[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 250 (Wednesday, December 30, 2020)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 86756-86792]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-28555]



[[Page 86755]]

Vol. 85

Wednesday,

No. 250

December 30, 2020

Part III





Department of Labor





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Office of the Secretary





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29 CFR Part 10





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Wage and Hour Division





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29 CFR Parts 516, 531, 578, et al.





Tip Regulations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); Final Rule

  Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 250 / Wednesday, December 30, 2020 / 
Rules and Regulations  

[[Page 86756]]


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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Office of the Secretary

29 CFR Part 10

Wage and Hour Division

29 CFR Parts 516, 531, 578, 579, and 580

RIN 1235-AA21


Tip Regulations Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

AGENCY: Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor.

ACTION: Final rule.

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SUMMARY: In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 (CAA), Congress 
amended section 3(m) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to prohibit 
employers from keeping tips received by their employees, regardless of 
whether the employers take a tip credit under section 3(m). In this 
final rule, the Department of Labor (Department) amends its tip 
regulations to address these amendments. The final rule also codifies 
the Department's guidance regarding the tip credit's application to 
employees who perform tipped and non-tipped duties.

DATES: This final rule is effective March 1, 2021.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Amy DeBisschop, Director of the 
Division of Regulations, Legislation, and Interpretation, Wage and Hour 
Division, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution 
Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20210, telephone: (202) 693-0406 (this is not 
a toll-free number). Copies of this final rule may be obtained in 
alternative formats (Large Print, Braille, Audio Tape, or Disc), upon 
request, by calling (202) 693-0675 (this is not a toll-free number). 
TTY/TDD callers may dial toll-free (877) 889-5627 to obtain information 
or request materials in alternative formats.
    Questions of interpretation or enforcement of the agency's existing 
regulations may be directed to the nearest WHD district office. Locate 
the nearest office by calling the WHD's toll-free help line at (866) 
4US-WAGE ((866) 487-9243) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. in your local time 
zone, or log onto WHD's website at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices for a nationwide listing of WHD district and area 
offices.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Executive Summary

    The FLSA generally requires covered employers to pay their 
employees at least the Federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 
per hour. See 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1). As amended, section 3(m) of the FLSA 
allows an employer that satisfies certain requirements to count a 
limited amount of the tips received by its ``tipped employees'' as a 
credit toward its Federal minimum wage obligation (known as a ``tip 
credit''). See 29 U.S.C. 203(m)(2)(A). An employer may take a tip 
credit only for ``tipped employees'' and only if, among other things, 
its tipped employees retain all their tips. Id. This requirement does 
not, however, preclude an employer that takes a tip credit from 
implementing a tip pool in which tips are shared only among those 
employees who ``customarily and regularly receive tips.'' Id.
    In 2011, the Department revised its tip regulations to reflect its 
view at the time that, regardless of whether their employer takes a tip 
credit, the FLSA required that tipped employees retain all tips they 
received, except tips distributed through a tip pool limited to 
employees who customarily and regularly receive tips. (76 FR 18855) 
See, e.g., 29 CFR 531.52. On December 5, 2017, the Department published 
a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), 82 FR 57395, which proposed to 
rescind the parts of its tip regulations that applied to employers that 
pay a direct cash wage of at least the full Federal minimum wage and do 
not take a tip credit.
    On March 23, 2018, Congress amended section 3(m) of the FLSA in the 
CAA, Public Law 115-141, Div. S., Tit. XII, sec. 1201, 132 Stat. 348, 
1148-49 (2018). Among other things, the CAA revised section 3(m) by 
renumbering the existing tip credit language as section 3(m)(2)(A) and 
adding a new section 3(m)(2)(B). That new section prohibits employers 
from keeping their employees' tips ``for any purposes, including 
allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees' 
tips'' even if they do not claim a tip credit. In addition, the CAA 
amended sections 16(b) and 16(c) of the FLSA to permit private parties 
and the Department to recover any tips unlawfully kept by an employer 
in violation of section 3(m)(2)(B), in addition to an equal amount of 
liquidated damages. Finally, the CAA amended section 16(e) of the FLSA 
to give the Department discretion to impose civil money penalties 
(CMPs) up to $1,100 when employers unlawfully keep employees' tips. On 
October 8, 2019, the Department issued a new NPRM proposing, among 
other things, to update its tip regulations to incorporate the CAA 
amendments (84 FR 53956).
    Congress specified in the CAA that the portions of the 2011 final 
rule that ``are not addressed by section 3(m) . . . (as such section 
was in effect on April 5, 2011), shall have no further force or effect 
until any future action taken by [the Department of Labor].'' CAA, Div. 
S, Tit. XII, sec. 1201(c). As the Department explained in a Field 
Assistance Bulletin (FAB) published shortly thereafter, that statement 
applies to those portions of the Department's regulations--Sec. Sec.  
531.52, 531.54, and 531.59--that restricted tip pooling by employers 
that pay tipped employees at least the full minimum wage as a direct 
cash wage and, therefore, do not claim a tip credit. See FAB No. 2018-3 
(Apr. 6, 2018).\1\ In light of the CAA's amendments to the FLSA, the 
Department's 2019 NPRM withdrew the 2017 NPRM, which addressed the same 
topic as those amendments. 84 FR 53956.
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    \1\ https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fab2018_3.pdf.
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    This final rule revises the Department's current tip pooling 
regulations in light of the 2018 CAA amendments. The CAA did not change 
the statutory requirements, now in section 3(m)(2)(A) of the FLSA, that 
apply to employers that take a tip credit. Those employers may continue 
to institute a mandatory ``traditional'' tip pool, that is, a tip pool 
limited to employees who ``customarily and regularly'' receive tips. In 
addition, the CAA removed the regulatory restrictions on an employer's 
ability to require tip pooling when it does not take a tip credit; 
those employers may now implement mandatory, ``nontraditional'' tip 
pools, which include employees who do not customarily and regularly 
receive tips, such as cooks and dishwashers.
    The CAA also imposed a new prohibition, in section 3(m)(2)(B), that 
applies to all employers regardless of whether they take a tip credit: 
Employers may not keep employees' tips and may not allow managers or 
supervisors to do so. Among other things, section 3(m)(2)(B) prohibits 
employers, managers, and supervisors from receiving employees' tips as 
part of any tip pooling arrangement. It also prohibits employers from 
operating tip pools in any manner such that they ``keep'' tips.
    This final rule updates the Department's tip regulations to 
incorporate the CAA's amendments to the FLSA. As explained above, the 
CAA renumbered the FLSA's existing tip

[[Page 86757]]

credit language as section 3(m)(2)(A), but made no substantive changes 
to that language. As a result, this rule does not alter the 
Department's existing regulations and guidance regarding section 
3(m)(2)(A) for employers that claim a tip credit. Those regulations are 
addressed only as necessary to clarify how they relate to the CAA's 
amendments to the FLSA. In this rule, the Department makes the 
following three substantive changes to regulations concerning tips. 
First, the rule incorporates the new statutory language, section 
3(m)(2)(B)--which applies whether or not the employer takes a tip 
credit--into the Department's regulations and incorporates a new 
recordkeeping requirement to help it administer the new statutory 
language. Second, this rule, consistent with the CAA's amendments, 
removes the portions of the Department's regulations that prohibited 
certain employers--those that pay their tipped employees a direct cash 
wage of at least the full Federal minimum wage and do not take a tip 
credit against their minimum wage obligations--from including employees 
who do not customarily and regularly receive tips, such as cooks and 
dishwashers, in mandatory tip pooling arrangements. Third, this rule 
amends the Department's regulations to reflect recent guidance 
explaining that an employer may take a tip credit for time that an 
employee in a tipped occupation spends performing related, non-tipped 
duties contemporaneously with tipped duties, or for a reasonable time 
immediately before or after performing the tipped duties. These amended 
regulations also address which non-tipped duties are related to a tip-
producing occupation.
    Additionally, the Department incorporates the CAA's new language 
regarding CMPs into its regulations. The Department also takes this 
opportunity to revise portions of its CMP regulations on willful 
violations (specifically, 29 CFR 578.3 and 579.2). It does so to make 
the regulatory language consistent with the way the Department actually 
litigates willfulness issues and to address the appellate courts that 
have, for example, ``urge[d]'' it to reconsider those regulations to 
ensure their consistency with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 
meaning of ``willful'' in the FLSA.
    Finally, the Department amends the portions of its regulations that 
address the payment of tipped employees under Executive Order 13658, 
Establishing a Minimum Wage for Contractors, to reflect rescissions in 
the FLSA regulations for tipped employees, incorporate the Department's 
explanation of when an employee performing non-tipped work is a tipped 
employee, and otherwise align those regulations with the Executive 
order.
    The Department estimates this final rule could result in a 
potential transfer of $109 million, as tip pools are expanded from 
front-of-the-house employees alone to include back-of-the-house 
employees. A directly observable transfer would occur only among 
employees because section 3(m)(2)(B) prohibits employers from 
participating in these tip pools or otherwise keeping employees' tips. 
However, assuming the shared tips are large enough to maintain wage 
levels for all workers in the tip pool, the Department acknowledges 
that some employers could potentially offset some of the increase in 
total compensation received by back-of-the-house workers by reducing 
the direct wage that they pay those workers (as long as they do not 
reduce their wage below the applicable minimum wage), and such an 
outcome is what is modeled to produce the $109 million estimate of 
transfers from employees to employers. The rule may also result in 
transfers to workers as employers who adopt tip pools containing back-
of-the-house workers may not take a tip credit for their front-of-the-
house staff. The Department also acknowledges the possibility that some 
transfers could occur as a result of the changes to the regulations 
involving when an employer may take a tip credit, but the Department is 
unable to estimate the likelihood or magnitude of these transfers. The 
Department estimates that regulatory familiarization costs associated 
with this final rule would be $3.86 million in the first year.
    This rule is considered an E.O. 13771 deregulatory action. Details 
on the estimated cost savings of this rule can be found in the rule's 
economic analysis. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs 
designated this rule as a `major rule,' as defined by 5 U.S.C. 804(2), 
under the Congressional Review Act (5 U.S.C. 801 et seq.).

