help explain how we got here.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 2009. That’s roughly $15,000 a year working full-time, before taxes. It’s already disconnected from reality.
But for millions of workers, the baseline is even lower.
If you’re a tipped worker — a restaurant server, a bartender, a nail salon worker — the federal minimum wage is just $2.13 an hour, a rate that hasn’t been raised since 1991. In practice, that means we’ve built an entire sector of our economy on the assumption that customers, not employers, will make up the difference.
And that system didn’t happen by accident.
When the first federal minimum wage laws were passed in 1938, restaurant workers — part of a disproportionately Black workforce at the time — were excluded from basic protections and forced to rely on tips instead. What began as a workaround became standard practice, and nearly 90 years later, that inequity is still baked into the system.
The Women Holding It Together
To understand the real impact, you have to look at who is living inside this system.
The restaurant workforce is overwhelmingly women — about two-thirds of tipped workers — and disproportionately women of color. More than 813,000 of them are single mothers.
These are the women serving our families, often while trying to hold their own together.
They earn a median income of just over $15,000 a year — about 37% of the national median — and they do it in a system where pay is unpredictable by design. A slow shift or a bad night can mean the difference between covering rent or not.
And because income depends on tips, the power imbalance at work is real. Seventy-one percent of women in the restaurant industry report experiencing sexual harassment — the highest rate of any industry. When your paycheck depends on customer behavior, safety becomes negotiable.
This isn’t just about low wages. It’s about who is expected to live with the consequences.
When Wages and Reality No Longer Match
On one end, wages start at $2.13 or $7.25 an hour. On the other, you have the real cost of living — housing, food, transportation, and child care, which alone can exceed $15,000–$20,000 a year. That’s not something you can budget your way out of. It’s structural.
A living wage in this country — what it actually takes to cover basic needs — is at least $25 an hour for a single person, and for parents, it’s often closer to $30 or $40. But nearly half of workers earn less than that.
At some point, we have to say this clearly: the problem isn’t just that life is expensive. It’s that wages have become completely disconnected from what it costs to live. And yet, we continue to treat it like a personal problem.
The Invisible Labor of Making It Work
We’re asking millions of families to build a patchwork of solutions — extra shifts, second jobs, side hustles — just to stay afloat.
When the math doesn’t add up, moms are often the ones to step in.
They leave the workforce when child care costs more than they earn. They take on additional jobs. They stretch every dollar and rely on programs like SNAP, often while being judged for it.
Low-wage and tipped workers rely on SNAP at twice the rate of other workers. But instead of asking why full-time work requires reliance, we scrutinize what they’re putting in their grocery basket and criticize how they survive rather than asking why survival requires so much effort in the first place.
This Is the System
It’s easy to think of this as a niche issue. But when nearly half of workers in this country earn below a living wage, that’s not an edge case. It’s the system.
Which is why wage fights today aren’t just about raising a number. They’re about whether work in this country is meant to sustain a life at all.
Ending the relic $2.13 subminimum wage is the starting point. Closing the gap is the goal.
We Already Know What Works
What makes this moment different is that we’re no longer guessing.
In the seven states that require a full minimum wage with tips on top, tipping remains strong, often higher than in subminimum wage states. Restaurant industries grow faster, turnover drops, and workers stay.
Workplace conditions improve, too. Sexual harassment rates are cut in half in states that have eliminated the subminimum wage. And when workers earn more, they spend more — circulating money back into local economies.
This isn’t radical. It’s proven.
And it’s popular with voters and increasingly with business owners. What’s been missing is the political will.
Why New York City Is the Test Case
What’s happening in New York City right now matters far beyond one city.
New York is moving to make outdoor dining permanent, allowing restaurants to use public sidewalks as an extension of their business but without requiring those businesses to pay their workers a full wage.
Opponents of raising wages in this context argue that many of these restaurants are small, independent businesses already operating on razor-thin margins. They warn that requiring a full minimum wage on top of rising food, labor, and rent costs could lead to higher prices, staff cuts, or even closures, especially for neighborhood spots that don’t have the cushion of larger chains.
Those concerns are real—and they deserve to be taken seriously.
But they also point to a deeper issue. Because the question can’t just be whether individual businesses can absorb higher wages. It has to be why we’ve built a system where access to public space can boost revenue but still doesn’t translate into a baseline level of stability for the people doing the work.
So the bigger question every city should be asking is this: if businesses benefit from public space, what do they owe the public in return?
If you live in NYC, sign the petition from One Fair Wage urging Mayor Mamdani to require a full minimum wage, with tips on top, for restaurants benefiting from outdoor dining permits.
That’s how change happens: one city shows what’s possible, and the rest of the country takes notice.
The Bottom Line
We’ve built an economy where work is required, but no longer sufficient.
And when that gap shows up, we don’t redesign the system, we ask families to compensate for it. In practice, that has meant asking mothers to carry what the system refuses to.
But that expectation is starting to break.
Across the country, workers and families are demanding something simple: wages that reflect what life actually costs. That’s why organizations and lawmakers are advocating to pass the A Living Wage for All Act, starting with ending the subminimum wage that was never meant to be a real wage in the first place.
Because if work doesn’t pay, nothing else works.
We don’t have to keep forcing families to solve for a broken equation.
We can change it.
In Case You Missed It
Paid Leave, Finally Within Reach for Maine
Starting May 1, Maine workers can claim paid family and medical leave.
But here’s what we know: having access to paid leave doesn’t mean people actually take it. The system is often confusing, overwhelming, and hard to navigate, especially in the moments when you need it most.
That’s why we built PaidLeave.AI.
If you’re in Maine (or know someone who is), you can find out what you’re entitled to—and how to actually claim it.
And if you want to go deeper, our Director of PaidLeave.AI, Nina Harstad, recently joined the Momcozy Village: Together We Grow podcast to break it all down — how the tool works, who it’s for (especially parents without HR support or with complex jobs), and the benefits too many families don’t even know they have.
A Mother’s Day Gift That Lasts Forever
Mother’s Day is around the corner and this year, you can give a gift that goes far beyond the day itself.
Make a donation to Moms First in honor or in memory of a mom you love and have her name included in the film credits of our documentary. Simply select “Dedicate My Donation” when you give.
It’s a simple but powerful way to say: your story matters, your impact matters, and it will be remembered.
Last Call: Be Part of the Film
It’s your last chance to become an Associate Producer for our upcoming documentary about motherhood in America.
Today is the last day to submit your name to be included in the film credits.
If you’ve been thinking about it, this is your moment.
Thousands of moms and supporters have already stepped forward by sharing their stories, backing this film, and demanding something better. With the film premiering June 15 and more than 1,000 screenings planned across the country, this isn’t just a documentary anymore. We’re building a movement.
There are a few ways to become an Associate Producer today, and it’ll only take a few minutes:
- Share your story (write it, leave a voicemail, or submit a video)
- Make a donation to support the film
- Commit to hosting a screening in your community
For 250 years, this country has overlooked and undervalued mothers.
We’re done with that.
We’ve asked moms to keep making impossible math work for far too long. It’s time to change the equation. Because when work pays enough to live, families don’t just survive, they finally have a chance to thrive.
Until work actually works for families,
Reshma Saujani