The average wage gap for North Carolina’s 10 highest paying cities is just 16% between #1 (Durham) and #10 (Jacksonville).
Three of the 10 cities (Burlington, Greensboro, Winston-Salem) are in FOX8’s field of view. Winston-Salem is number two just behind Durham.
North Carolina server minimum wage (minimum cash and tip balance)
$2.13 per hour might sound like a small amount per hour, but if tips aren’t enough, servers in North Carolina must be supplemented by their employers with the “tip credit”, which in North Carolina is $5.12 per hour, making the total minimum wage for servers in North Carolina $7.25 per hour. The regular minimum wage in North Carolina for all types of workers follows federal minimum wage guidelines and has been in effect since 2008.
Based on the minimum wage laws that apply to all states, North Carolina employers are required to provide their employees with a Minimum hourly wage plus tip credit. With tip credits, employers can tip less than minimum wage as long as they can make up the difference through hourly tips during each pay period.
Update: 10/31/22 – Living wage update
The living wage has sparked intense debate as national talks on wage growth show the economy has rallied since the recession , but not workers’ wages. . The minimum wage of $7.25 an hour hasn’t increased since 2009, even though the cost of living has risen 18% since then. You’ve probably heard politicians running on a platform to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour; a standard that many consider a living wage for most workers. The government has typically calculated the minimum wage based on the federal poverty line, which is an income threshold that determines whether a person or family earns enough to meet basic needs like food and shelter. The federal poverty line is the same in all 48 contiguous states.
The Living Wage is more nuanced than that. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed this alternative model to calculate income based on the cost of basic needs along with other essential costs such as child care, insurance, transportation, Clothing and other necessities to charge. MIT’s living wage model also takes into account the different cost of living in different parts of the country. Living in New York City is much more expensive than in Charlotte, so MIT calculates the living wage in each city based on the local cost of goods. In addition, the living wage increases with the size of the family.