II. Background

A. Section 3(m)

    Section 6(a) of the FLSA requires covered employers to pay their 
nonexempt employees a minimum wage of at least $7.25 per hour. 29 
U.S.C. 206(a). Section 3(m)(2)(A) allows an employer to satisfy a 
portion of its minimum wage obligation to any ``tipped employee'' by 
taking a partial credit toward the minimum wage based on tips an 
employee receives. Id. 203(m)(2)(A). Section 3(t) defines ``tipped 
employee'' as ``any employee engaged in an occupation in which he 
customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips.'' Id. 
203(t). An employer that elects to take a tip credit must pay the 
tipped employee a direct cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour. The 
employer may then take a credit against its wage obligation for the 
difference--up to $5.12 per hour--in tips received by the employee if 
the cash wage plus the employee's tips equal at least the minimum wage. 
If the employee does not earn sufficient tips to bring his or her 
hourly earnings to the minimum wage, the employer must pay any 
additional wages required to make up the difference. If the employee's 
cash wage plus tips exceeds the minimum wage, the employer must still 
pay a cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour. An employer may take a tip 
credit only if, among other things, the tipped employees retain all the 
tips they receive. An employer taking a tip credit is also allowed to 
implement a mandatory tip pool in which tips are shared only among 
employees who ``customarily and regularly receive tips.''
    Under section 3(m)(2)(B) of the FLSA, added by the CAA, ``an 
employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, 
including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of 
employees' tips.'' See Div. S., Tit. XII, sec.1201. Section 3(m)(2)(B) 
applies regardless of whether an employer takes a tip credit.

B. Statutory and Regulatory History

i. 1966 and 1974 Amendments to the FLSA \2\
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    \2\ Congress also amended section 3(m)'s tip credit language in 
1977, 1989, and 1996. These amendments changed only the amount of 
tips received by employees that could be credited toward an 
employer's minimum wage obligations. See Public Law 95-151, sec. 
3(b), 91 Stat. 1245 (1977); Public Law 101-157, sec. 5, 103 Stat. 
938 (1989); Public Law 104-188, sec. 2105(b), 110 Stat. 1755 (1996).
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    Congress created the FLSA's tip credit in 1966 by amending the 
definition of ``wage'' in section 3(m). See Public Law 89-601, sec. 
101(a), 80 Stat. 830 (1966). The Department promulgated its initial tip 
regulations the following year. See 32 FR 13575 (Sep. 28, 1967). In 
1974, Congress amended section 3(m) to prohibit an employer from taking 
a tip credit unless, among other things, ``all tips received by [an] 
employee have been retained by the employee, except that this 
subsection shall not be construed to prohibit the pooling of tips among 
employees who customarily and regularly receive tips.'' Public Law 93-
259, sec. 13(e), 88 Stat. 55 (1974). As a result, an employer that 
takes a tip

[[Page 86758]]

credit may require a tipped employee to share tips with other employees 
engaged in occupations that customarily and regularly receive tips, but 
it cannot use employees' tips for any other purpose or require tipped 
employees to share them with employees who do not customarily and 
regularly receive tips. By setting conditions under which an employer 
may take a tip credit, the statute makes plain that Congress intended 
these conditions to apply only to employers who take such a credit. 
Section 3(m)(2)(A) contains no indication that Congress intended for 
these restrictions to apply to employers that do not take a tip credit 
and that use tip pools for other purposes, such as by sharing tips with 
``back-of-the-house'' employees like cooks and dishwashers.
    The Ninth Circuit reached this same conclusion in 2010, observing 
that ``nothing in the text of the FLSA purports to restrict employee 
tip-pooling arrangements when no tip credit is taken.'' Cumbie v. Woody 
Woo, Inc., 596 F.3d 577, 583 (9th Cir. 2010). It reasoned that section 
3(m)'s ``plain text'' merely ``imposes conditions on taking a tip 
credit and does not state freestanding requirements pertaining to all 
tipped employees.'' Id. at 580-81. The contrary position, the court 
concluded, would render section 3(m)'s ``reference to the tip credit, 
as well as its conditional language and structure, superfluous.'' Id. 
at 581. It accordingly held that the employer, which did not take a tip 
credit, did not violate section 3(m) by requiring its tipped employees 
to contribute to a tip pool that included employees who were not 
customarily and regularly tipped. See id.
ii. 2011 Regulations
    The Department did not promulgate regulations addressing the 1974 
amendments to the FLSA's tip credit language until 37 years later. See 
76 FR 18832, 18854-56 (Apr. 5, 2011). Though issued after the Cumbie 
decision, the 2011 regulations prohibited employers from, among other 
things, establishing mandatory tip pools that include employees who are 
not customarily and regularly tipped--whether the employers took a tip 
credit or not. See 29 CFR 531.52 (2011) (``The employer is prohibited 
from using an employee's tips, whether or not it has taken a tip 
credit, for any reason other than that which is statutorily permitted 
in section 3(m): As a credit against its minimum wage obligations to 
the employee, or in furtherance of a valid tip pool.''). See also 29 
CFR 531.54 (``an employer . . . may not retain any of the employees' 
tips''); 531.59 (``With the exception of tips contributed to a valid 
tip pool as described in Sec.  531.54, the tip credit provisions of 
section 3(m) also require employers to permit employees to retain all 
tips received by the employee.''). The Department acknowledged that 
section 3(m) did not expressly address the use of an employee's tips 
when an employer does not take a tip credit and pays a direct cash wage 
equal to or greater than the minimum wage, but stated that the 
regulation would fill a ``gap'' that the Department then believed to 
exist in the statutory scheme. 76 FR 18841-42.
    Multiple lawsuits challenged the Department's authority under 
section 3(m) to regulate employers that pay a direct cash wage of at 
least the Federal minimum wage. The parties challenging the validity of 
the 2011 regulations argued, and several courts ruling in favor of 
those parties recognized, that section 3(m)'s text reflected Congress' 
intent to impose conditions only on employers that take a tip credit. 
See, e.g., Malivuk v. Ameripark, LLC, No. 15-2570, 2016 WL 3999878, at 
*4 (N.D. Ga. July 26, 2016) (agreeing that ``Section 203(m) only 
imposed a condition on employers who take a tip credit, rather than a 
blanket requirement on all employers regardless of whether they take a 
tip credit.''); Trinidad v. Pret A Manger (USA) Ltd., 962 F. Supp. 2d 
545, 562 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (``Although the Court need not resolve this 
issue definitively . . . [it] finds Pret's argument more persuasive: 
The DOL regulations are contrary to the plain language of Sec.  
203(m).'').
    In 2016, a divided Ninth Circuit panel upheld the validity of the 
2011 regulations. See Oregon Rest. & Lodging Ass'n (ORLA) v. Perez, 816 
F.3d 1080, 1090 (9th Cir. 2016). Although the Ninth Circuit declined en 
banc review of the decision, ten judges dissented on the ground that 
the FLSA authorized the Department to address tip pooling and tip 
retention only when an employer takes a tip credit. 843 F.3d 355, 356 
(9th Cir. 2016) (O'Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of reh'g en 
banc). The dissent noted that the Ninth Circuit itself had decided in 
Cumbie that the FLSA ``clearly and unambiguously permits employers who 
forgo a tip credit to arrange their tip-pooling affairs however they 
see fit.'' Id. at 358 (citing Cumbie, 596 F.3d at 579 n.6, 581-83). The 
dissent therefore concluded that ``because the Department [had] not 
been delegated authority to ban tip pooling by employers who forgo the 
tip credit, the Department's assertion of regulatory jurisdiction [was] 
manifestly contrary to the statute and exceed[ed] its statutory 
authority.'' Id. at 363 (internal quotation marks omitted). The 
National Restaurant Association, on behalf of itself and other ORLA 
plaintiffs, sought U.S. Supreme Court review. See Pet. for Writ of 
Cert., Nat'l Rest. Ass'n v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, No. 16-920, 2017 WL 
360483, (U.S. Jan. 19, 2017).
    While the National Restaurant Association's petition was pending, 
the Tenth Circuit issued a conflicting decision, ruling that the 2011 
tip regulations were invalid to the extent they barred an employer from 
using or sharing tips with employees who do not customarily and 
regularly receive tips when the employer pays a direct cash wage of at 
least the Federal minimum wage and does not take a section 3(m) tip 
credit. See Marlow v. New Food Guy, Inc., 861 F.3d 1157, 1159 (10th 
Cir. 2017). The Tenth Circuit held that the text of the FLSA limits an 
employer's use of tips only when the employer takes a tip credit, 
``leaving [the Department] without authority to regulate to the 
contrary.'' See Marlow, 861 F.3d at 1163-64.
    In light of the conflicting decisions from the Federal courts of 
appeals, the Department adopted a nationwide ``nonenforcement policy'' 
under which it would ``not enforce'' the 2011 regulations in any 
context in which an employer pays its employees a direct cash wage of 
at least the Federal minimum wage. See 82 FR 57395, 57399 (Dec. 5, 
2017).
    In its 2018 response to the petition for a writ of certiorari in 
the ORLA case, the Government explained that the Department had 
reconsidered its defense of the 2011 regulations in light of the Ninth 
Circuit's ten-judge dissent from denial of rehearing in ORLA and the 
Tenth Circuit's decision in Marlow. That reconsideration had led the 
Department to conclude that it had exceeded its statutory authority in 
promulgating those regulations to the extent they apply to employers 
that do not take a tip credit against their Federal minimum wage 
obligations: ``[U]ntil the 2018 [congressional] amendments, Section 
203(m) placed limits only on employers that took a tip credit,'' and 
``[n]either Section 203(m) nor any other provision of the FLSA prevents 
an employer that pays at least the minimum wage from instituting a 
nontraditional tip pool [that includes back-of-the-house employees like 
cooks and janitors] for employees' tips.'' Br. for Resps. at 26-27, 
Nat'l Rest. Ass'n. (May 22, 2018). The government also noted that the 
Department had published in December 2017 an NPRM that proposed to 
rescind the challenged portions of the regulations. Id. at 10. Shortly 
thereafter, the Supreme Court denied the petition. 138 S. Ct. 2697 
(2018).

