When Philadelphia’s restaurants and bars shuttered in response to the citywide ban on non-essential businesses, thousands of service workers learned they’d be laid off. Managers recommended they file for unemployment.
Yet for many of the city’s 80,000 food workers, the restaurant industry’s byzantine pay structures and workaround hiring practices mean filers won’t receive an unemployment benefit timely or substantial enough.
One of the main obstacles: The way tips are accounted for and documented. With service workers routinely underreporting their income, thousands will receive insufficient aid.
READ MORE AT THE INVISIBLE HAND