Trump's 'cynical' tip tax ploy will burn America's workforce: Harvard professor

A controversial campaign promise from former President Donald Trump is little more than a sly plot to benefit corporations under the guise of supporting the working class, a Harvard University professor argued Monday.

Trump's pledge to exempt tips from federal income tax could destroy full-time jobs and force workers into tipped positions vulnerable to exploitative employers and customers with the right to withhold the bulk of their pay, Sharon Block, executive director of Harvard Law's Center for Labor and a Just Economy, argued in an MSNBC op-ed Monday.

"Trump’s proposal, unfortunately, is profoundly unserious," Block writes. "No one else should take this idea as anything other than what it appears to be — a cynical political ploy that would end up hurting many if not all of the people whom Trump is pretending to help."

Block makes no bones about her dislike of current conditions for tipped workers, whose minimum wage has stagnated at what she describes as a "shamefully low level" of $2.13 an hour and whose plight has ties to the racist economic policies of Antebellum America, she writes.

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"The subminimum wage for tipped workers is a legacy of slavery," Block writes. "It became the norm after the end of Civil War, enabling restaurant owners and other service industry employers to avoid having to pay former slaves."

But Trump's proposal — which has already spurred "love" from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — would do little to alleviate the lot of today's tipped worker for a simple reason: they don't make enough money to owe much in federal taxes, the professor writes.

The money instead would likely land in the pockets with corporate owners whom Block argues would be incentivized to cut full-time positions and replace them with tipped positions.

"That means more workers depending on paychecks that cover only $2.13 per hour and more workers subject to all the uncertainty and exploitation that comes with relying on tips for your income," writes Block.

As proof that Trump's proposal is a concocted "mirage" for the working class, Block points to the policies Trump pursued as former president.

Trump opposed and pledged to veto a bill raising minimum wages for workers, tipped and not, and pushed legislation that would have allowed employers to pool and potentially keep workers' tips, Block notes.

"The Trump administration tried to make it easier for employers to steal workers’ tips," she writes. "One estimate from the Economic Policy Institute found that if the Trump proposal had gone into effect, employers would have pocketed $5.8 billion of workers’ tips."

Block prefers President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign proposal to eradicate completely the tipped minimum wage and notes an executive order required federal contractors to phase it out.