[[Page 86759]]

iii. 2017 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
    On December 5, 2017, the Department published an NPRM proposing to 
rescind the portions of its 2011 tip regulations that imposed 
restrictions on employers that pay a direct cash wage of at least the 
full Federal minimum wage and do not take a tip credit against their 
minimum wage obligations. See 82 FR 57395 (Dec. 5, 2017). It did so in 
part because of its concerns at the time, in light of Marlow and the 
dissent from the denial of rehearing in ORLA, that it had misconstrued 
the statute when it promulgated the 2011 regulations. See 82 FR 57399. 
The Department stated that where ``an employer has paid a direct cash 
wage of at least the full federal minimum wage and does not take the 
employee tips directly, a strong argument exists that the statutory 
protections of section 3(m) do not apply.'' 82 FR 57402. The Department 
also proposed allowing these employers to establish tip pools that 
include employees who contribute to the customers' experience but do 
not customarily and regularly receive tips, such as dishwashers or 
cooks. See, e.g., 82 FR 57399.
    A number of commenters on the 2017 NPRM supported allowing 
employers to establish these tip pools. Several commenters pointed out 
that these workers contribute to each customer's overall service, which 
directly affects the size of the customer's tip. Many commenters, 
however, expressed concern that employers would take tips received by 
employees for its own purposes.
    During a hearing on March 6, 2018, before the Subcommittee on 
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education of the U.S. House of 
Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Secretary of Labor R. 
Alexander Acosta was asked about the proposed rulemaking. The Secretary 
explained that the Tenth Circuit had made clear in Marlow, in reasoning 
the Secretary found persuasive, that the Department lacked statutory 
authority for its 2011 regulations at issue. He noted that Congress had 
the authority to implement a solution, and he suggested that Congress 
enact legislation stating that establishments, whether or not they take 
a tip credit, may not keep any portion of employees' tips.\3\
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    \3\ A recording of the testimony is available at https://www.congress.gov/committees/video/house-appropriations/hsap00/6Weo1vfNM1k.
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C. The CAA's Amendments to the FLSA

    Later that month, Congress enacted the CAA, amending the FLSA to 
address employers' practices with respect to their employees' tips. 
Public Law 115-141, Div. S., Tit. XII, sec. 1201. Shortly thereafter, 
the Department issued a FAB concerning the Wage and Hour Division's 
(WHD) enforcement of the CAA amendments. See FAB No. 2018-3 (Apr. 6, 
2018).
i. Amendments to Section 3(m) of the FLSA
    The CAA left unchanged section 3(m)'s then-existing text, 
renumbered as section 3(m)(2)(A), preserving the longstanding 
requirements that apply to employers that take a tip credit. It also 
added a new section 3(m)(2)(B) to the FLSA, which states that ``[a]n 
employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, 
including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of 
employees' tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip 
credit.'' CAA, Div. S, Tit. XII, sec. 1201(a) (codified at 29 U.S.C. 
203(m)(2)(B)); see FAB No. 2018-3 (Apr. 6, 2018).
ii. Effect on Regulations
    Section 1201(c) of the CAA expressly addressed the portions of the 
Department's 2011 regulations that restricted tip pooling when 
employers pay tipped employees a direct cash wage of at least the full 
FLSA minimum wage and do not take a tip credit. CAA, Div. S, Tit. XII, 
sec. 1201(c). Under that section, the portions of the regulations at 29 
CFR 531.52, 531.54, and 531.59 that were ``not addressed by section 
3(m) . . . (as such section was in effect on April 5, 2011), shall have 
no further force or effect until any future action taken by [the 
Department of Labor].'' The Department explained in FAB No. 2018-3 that 
this language effectively suspended the Department's existing 
regulations prohibiting employers that pay tipped employees the full 
Federal minimum wage from including back-of-the-house workers, such as 
cooks and dishwashers, in a tip pool.
iii. Amendments to Section 16 of the FLSA
    Section 16(b) of the FLSA allows employees to sue for unpaid 
minimum wages or overtime compensation. The CAA amended that section to 
add that ``[a]ny employer who violates section 3(m)(2)(B) shall be 
liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of the sum 
of any tip credit taken by the employer and all such tips unlawfully 
kept by the employer, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated 
damages.'' CAA, Div. S, Tit. XII, sec. 1201(b)(1).
    Section 16(c) of the FLSA authorizes the Department to enforce the 
payment of unpaid minimum wages and unpaid overtime compensation. The 
CAA amended that section to add to the Department's enforcement 
authority: ``The authority and requirements described in this 
subsection shall apply with respect to a violation of section 
3(m)(2)(B), as appropriate, and the employer shall be liable for the 
amount of the sum of any tip credit taken by the employer and all such 
tips unlawfully kept by the employer, and an additional equal amount as 
liquidated damages.'' CAA, Div. S, Tit. XII, sec. 1201(b)(2).
    Under section 16(e)(2), repeated or willful violators of the FLSA's 
minimum wage and overtime requirements are subject to a CMP not to 
exceed $1,100 for each such violation.\4\ The CAA amended this section 
to add a CMP for violations of section 3(m)(2)(B): ``Any person who 
violates section 3(m)(2)(B) shall be subject to a civil penalty not to 
exceed $1,100 for each such violation, as the Secretary determines 
appropriate, in addition to being liable to the employee or employees 
affected for all tips unlawfully kept, and an additional equal amount 
as liquidated damages[.]''
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    \4\ The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 
(Pub. L. 101-410), as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act 
of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-134, sec. 31001(s)) and the Federal Civil 
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 
114-74, sec. 701), requires that inflationary adjustments be made 
annually in these civil money penalties according to a specified 
formula.
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D. The Dual Jobs Regulation

    The CAA's changes to the FLSA, in conjunction with subregulatory 
guidance the Department issued in 2018, have illuminated the need to 
harmonize and update the Department's ``dual jobs'' regulation, 
codified at 29 CFR 531.56(e). The dual jobs regulation addresses when 
an employer can take a tip credit for time that an employee in a tipped 
occupation spends performing duties that do not directly result in tips 
for that employee.\5\
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    \5\ As explained further below, there are a number of duties 
that may contribute to the tipped worker's tips, but which are 
performed by other employees who do not directly receive tips for 
their work (e.g., the cook at a restaurant makes the food which the 
server delivers to a table, but only the server receives a tip for 
that work).
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    The dual jobs regulation, Sec.  531.56(e), was introduced in 1967 
as part of the Department's first final rule addressing tipped 
employment. 32 FR 13575; see 29 CFR 531.50 through 531.60. The ``dual 
jobs'' regulation was not contemplated in the notice proposing that 
rule, see 32 FR 222-227 (Jan. 10, 1967), but was added as part of the 
final rule. Under the regulation, an employee who works for the same 
employer in

[[Page 86760]]

both a tipped occupation and a non-tipped occupation is a ``tipped 
employee'' for purposes of section 3(t) of the FLSA only while employed 
in the tipped occupation. Therefore, an employer may take a tip credit 
against its minimum wage obligations only for the hours the employee 
spends in the tipped occupation. It may not take a tip credit for the 
time spent in a non-tipped occupation.
    Section 531.56(e) also distinguishes between employees who have 
dual jobs and tipped employees who perform ``related duties'' that are 
not themselves directed toward producing tips. It uses the example of a 
server who ``spends part of her time'' performing non-tipped duties, 
such as ``cleaning and setting tables, toasting bread, making coffee, 
and occasionally washing dishes or glasses.'' In that example, the 
employee is still engaged in the tipped occupation of a server, for 
which the employer may take a tip credit, rather than working part of 
the time in a non-tipped occupation. 29 CFR 531.56(e). But that is as 
far as the regulation goes. It does not set forth or explain criteria 
for determining whether particular non-tipped duties are related to a 
tipped occupation. It does not set forth or explain criteria for 
determining when an employee is performing duties unrelated to his or 
her tipped occupation and therefore engaged in a dual job. Nor does it 
explain whether or when an employee who performs related non-tipped 
duties more than ``part of the time'' or ``occasionally'' might cease 
being employed in a tipped occupation and instead be engaged in a non-
tipped occupation. Nor does it even give examples illustrating 
activities that would be considered (or not considered) related duties 
for workers other than those in restaurants.
    Section 531.56(e) did not define ``related duties,'' ``part of the 
time,'' or ``occasionally,'' and this lack of precision creates a need 
for clarification. WHD over the years attempted to clarify this rule 
through subregulatory guidance, but this piecemeal approach was 
insufficient. Cf. Perez v. Mortg. Bankers Ass'n, 575 U.S. 92, 112-13 
(2015) (Scalia, J., concurring) (``There are weighty reasons to deny a 
lawgiver the power to write ambiguous laws and then be the judge of 
what the ambiguity means.''). For example, following the 1974 statutory 
amendments to section 3(m) of the FLSA, WHD issued three opinion 
letters that address this issue. In 1977, WHD addressed whether workers 
employed as ``salad preparation persons'' could participate in a tip 
pooling arrangement. WHD concluded that salad-preparation personnel 
could not participate in a tip pool as they ``are essentially chefs'' 
who ``prepare food in the kitchen as any chef ordinarily would[,]'' and 
rather than serving food to customers, ``their basic duty outside the 
kitchen is to keep the buffet tables clean and replenish food as 
needed.'' WHD Opinion Letter FLSA-623 (June 3, 1977).\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \6\ The letter cited legislative history to support its 
conclusion that chefs were among the ``employees who have not 
customarily and regularly participated in tip pools.'' Id. (citing 
S. Rep. 93-690 (1974) at 43).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In 1979, WHD addressed servers who ``report to work two hours 
before the doors are opened to the public to prepare the vegetables for 
the salad bar.'' WHD Opinion Letter FLSA-895 (Aug. 8, 1979). WHD opined 
that the employer could not claim a tip credit for those two hours 
because ``salad preparation activities are essentially . . . [those] 
performed by chefs.'' Id. (citing WHD Opinion Letter FLSA-623 (June 3, 
1977)).
    In 1980, WHD addressed whether the tip credit applied to servers in 
a restaurant who, as part of their closing duties, cleaned the salad 
bar, placed condiment crocks in the cooler, cleaned and stocked the 
server station, cleaned and reset the tables (including filling cheese, 
salt, and pepper shakers), and vacuumed the dining room carpet. See WHD 
Opinion Letter (Mar. 28, 1980). WHD opined that the employees would be 
considered tipped employees for this period because they were not 
engaged in a dual occupation. WHD noted that the after-hours cleanup 
duties were ``assigned generally to the [server] staff'' at the 
establishment. Id. WHD did not explain why it concluded that tearing 
down and cleaning the salad bar was a tipped server's duty but 
preparing vegetables for that same salad bar was a non-tipped chef's 
duty. The letter suggested that if ``specific employees were routinely 
assigned, for example, maintenance-type work such as floor vacuuming,'' 
the employer would have been precluded from claiming a tip credit for 
the time the specific employees spent performing those maintenance 
activities. Id.
    Finally, in 1985, WHD addressed whether a server who, during a 5-
hour shift, performed 1.5 to 2 hours of preparatory work before the 
restaurant opened, could be paid the tip-credit rate for the time spent 
performing those preparatory activities. WHD Opinion Letter (Dec. 20, 
1985). The preparatory work included a variety of tasks such as setting 
tables, preparing coffee, and salad preparation. WHD repeated, but did 
not elaborate upon or explain, its earlier statements that ``salad 
preparation activities are essentially the activities performed by 
chefs'' for which the employer could not take a tip credit. WHD then 
concluded that because only one employee was assigned to the non-salad 
preparatory work, the employee was responsible for preparing the entire 
restaurant, not just his or her area. The employee spent 30 percent to 
40 percent of the entire shift on those duties. Such a ``substantial 
portion'' of the workday spent ``performing general preparation or 
maintenance'' work was too extensive to be considered part of the same 
occupation, and the employer could not take a tip credit for the hours 
spent on those tasks. Id. This was the first time WHD employed a 
proportion-of-time analysis to the ``dual jobs'' regulation.
    In 1988, WHD amended its Field Operations Handbook (FOH) to include 
section 30d00(e), regarding time spent in duties related to a tipped 
occupation. WHD FOH Revision 563 (Dec. 12, 1988). According to the 
handbook entry, Sec.  531.56(e) ``permits the taking of the tip credit 
for time spent in duties related to the tipped occupation, even though 
those duties are not by themselves directed toward producing tips 
(i.e., maintenance and preparatory or closing activities),'' if those 
duties are ``incidental'' and ``generally assigned'' to tipped 
employees. To illustrate the types of related, non-tip producing duties 
for which employers could take a tip credit, the FOH listed ``a waiter/
waitress . . . who spends some time cleaning and setting tables, making 
coffee, and occasionally washing dishes or glasses,'' the same examples 
included in Sec.  531.56(e). But ``where the facts indicate that 
specific employees are routinely assigned to maintenance, or that 
tipped employees spend a substantial amount of time performing general 
preparation work or maintenance, no tip credit may be taken for the 
time spent in such duties.'' For the first time, the FOH noted a 
``substantial'' amount of time spent performing general preparation or 
maintenance work as being in excess of 20 percent.
    The FOH does not establish a binding legal standard on the public 
and is not a device for establishing interpretive policy.\7\ Rather, 
the FOH is an ``operations manual'' that makes available to WHD 
investigators and staff policies already ``established through changes 
in legislations, regulations, significant court decisions, and the 
decisions and opinions of the WHD

[[Page 86761]]

Administrator.'' Id.; see also WHD Opinion Letter FLSA2020-12 (Aug. 31, 
2020); Probert v. Family Centered Servs. of Alaska, Inc., 651 F.3d 
1007, 1012 (9th Cir. 2011). But, by furnishing these instructions to 
WHD investigators and staff in the field, the FOH in practice 
prohibited an employer from claiming a tip credit for ``related-
duties'' time if that time exceeded 20 percent of the employee's 
workweek. The handbook entry stated no rationale for a hard percentage 
cap in general or the 20 percent figure in particular, and the 
Department did not issue any guidance rationalizing a hard cap. The 
standard in the FOH became known as the ``80/20 rule,'' even though it 
was not promulgated as a regulation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \7\ Field Operations Handbook, U.S. Dep't of Labor (last 
accessed Aug. 18, 2020), available at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/field-operations-handbook.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In 2009, WHD issued an opinion letter expressly rescinding the 80/
20 approach prescribed in the FOH, concluding that 20 years of 
experience had shown it to be confusing and unworkable. WHD Opinion 
Letter FLSA2009-23 (Jan. 16, 2009). WHD explained that, consistent with 
the text of the FLSA and its regulations, so long as the duties 
performed by the employees are part of their tipped occupation, those 
employees are not engaged in ``dual jobs.'' Thus, the Department would 
interpret the dual jobs regulation such that ``no limitation shall be 
placed on the amount of these [related] duties that may be performed, 
whether or not they involve direct customer service, as long as they 
are performed contemporaneously with the duties involving direct 
service to customers or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after performing such direct-service duties.'' Id. Following a change 
in the administration, however, in 2009 WHD withdrew that opinion 
letter ``for further consideration'' and stated it would ``provide a 
further response in the near future.''
    In 2012, WHD revised FOH 30d00(e), replacing it with language 
currently located at section 30d00(f). The prior 1988 language had 
stated that tipped employees could spend up to 20 percent of their 
working time engaged in ``maintenance and preparatory or closing 
activities'' such as cleaning and setting tables, making coffee, and 
occasionally washing dishes or glasses.'' The 2012 revision, on the 
other hand, stated categorically that ``maintenance work,'' such as 
``cleaning bathrooms and washing windows,'' is not related to the 
occupation of a server. Rather, ``such jobs are non-tipped 
occupations'' subject to the full minimum wage, regardless of the time 
spent. As with the 1988 entry, this language was not promulgated as a 
rule and was not supported by guidance from WHD or the Department. As 
the Department explained in the 2019 NPRM, this dual jobs policy set 
forth in the FOH has proven difficult to enforce and resulted in 
widespread compliance issues; it has also generated extensive, costly 
litigation. See 84 FR 53972.
    Due in large part to those concerns, the Department in November 
2018 reinstated the January 16, 2009, opinion letter and later released 
an accompanying FAB. See WHD Opinion Letter FLSA 2018-27; see also FAB 
No. 2019-2 (Feb. 15, 2019). In these documents, the Department 
explained that it would no longer prohibit an employer from taking a 
tip credit for the time an employee performed related, non-tipped 
duties as long as those duties were performed contemporaneously with, 
or for a reasonable time immediately before or after, tipped duties. 
See id. The Department also explained that, in addition to the examples 
listed in Sec.  531.56(e), it would use the Occupational Information 
Network (O*NET), a comprehensive database of worker attributes and job 
characteristics, to determine whether a tipped employee's non-tipped 
duties were related to his or her tipped occupation. The 2019 NPRM 
proposed to revise Sec.  531.56(e) to reflect this 2018 guidance.

E. The Department's Proposal

    On October 8, 2019, the Department issued a new NPRM, proposing to 
amend its tip regulations under the FLSA to address the CAA's 
amendments to the statute and to codify policy on how the tip credit 
applies to employees who perform both tipped and non-tipped duties. The 
Department proposed to incorporate the new statutory prohibition 
against keeping employee tips--section 3(m)(2)(B), which applies 
whether or not the employer takes a tip credit--into its existing 
regulations and to enact new recordkeeping requirements to assist it in 
administering the new language. The Department proposed, consistent 
with the CAA's depriving of further force or effect those portions of 
the Department's 2011 regulations that restricted tip pooling by 
employers that do not take a tip credit, to remove the portions of its 
regulations that prohibited those employers from including in mandatory 
tip-pooling arrangements those employees who do not customarily and 
regularly receive tips. Since the CAA merely renumbered the FLSA's 
existing tip credit language, now section 3(m)(2)(A), the Department 
did not propose revising the existing tip retention, tip pooling, and 
notice regulations.
    The Department proposed to incorporate into its CMP regulations the 
new statutory language giving it authority to seek CMPs for violations 
of section 3(m)(2)(B). To harmonize the regulations with Supreme Court 
authority and the manner in which the Department actually litigates 
willfulness, it also proposed to revise portions of its CMP regulations 
(specifically, 29 CFR 578.3 and 579.2) that address how the Department 
determines whether an FLSA violation is willful. Additionally, the 
Department proposed to amend its tip regulations to reflect recent 
guidance stating that an employer may take a tip credit for time that 
an employee in a tipped occupation performs related, non-tipped duties 
contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after performing the tipped duties. Finally, the Department proposed to 
amend its regulations that address the payment of tipped employees 
under Executive Order 13658 (Establishing a Minimum Wage for 
Contractors) to reflect the rescissions proposed in the FLSA 
regulations for tipped employees, to incorporate the Department's 
guidance on when an employee performing non-tipped work is a tipped 
employee and to otherwise align those regulations with the Executive 
order.
    The Department received 466 timely comments on the NPRM during the 
64-day comment period that ended on December 11, 2019.\8\ The comments 
were from a broad array of constituencies, including small business 
owners, restaurant companies, employer and industry associations, 
worker advocacy groups, trade unions, non-profit organizations, social 
scientists, law firms, Members of Congress, state attorneys general, a 
state department of labor, and other interested members of the public. 
All timely received comments may be viewed on the regulations.gov 
website, docket ID WHD-2019-0004. Some of the comments the Department 
received were general statements of support or opposition, and the 
Department also received approximately 340 identical or nearly 
identical ``campaign'' comments sent in response to an organized 
initiative. Commenters expressed a wide variety of views on the merits 
of particular aspects of the Department's proposal; however, most 
commenters favored some, if not all, of the changes proposed in the 
NPRM. Some commenters, including numerous

[[Page 86762]]

worker advocacy groups that submitted comments with substantially 
similar language, requested that the Department reject proposed 
revisions to its regulations that reflected recent guidance addressing 
the extent to which an employer can take a tip credit for the time a 
tipped employee spends performing related, non-tipped duties. The 
Department has considered the timely submitted comments addressing the 
proposed changes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \8\ The Department extended the end of the comment period from 
December 9 to December 11, 2019, due to an outage that temporarily 
caused most web browsers to refuse access to Regulations.gov.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department also received a small number of comments that are 
beyond the scope of this rulemaking. These include, for example, 
requests that the Department reconsider its regulation on compulsory 
service charges, Sec.  531.55, and a request that the Department 
reconsider the notice requirements in Sec.  531.59. The Department does 
not address those issues in this final rule.
    Significant issues raised in the comments are discussed below, 
along with the Department's responses to those comments.

III. Final Regulatory Revisions

    The Department finalizes its proposals to amend its tip regulations 
to implement the CAA amendments and address other issues. The sections 
below address these regulatory revisions as adopted in the final rule.
    The sections of this rule are separate and severable and operate 
independently from one another. If any section is held to be invalid or 
unenforceable by its terms, or as applied to any person or 
circumstance, or stayed pending further agency action, the Department 
intends that the remaining sections continue in effect.

A. General Restrictions on an Employer's Use of Its Employees' Tips--
Section 531.52

i. An Employer May Not Keep Tips, Regardless of Whether It Takes a Tip 
Credit
    Section 3(m)(2)(B) of the FLSA prohibits an employer from 
``keeping'' tips received by its employees ``for any purposes.'' The 
prohibition on employers keeping tips applies regardless of whether the 
employer takes a tip credit. The Department proposed to amend Sec.  
531.52 to include the new statutory language prohibiting an employer 
from keeping employees' tips and to clarify the extent to which an 
employer may exert control over employees' tips without ``keep[ing]'' 
them in violation of 3(m)(2)(B). The Department proposed that an 
employer may exert control over tips only to (1) promptly distribute 
tips to the employee or employees who received them; (2) require 
employees to share tips with other eligible employees; or (3) where the 
employer facilitates tip pooling by collecting and redistributing 
employees' tips, promptly distribute tips to eligible employees in a 
tip pool. In these circumstances, the Department explained, employees, 
not the employer, ``keep'' the tips.
    Commenters--representing both employers and employees--supported 
the Department's proposal to implement section 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition 
on employers' keeping tips. See, e.g., Center for Workplace Compliance; 
National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA); National Restaurant 
Association; Oxfam. The Center for Workplace Compliance, for example, 
commented that the proposal aligns with the language of the amendment. 
The Department agrees, and adopts the changes to Sec.  531.52 as 
proposed.
    In addition to comments on the Department's proposal, several 
commenters requested that the Department address whether, under the new 
section 3(m)(2)(B), employers may deduct a portion of the transactional 
fee charged by the credit card company from employees' credit card 
tips. Historically, the Department has consistently taken the position 
that, when a tip is charged to a credit card, an employer may reduce 
the amount of tips paid to the employee by the percentage charged by 
the credit card company as a transactional fee. For example, where a 
credit card company charges an employer 3 percent on all sales charged 
to its credit service, the employer may pay the employee 97 percent of 
the charged tips without violating FLSA. The Department has long 
permitted employers to do so, finding this consistent with the 
statutory requirement that employees retain their tips. See WHD Opinion 
Letter FLSA-214 (Mar. 28, 1977); WHD Opinion Letter FLSA 2006-1 (Jan. 
13, 2006); 29 U.S.C. 203(m)(1) (1974); 32 FR 13580 (adopting 29 CFR 
531.52 (1967)). The NPRM did not specifically address this issue; 
however, as the Department explained shortly after Congress passed the 
CAA amendments, the Department has continued to apply its previous 
guidance concerning tips charged on credit cards. See FAB No. 2018-3 
(Apr. 6, 2018). In response to the NPRM, some commenters urged the 
Department to clarify that employers cannot reduce the amount of tips 
by the amount of credit card transactional fees. These commenters 
stated that it is the employer's choice to incur the costs associated 
with taking credit cards, and section 3(m)(2)(B) should be interpreted 
to prohibit them from using a portion of employee tips to subsidize 
those costs. See NELP, NWLC, and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor 
and Industry. In contrast, another commenter requested that the 
Department affirm that an employer may continue to deduct those fees 
under whatever final rule is implemented based on the NPRM. See Littler 
Mendelson. The commenter noted the Department's longstanding position 
allowing employers to do this and that courts have allowed the 
practice. See, e.g., Myers v. Copper Cellar, 192 F.3d 546, 554 (6th 
Cir. 1999) (employer may deduct the cost of ``converting the credited 
tip to cash'').
    After considering these comments, the Department affirms its 
longstanding guidance authorizing employers to deduct the actual cost 
of credit card processing charges from employees' tips. By deducting 
transactional fees, the employer exerts only the amount of control 
necessary to liquidate the tips to cash and distribute them to 
employees. This is consistent with the Department's proposal, adopted 
in this final rule, that an employer may exert control over employees' 
tips without ``keep[ing]'' them in violation of 3(m)(2)(B) only to 
distribute them to employees or to facilitate tip pooling. Credit-card 
processing fees are not an imposition by the employer on the employee; 
they are the price of converting credit obligations to cash. The same 
fees would be imposed upon servers themselves if they collected their 
tips through credit payments separate from the customer's payment to 
the establishment. The Department reiterates that an employer may not 
deduct more than the actual transactional fee charged by the credit 
card company attributable to liquidating the credit card tip, nor may 
the employer reduce the amount of tips paid to the employee to cover 
other costs incurred by the employer related to credit card use, such 
as the cost of installing a Point of Sale system. See WHD Opinion 
Letter FLSA2006-1 (Jan. 13, 2006). An employer that uses tips to cover 
those operating expenses would violate section 3(m)(2)(B).
ii. Managers and Supervisors May Not Keep Tips
a. Summary of the Final Rule
    Section 3(m)(2)(B) prohibits employers, regardless of whether they 
take a tip credit, from keeping tips, ``including allowing managers or 
supervisors to keep any portion of employees' tips.'' 29 U.S.C. 
203(m)(2)(B). The prohibition applies to managers or supervisors 
obtaining employees' tips directly or indirectly,

[[Page 86763]]

such as via a tip pool. To clarify which employees qualify as managers 
or supervisors for purposes of section 3(m)(2)(B), the 2019 NPRM 
proposed Sec.  531.52(b)(2), which would codify the Department's 
current enforcement policy under FAB No. 2018-3 (Apr. 6, 2018).
    The Department is finalizing the language as proposed. 
Specifically, the final rule uses the duties test, but not the salary 
tests, from the FLSA's executive employee exemption to determine which 
individuals are managers or supervisors who may not keep tips under 
section 3(m)(2)(B).\9\ As the 2019 NPRM explained, this exclusion 
ensures that the terms ``manager'' and ``supervisor'' encompass more 
individuals than the term ``executive'' as used in section 13(a)(1) of 
the FLSA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \9\ An employee is an executive exempt from the FLSA's minimum 
wage and overtime requirements if the employee performs certain 
duties, is paid on a salary basis, and is paid a minimum salary 
level. 29 U.S.C. 213(a)(1), 29 CFR 541.100(a)(2)-(4).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In effect, the final rule defines a manager or supervisor for 
purposes of section 3(m)(2)(B) as any employee (1) whose primary duty 
is managing the enterprise or a customarily recognized department or 
subdivision of the enterprise; (2) who customarily and regularly 
directs the work of at least two or more other full-time employees or 
their equivalent; and (3) who has the authority to hire or fire other 
employees, or whose suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring or 
firing are given particular weight. The definition also includes as 
managers or supervisors any individuals who own at least a bona fide 20 
percent equity interest in the enterprise in which they are employed 
and who are actively engaged in its management.
    The final rule also revises Sec.  531.52 to state that FLSA section 
3(m)(2)(B) ``prohibits employers from requiring employees to share tips 
with managers and supervisors,'' and revises Sec.  531.54 to state that 
employers who do not take a tip credit ``may not include supervisors 
and managers'' in a tip pool.
b. Comments Regarding the Definition of Managers and Supervisors
    The Department received several comments addressing the issue of 
who should be included as managers or supervisors under section 
3(m)(2)(B). The majority of commenters expressed general support for 
the proposal and one commenter noted that the proposed approach would 
be familiar and therefore less likely to have unintended consequences. 
Many commenters recommended modifications to the Department's proposal.
    The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry supported using the 
executive exemption duties test, but recommended that every employee 
who satisfies any of the three elements of the duties test be deemed a 
``manager'' or ``supervisor'' under section 3(m)(2)(B). For example, an 
employee who customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more 
other employees, but does not have the authority to hire or fire other 
employees, would be counted as a ``manager'' or ``supervisor'' under 
this definition, and prohibited from sharing employee's tips.
    Other commenters, including Littler Mendelson and Fisher Phillips, 
recommended that the Department adopt the entire executive exemption, 
including the salary basis and salary level tests, rather than 
incorporating only the duties test. Littler asserted that this would 
state ``an easy, bright-line rule'' and would save ``time and effort 
necessary to determine whether lower-paid employees qualify for the 
exemption.''
    Other commenters, including the National Employment Law Project 
(NELP), Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC), and A Better 
Balance recommended incorporating a salary level into the definition, 
such as the median wage for supervisors of food preparation and serving 
workers based on the National Occupational Employment and Wage 
Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment 
Statistics (OES). They proposed in the alternative that the definition 
include the executive exemption's salary level test, 29 CFR 
541.100(a)(1), but allow an hourly equivalent. This, they urged, would 
allow more low-level managerial employees to participate in tip pools.
    Finally, Senator Patty Murray and Representative Rosa DeLauro 
stated that the executive exemption duties test ``is not appropriate 
for accurately identifying all employees who are managers and 
supervisors.'' Senator Murray and Representative DeLauro asserted that 
the Department's proposal allows employees who engage in some 
managerial work to participate in tip pools, while section 3(m)(2)(B) 
prohibits that group from keeping employees' tips. They instead 
recommended importing the definition of ``supervisor'' from section 
2(11) of the National Labor Relations Act or using ``as a starting 
point'' the definition of ``management'' from 29 CFR 541.102.
    After considering all comments, the Department finalizes this 
portion of Sec.  531.52 as proposed. Using the duties test 
disjunctively or using the definition of ``management'' set forth in 29 
CFR 541.102 would prevent employees who perform some lower-level 
managerial responsibilities from participating in tip pools, even if 
they are not bona fide managers or supervisors of the employer. On the 
other hand, adopting the full executive exemption test (including the 
salary basis and salary threshold tests) would, as Senator Murray and 
Representative DeLauro noted, conflict with Congress's use of the terms 
``managers'' and ``supervisors''--terms not used elsewhere in the 
FLSA--rather than ``executives'' or a reference to section 13(a)(1). 
This counsels against fully adopting the test used for the executive 
exemption.
    Relatedly, Senator Murray and Representative DeLauro asserted that 
the Department's proposed definition of ``managers'' and 
``supervisors'' as used in section 3(m)(2)(B) violates Congress's 
intent because that section does not refer to the executive exemption. 
However, the section 13(a)(1) executive exemption requires each of the 
three tests--salary basis, salary threshold, and duties--to be met. The 
proposed definition of ``manager'' and ``supervisor'' uses just one of 
those criteria--the duties test. As the NPRM noted, this definition 
therefore encompasses a different, broader group of employees than the 
term ``executive'' as used in section 13(a)(1).
    As for other commenters' suggestion to establish two different 
salary levels, one for the executive exemption and one for managers and 
supervisors excluded from tip pools, the Department concludes that this 
would likely cause undue confusion in the regulated community. 
Additionally, setting a separate compensation level, as suggested by 
some commenters, could require periodic updates to Sec.  531.52 to 
reflect inflation. Finally, there is no basis for applying a salary 
level based on the restaurant industry to tipped employees in all 
industries. For instance, the Department has not studied or received 
comments on an appropriate salary level at which to exclude managers 
and supervisors from tip pools in the cosmetology, casino, or cleaning-
service industries and therefore cannot reasonably predict the effects 
imposing such a requirement would have in those industries. The 
Department therefore declines to adopt these proposals and finalizes 
this portion of Sec.  531.52 as proposed.
    In sum, the Department concludes that the criteria in Sec.  531.52 
effectively identify the managers and supervisors whom Congress sought 
to prevent from

[[Page 86764]]

keeping other employees' tips. The Department believes that employers 
can readily use these criteria to determine whether an employee is a 
manager or supervisor because employers are generally familiar with the 
longstanding regulations from which those criteria are drawn.
c. Comments Regarding Managerial Participation in Tip Pools
    The Department also received several comments supporting the 
language in Sec.  531.52 prohibiting employers ``from requiring 
employees to share tips with managers and supervisors'' and the 
language in Sec.  531.54 specifying that employers that do not take a 
section 3(m)(2)(A) tip credit ``may not include supervisors and 
managers'' in a tip pool.
    Some commenters raised concerns, however, that the Department's 
proposed regulations neither expressly prohibit nor expressly allow 
managers or supervisors to retain tips they receive directly from 
customers. For example, the National Restaurant Association and the 
Bowling Proprietors' Association of America suggested that the 
regulations clarify that the law does not prohibit supervisors or 
managers from retaining tips they themselves receive directly from 
customers. These commenters also requested that the Department allow 
managers or supervisors who receive tips directly from customers to 
share or pool tips with other managers or other nontipped employees. 
The National Restaurant Association proposed that the prohibition 
against managers and supervisors participating in a tip pool ``extend 
only to those individuals receiving money from the pool or share, but 
not to individuals who only contribute money into the pool or share.''
    The Department agrees that section 3(m)(2)(B) permits a manager or 
supervisor to keep a tip that he or she receives directly from a 
customer for the service only he or she provides. The statute states 
only that an ``employer may not keep tips received by its employees for 
any purposes, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any 
portion of employees' tips'' and is implicitly stating that managers 
and supervisors may not keep tips received by employees other than 
themselves. A salon manager, for example, may keep tips left by 
customers whose hair she personally styles. In response to commenters' 
suggestions, the Department added language in finalized Sec.  
531.52(b)(2) to make this clear: ``A manager or supervisor may keep 
tips that he or she receives directly from customers based on the 
service that he or she directly provides.''
    With regard to tip pools, the Department notes that the 
requirements of Sec.  531.54 only apply to those tip pools mandated by 
employers. When a manager or supervisor who receives tips directly from 
customers wishes to voluntarily ``tip out'' a portion of his or her 
tips to other employees, that is not considered to be participation in 
a tip pool and is not prohibited by the FLSA or the proposed 
regulations. Voluntarily ``tipping out'' is different from an employer-
mandated tip pool. The Department believes that allowing managers and 
supervisors to participate in tip pools for one purpose (contributing 
tips) and not for another (receiving tips) would create confusion among 
employers and employees. Furthermore, such a proposal could lead to 
situations where it is difficult for employers to demonstrate 
compliance with the prohibition on employees sharing tips with managers 
and supervisors. Therefore, the Department declines to make such 
changes in the final rule.
    Finally, upon review, the Department realizes that it may have 
unintentionally created confusion by not including language expressly 
forbidding manager and supervisor participation in tip pools in 
proposed Sec.  531.54(c), which applies to employers that take a 
section 3(m)(2) tip credit. As the statutory text and proposed Sec.  
531.52(b) make clear, no employer may require employees to share tips 
with managers and supervisors--there is no distinction between 
employers who do or do not take a tip credit. Therefore, the Department 
will add a new Sec.  531.54(c)(3) that mirrors the language in proposed 
Sec.  531.54(d): ``An employer may not participate in such a tip pool 
and may not include managers and supervisors in the pool.'' The 
Department otherwise finalizes as proposed the language in Sec. Sec.  
531.52(b) and 531.54(d).

B. Tip Pooling--Section 531.54

    The Department proposed to amend Sec.  531.54, which generally 
addresses tip pooling, to reflect the CAA amendments. The Department 
proposed to incorporate section 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition on employers 
keeping tips, which applies regardless of whether the employer takes a 
tip credit, into Sec.  531.54. The Department also proposed to amend 
Sec.  531.54 to include the specific requirements that apply to 
employers that establish mandatory tip pools, depending on whether the 
employer does or does not take a tip credit, and depending on whether 
the mandatory tip pool is a traditional pool limited to customarily and 
regularly tipped employees or a nontraditional tip pool, which may 
include employees who do not customarily and regularly receive tips.
i. Requirements When an Employer Collects and Redistributes Tips--
Section 531.54(b)
    In its proposed rule, the Department took the position that section 
3(m)(2)(B) does not prohibit an employer from collecting tips received 
by employees to facilitate a mandatory tip pool if the employer fully 
redistributes the tips it collects no less often than when it pays 
wages. In those circumstances, the employees' tips are only temporarily 
within the employer's possession, and the employer does not ``keep'' 
the tips within the meaning of section 3(m)(2)(B). However, the 
Department proposed that employers ``keep'' tips in violation of 
section 3(m)(2)(B) when they collect tips but do not redistribute them 
within this time period.
    As proposed, Sec.  531.54(b)(1) covered employers that collect tips 
to administer a tip pool and required those employers to fully 
distribute any collected tips at the regular payday for the workweek, 
or, for pay periods of more than one workweek, at the regular payday 
for the period in which the particular workweek ends. Proposed Sec.  
531.54(b) also required that, to the extent an employer could not 
ascertain the amount of tips received or how tips should be distributed 
before processing payroll, those tips be distributed to employees as 
soon as practicable after the regular payday. As the Department 
observed in the 2019 NPRM, these requirements align with current 
guidance on how soon an employer must distribute to tipped employees 
tips that were charged on credit cards. See WHD Opinion Letter 
FLSA2006-1 (Jan. 13, 2006). Because proposed Sec.  531.54(b)(1) defined 
``keep'' within the confines of section 3(m)(2)(B), the requirement 
that an employer fully and promptly distribute any tips it collects 
would have applied regardless of whether the employer took a tip credit 
and regardless of the type of tip pool the employer administered.
    The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry expressed support 
for proposed Sec.  531.54(b)(1). Restaurant owners who submitted 
comments as part of a comment campaign also expressed general support 
for ``the proposed changes regarding tip pooling,'' noting that they 
``closely track the new statutory language.'' Accordingly, the 
Department adopts

[[Page 86765]]

Sec.  531.54(b)(1) as proposed, but separates it into two paragraphs, 
(b)(1) and (2).
ii. Additional Requirements for Mandatory Tip Pools When an Employer 
Takes a Tip Credit--Section 531.54(c)
    Proposed Sec.  531.54(c) sets forth the tip pooling requirements 
for employers that take a tip credit. As explained in the 2019 NPRM, 
the Department's approach to those employers remains unchanged because 
the CAA did not amend the substance of what is now section 3(m)(2)(A), 
which applies to those employers. Accordingly, proposed Sec.  531.54(c) 
would retain the Department's existing requirements in Sec.  531.54 but 
would clarify that these requirements apply only to employers that take 
a tip credit. Those existing requirements state that those employers 
that take a tip credit can require tipped employees to contribute tips 
to a tip pool only if the pool's membership is limited to employees who 
customarily and regularly receive tips.
    Proposed Sec.  531.54(c)'s requirements are drawn directly from 
section 3(m)(2)(A) of the FLSA--formerly numbered section 3(m)--which 
has imposed the same tip pooling, notice, and tip retention 
requirements on employers that take a tip credit since 1974. The 
Department thus adopts Sec.  531.54(c) as proposed.
iii. Nontraditional Tip Pools When an Employer Does Not Take a Tip 
Credit--Sections 531.52, 531.54, and 531.59
    In 2011, the Department revised its tip regulations to require that 
tipped employees retain the tips that they receive, except those 
distributed through a tip pool comprising solely employees who 
customarily and regularly receive tips. The Department applied this 
interpretation to all employers of tipped employees, regardless of 
whether they took a tip credit. See 29 CFR 531.52, 531.54, and 531.59 
(2011).
    Through the CAA, Congress suspended portions of Sec. Sec.  531.52, 
531.54, and 531.59 that restricted employers that do not take a tip 
credit from instituting nontraditional tip pools. See CAA, Div. S, Tit. 
XII, sec. 1201(c). As a result, since the CAA's effective date, 
employers that do not claim a tip credit have been permitted to 
implement mandatory nontraditional tip pools that include both tipped 
and nontipped employees. See FAB No. 2018-3 (Apr. 6. 2018).
    Consistent with these amendments, the Department proposed to revise 
its regulations to remove certain restrictions on employers that do not 
claim a tip credit (and therefore pay workers a direct cash wage of at 
least the minimum wage), including those prohibiting them from 
instituting mandatory nontraditional tip pools. These restrictions were 
based on what is now section 3(m)(2)(A) of the FLSA, which the 
Department previously concluded neither limits employers that do not 
take a tip credit nor grants authority to the Department to do so. See 
Resps.' Br. at 13, Nat'l Rest. Ass'n v. Dept. of Labor, No. 16-920 
(U.S.), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 2697 (2018); see also 82 FR 57399. In 
particular, the Department proposed to rescind the congressionally-
suspended language in Sec.  531.52 that bars employers from 
establishing mandatory nontraditional tip pools, ``whether or not it 
takes a tip credit,'' and to make additional clarifying edits; to 
revise Sec.  531.54 to clarify that the restrictions and notice 
requirements for tip pools apply only to employers that take a tip 
credit; and to revise Sec.  531.59 to state that the bar on mandatory 
nontraditional tip pools applies only to employers that take a tip 
credit. See 84 FR 53976-77. The Department also proposed to make 
explicit in Sec.  531.54 that an employer that pays its tipped 
employees the full minimum wage and does not take a tip credit may 
impose a mandatory tip pooling arrangement that includes dishwashers, 
cooks, or other employees who are not employed in an occupation in 
which employees customarily and regularly receive tips, as long as that 
arrangement does not include any employer, supervisor, or manager. See 
84 FR 53976.
    A number of commenters addressed the Department's proposal to allow 
employers that do not take a tip credit to mandate nontraditional tip 
pools. Commenters including the NFIB, Bloomin' Brands, Littler, and 
several individuals, supported the proposal, noting that it reflects 
the realities of tipped workplaces and is fairer to nontipped 
employees. As Bloomin' Brands stated, ``it takes an entire team,'' 
including employees in occupations that do not customarily and 
regularly receive tips, to give customers ``the total quality 
experience necessary to earn a tip.'' Littler stated that 
nontraditional tip pools are especially helpful where state law 
precludes employers from taking a tip credit, and tipped employees who 
continue to earn tips on top of their wages would otherwise ``earn far 
more than their nontipped coworkers.''
    In contrast, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and some individual 
commenters opposed allowing employers that do not take a tip credit to 
institute mandatory nontraditional tip pools, arguing that this 
arrangement is contrary to what customers intend when they leave a tip 
and unfair to tipped employees. At least one of these commenters, 
however, appears to have misunderstood that the Department's proposal 
requires an employer to pay a tipped employee the full Federal minimum 
wage before the employer can require the employee to participate in a 
mandatory tip pool or other similar arrangement that includes one or 
more nontipped employees. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid also opposed the 
removal of language in Sec.  531.52 stating that the customer ``has the 
right to determine who shall be the recipient'' of a tip.
    Other commenters, including those who did not oppose mandatory 
nontraditional tip pools as a general matter, expressed concern that an 
employer that institutes a mandatory nontraditional tip pool could 
conceivably reduce the cash wages it pays to nontipped employees, such 
as cooks and dishwashers, who receive tips from the pool. See, e.g., 
ROC, NELP, and Policy Integrity. The Department had acknowledged this 
possibility in the economic analysis accompanying the NPRM. See 84 FR 
53968. NELP and other commenters asked the Department to prohibit 
employers from taking advantage of nontraditional tip pools to pay 
lower cash wages to nontipped employees, asserting that those actions 
would be inconsistent with 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition on employers' 
keeping tips. Policy Integrity acknowledged, however, that it would be 
``difficult to design a rule'' to accomplish this end.
    Finally, Senator Murray and Representative DeLauro recommended that 
the Department require employers to institute a ``democratic process'' 
to obtain the consent of tipped employees before instituting 
nontraditional tip pools. They asserted that such a safeguard would 
ensure that employers are not keeping employees' tips.
    After considering the comments, the Department adopts without 
modification the changes it proposed to Sec. Sec.  531.52, 531.54, and 
531.59, which allow employers that do not take a tip credit to 
implement mandatory nontraditional tip pools, as long as those tip 
pools do not include employers, managers, or supervisors. These changes 
are consistent with the 2018 amendments to the FLSA and the text of 
section 3(m)(2) as a whole. Section 3(m)(2)(A) expressly prohibits 
employers that take a tip credit from including employees that do not 
customarily and regularly receive tips in mandatory tip pools together 
with employees that do, but it does not place

[[Page 86766]]

this prohibition on employers that do not take a tip credit. In 
addition, as commenters noted, the revised regulations will afford 
employers flexibility to reward nontipped employees who contribute to 
the customers' experience and incentivize tipped and nontipped 
employees alike to improve that experience.\10\ As finalized, 
Sec. Sec.  531.52, 531.54, and 531.59 expressly allow employers that do 
not claim a tip credit to implement a mandatory tip pool that includes 
both employees who receive tips and employees who do not ''customarily 
and regularly'' receive tips. However, that tip pool may not include 
any employer, manager, or supervisor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \10\ Given this flexibility afforded to employers to reward 
nontipped employees, the Department need not resolve disagreement 
between commenters as to whether customers tip based only on the 
specific performance of one or more tipped employees or, instead, on 
an assessment of the customer's broader experience. The intention(s) 
behind individual customers' tipping likely varies depending on 
context, customer, and circumstances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department declines to require that employers institute a 
process to obtain consent from tipped employees before including them 
in a mandatory nontraditional tip pool. Nothing in section 3(m)(2) 
predicates the imposition of a tip pool on employee consent, and there 
is no textual basis for creating such a requirement with respect to 
only a nontraditional tip pool. Not only is there no textual basis for 
such a requirement, a bill introduced to impose such a requirement was 
neither passed, nor its substance incorporated into the CAA. See H.R. 
5180, 115th Cong. (2d Sess. 2018). Additionally, this recommendation is 
outside of the proposed changes, and the public has not had the 
opportunity to comment on its merits or feasibility.
    The Department also declines to modify its proposal in response to 
commenters' concern that an employer could reduce the cash wages paid 
to a nontipped employee who participates in a nontraditional tip pool. 
What matters is not nontipped employees' cash wages, but rather their 
overall compensation, which includes both cash wages and tips that they 
may now receive under this final rule. Employers can already reduce 
nontipped employees' overall compensation by lowering cash wages, but 
this requires tradeoffs: Morale and productivity would fall, and it 
would become more difficult to recruit and retain qualified workers. 
Allowing nontraditional tip pools does not alter these tradeoffs and 
thus would not make employers more able or willing to reduce nontipped 
employees' overall compensation. While employers that share tips with 
nontipped employees under this rule could reduce cash wages paid to 
those same employees, economic reality makes it unlikely that they 
would do so in a way that reduces overall compensation unless the 
employer was already able and willing to reduce the employees' overall 
compensation for reasons unrelated to this rule.
    On the other hand, the nontraditional tip pools allowed under this 
rule give employers a new way to increase nontipped employees' overall 
compensation and thereby improve morale, productivity, recruitment, and 
retention. Some employers will do so by keeping nontipped employees' 
cash wages the same while allowing them to share in tips. Others may 
reduce cash wages but share tips that, on average, more than offset the 
reduction in cash wages so that the net effect on overall compensation 
will be positive. Regardless of the approach, a nontipped employee's 
overall compensation will increase.
    Additionally, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop 
and enforce a prohibition on employers' adjusting a nontipped 
employee's cash wage when the employer complies with the FLSA's minimum 
wage and overtime requirements. Given the fungible nature of money and 
the innumerable lawful reasons why an employer might set, raise, 
reduce, or maintain an employee's compensation, it would be difficult 
to distinguish between lawful reductions to compensation and unlawful 
``keeping'' of ``tips received by its employees.'' And although 
nontraditional tip pooling arrangements may affect pay decisions for 
nontipped workers who participate in a nontraditional pool--including 
by allowing employers to pay a lower cash wage to retain or hire an 
employee in the non-tipped position--the Department disagrees with 
commenters' claims that any benefit an employer receives from a 
mandatory tip pool constitutes ``keeping'' tips in violation of 
3(m)(2)(B). Indeed, for decades in what is currently section 
3(m)(2)(A), Congress has expressly authorized mandatory traditional tip 
pools that afford employers similar indirect benefits. Congress also 
implicitly authorized these nontraditional tip pools when it suspended 
the Department's regulations prohibiting them, undercutting any claim 
that such tip pools were actually prohibited by the CAA.
    Ultimately, the Department believes that employers will rarely 
reduce the cash wages of nontipped employees who participate in a 
nontraditional tip pool. Economic realities limit employers' practical 
ability to reduce compensation significantly and simultaneously retain 
employees. Further, employers are constrained by wage and hour laws. 
Because back-of-the-house and other employees who receive tips through 
a nontraditional tip pool are not employed in an occupation in which 
they customarily and regularly receive tips, an employer may not take a 
tip credit for these workers, and must pay them at least the full 
Federal minimum wage. See 29 U.S.C. 203(m)(2), 206(a); see also S. Rep. 
No. 93-690, at 43 (1974); WHD Opinion Letter FLSA2008-18 (Dec. 19, 
2008). And, in many workplaces, state and local laws require employers 
to pay nontipped workers a minimum wage that exceeds the Federal 
minimum wage.
    Further, though employers could theoretically do so, an ability 
under the rule to decrease nontipped employees' wages is unlikely, by 
itself, to motivate an employer to adopt a nontraditional tip pool. An 
employer that currently takes a tip credit that institutes a 
nontraditional tip pool would lose the tip credit and be required to 
pay tipped workers at least the full minimum wage. Accordingly, the 
wage obligations required under a nontraditional tip pool could result 
in an increased transfer from employers to employees.
    Finally, the Department declines to restore to Sec.  531.52 the 
statement that a customer ``has the right to determine who shall be the 
recipient'' of a tip. This language is confusing in the context of 
section 3(m)(2) and the Department's tip regulations, which expressly 
permit employers to require employees to pool tips with each other 
regardless of which employee or employees the customer intended to 
receive the tip.
    For these reasons, the Department finalizes the relevant changes to 
Sec. Sec.  531.52, 531.54, and 531.59 as proposed. An employer may 
implement a nontraditional tip pool that includes tipped and nontipped 
employees, provided the pool does not include any employers, managers, 
or supervisors, and so long as the employer does not take a tip credit 
and pays the full minimum wage to both the tipped employees who 
contribute to the pool and the nontipped employees who receive tips 
from the pool.

C. Recordkeeping Requirements for Employers That Have Employees Who 
Receive Tips--Section 516.28

    Section 516.28 imposes certain recordkeeping requirements on only 
those employers that take a tip credit. Among other things, Sec.  
516.28(a) requires

[[Page 86767]]

that the employer identify each employee for whom the employer takes a 
tip credit (see Sec.  516.28(a)(1)) and maintain records regarding the 
weekly or monthly amount of tips received, as reported by the employee 
to the employer (see Sec.  516.28(a)(2)). The employer may use 
information on IRS Form 4070 (Employee's Report of Tips to Employer) to 
satisfy the requirements under Sec.  516.28(a)(2).\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \11\ For information regarding IRS Form 4070, see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tip-recordkeeping-and-reporting.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department proposed revisions to the recordkeeping requirements 
in Sec.  516.28 to improve consistent and effective administration of 
section 3(m)(2)(B). The revisions would require similar recordkeeping 
requirements for employers that do not take a tip credit but still 
collect employees' tips to operate a mandatory tip pool. Proposed Sec.  
516.28(b)(1) would require these employers to identify on their payroll 
records each employee who receives tips. Proposed Sec.  516.28(b)(2) 
would also require those employers to keep records of the weekly or 
monthly amount of tips received by each employee, as reported by the 
employee to the employer (this may consist of reports from the 
employees to the employer on IRS Form 4070).
    The Department received only two comments concerning the proposed 
recordkeeping requirements for employers that do not take a tip credit 
but still collect employees' tips to operate a mandatory tip pool. One 
commenter recommended that the Department require additional 
recordkeeping beyond the proposed requirements, while the other argued 
that the proposed recordkeeping was not required. The proposed 
recordkeeping requirements would help the Department determine whether 
employers are complying with their tip pooling obligations. 
Accordingly, the Department adopts the addition of Sec. Sec.  
516.29(b)(1) and 516.28(b)(2) as proposed.

D. Dual Jobs--Section 531.56(e)

i. Summary of the Final Rule
    Section 531.56(e) addresses instances in which an employer employs 
an employee in both a tipped occupation, for which the employer may 
take a tip credit, and a non-tipped occupation, for which the employer 
may not take a tip credit. The Department proposed to amend Sec.  
531.56(e) to codify its recent subregulatory guidance regarding when an 
employer can take a tip credit for hours that a tipped employee 
performs non-tipped duties related to his or her tipped occupation. See 
WHD Opinion Letter FLSA2018-27 (Nov. 8, 2018); FAB No. 2019-2 (Feb. 15, 
2019). Before it was amended to reflect this recent guidance, the FOH 
had stated that an employer may not take a tip credit for non-tipped 
duties related to an employee's tipped occupation if the time spent on 
those duties exceeds 20 percent of the employee's workweek. As 
described above, stakeholders and courts sometimes referred to this 
guidance as the ``80/20 rule,'' although it was not, in fact, a 
regulation. However, as the Department observed in the NPRM, this 
policy was difficult for employers to administer and led to confusion, 
in part because the guidance did not explain how employers could 
determine whether a particular non-tipped duty is ``related'' to the 
tip-producing occupation and in part because the monitoring surrounding 
the 80/20 approach on individual duties was onerous for employers.
    The final rule, which (with the exception of two changes) adopts 
the changes to Sec.  531.56(e) as proposed and clarifies, consistent 
with the Department's current guidance, that an employer may take a tip 
credit for all non-tipped duties an employee performs that meet two 
requirements. First, the duties must be related to the employee's 
tipped occupation; second, the employee must perform the related duties 
contemporaneously with the tip-producing activities or within a 
reasonable time immediately before or after the tipped activities. This 
updated approach to the related-duties standard is consistent with the 
plain text of the FLSA, which permits employers to take a tip credit 
based on whether an employee is engaged in a tipped ``occupation,'' not 
on whether the employee is performing certain kinds of duties within 
the tipped occupation.
    To facilitate the administration of this approach, the final rule 
also complements the examples already in Sec.  531.56(e) by adopting 
the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) as a source of guidance 
for determining when a tipped employee's non-tipped duties are related 
to his or her tipped occupation. As explained in more detail below, the 
final rule states that a non-tipped duty is presumed to be related to a 
tip-producing occupation if it is listed as a task of the tip-producing 
occupation in O*NET. As the Department explained in the NPRM, O*NET is 
a comprehensive database of worker attributes and job characteristics, 
and is available to the public at www.onetonline.org. O*NET includes 
information on work activities for more than 900 occupations based on 
the Standard Occupational Classification system, a statistical standard 
used by Federal agencies to classify workers into occupational 
categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating 
data.
ii. Comments Regarding the Updated Related Duties Approach
    The Department received many comments expressing support for the 
proposed changes to Sec.  531.56(e). Those commenters suggested that 
the updated related duties approach is a substantial improvement over 
the 80/20 approach because it is more consistent with the FLSA's text, 
structure, and purpose; and it is a more practical and administrable 
approach. See, e.g., Inspire Brands; the Center for Workplace 
Compliance; Littler Mendelson.
    On the first point, several commenters observed that the 
Department's proposal aligns the tip credit regulations with the plain 
language of the FLSA. For example, Littler stated that ``the FLSA says 
nothing about slicing an employee's duties into creditable and non-
creditable categories, nor does it say anything about capping an 
employee's related duties at 20%.'' Instead, the statutory language 
``suggests that all work within the tipped occupation is eligible for a 
credit--not just some arbitrary percentage of the work.'' Inspire 
Brands stated that the Department's proposal parallels other FLSA 
regulations. In particular, ``in the context of the FLSA's white collar 
exemptions, the Department long ago abandoned any notion that employees 
must spend a specific amount of time performing exempt work to qualify 
for an exemption.'' See 29 CFR 541.700(b) (``The amount of time spent 
performing exempt work can be a useful guide . . . , [but] time alone . 
. . is not the sole test'').\12\ Inspire Brands also stated that the 
Department's proposal best approximates ``what Congress intended to 
achieve when it first amended the FLSA to include tip credit rules. 
Specifically, when Congress amended sections 203(m) and 203(t) in 1966, 
it did so to permit `the continuance of existing practices with respect 
to tips' in the hotel and restaurant industries[,] S. Rep. No. 89-1487 
(1966),'' and there was no evidence that employers in 1966 had an 
``existing practice'' of paying servers or bartenders full minimum 
wages whenever related non-tipped duties exceeded a specific time 
limit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \12\ The Department maintains a proportion-of-time standard in 
other contexts. That standard is not appropriate in the dual jobs 
context because of the fluid nature of the work required in many 
tipped occupations.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page 86768]]

    On the second point, a number of commenters observed that the 
Department's proposal is easier to administer than the 80/20 approach. 
Employers noted they will no longer feel that they have to try to track 
their employees minute by minute or task by task. Nor will they have to 
wrestle with which duties are related to their employees' tipped work. 
Instead, they can refer to the list of tasks for that occupation in 
O*NET. An employer that does so may take a tip credit for the 
employee's entire shift (as long as any non-tipped duties are performed 
contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after tipped work). This approach increases compliance, reduces 
employer costs, and avoids litigation. See, e.g., Littler; Center for 
Workplace Compliance; Inspire Brands; Bloomin' Brands; cf. Pellon v. 
Bus. Representation Int'l, Inc., 528 F. Supp. 2d 1306, 1314 (S.D. Fla. 
2007), aff'd, 291 F. App'x 310 (11th Cir. 2008) (describing the 
practical difficulties of administering the contrary 80/20 approach). 
Inspire Brands stated that under the proposed rule, employers will no 
longer need to devote significant time to monitoring duties performed 
by tipped employees or tracking employees' time spent on various 
specific duties, and ``in the place of such activities,'' supervisors 
will be able to spend ``more time tending to customers'' and helping 
servers and bartenders with non-tipped work, such as cleaning tables 
and stocking stations. Since a tipped employee ``would have otherwise 
performed such tasks,'' Inspire Brands also stated that tipped 
employees will be able to ``use that time savings to interact with 
customers and generate more in tips.'' Bloomin' Brands noted that the 
proposal remedied a ``particularly unrealistic unintended consequence'' 
of the existing regulation, which required employers to ``evaluate[ ] a 
tipped employee's entitlement to the tip credit on a task-by-task 
basis.'' Littler commended the Department's proposal for ``solv[ing] . 
. . in one stroke'' the monitoring problems associated with the 80/20 
approach. The Center for Workplace Compliance stated that by ``not 
focusing on the specific amount of time spent on various tasks,'' the 
proposal ``will be easier to understand and will make compliance 
simpler.''
    The Department also received several comments skeptical of or 
opposed to its proposal or recommending that the Department adopt a 
different approach. The National Restaurant Association, for example, 
suggested that the Department loosen the proposed limitations on non-
tipped work and ``specify in the Final Rule that so long as [non-
tipped] work occurs during the same shift or workday in which the 
employee engages in the main duties of a tipped occupation, the tip 
credit is available for the entire shift or workday.'' In contrast, 
several commenters, including those representing employees, 19 State 
Attorneys General, and Democratic Members of Congress, expressed 
concern that the updated related duties approach was not sufficiently 
stringent and would allow an employer to take a tip credit even when a 
tipped employee spends a substantial amount of time performing non-
tipped work. These commenters urged the Department to return to the 80/
20 approach (or adopt a more protective standard), and stated that a 
return to the 80/20 approach would be more workable than the proposed 
approach. They also argued that the Department has not sufficiently 
explained why the new standard would be more easily administrable than 
the 80/20 approach.
    In addition, Senator Murray and Representative DeLauro asserted 
that the Department's proposal violates newly added section 3(m)(2)(B), 
which prohibits employers from keeping any portion of employees' tips 
for any purposes. They contended that to read section 3(m)(2)(B) as 
permitting a tip credit for any time an employee spends on non-tipped 
duties (whether related or unrelated) would produce an ``absurd 
result''; that is, it would allow employers to reassign non-tipped 
workers' duties to tipped workers and use tips to fulfill their minimum 
wage obligations for that work.
    After considering the comments, the Department finalizes Sec.  
531.56(e)(2) as proposed (with the exception of one word that was 
changed for consistency). The Department disagrees that the updated 
related duties test allows an employer to take a tip credit when a 
tipped employee performs a substantial amount of non-tipped work and 
agrees with other commenters that a return to the 80/20 approach would 
be unwise for several reasons.
    First, the updated related duties test does not permit employers to 
take a tip credit when tipped employees are, in fact, engaged in a non-
tipped occupation. Instead, an employer may take a tip credit for non-
tipped related duties only when those duties are performed 
``contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after'' tipped work. As a result, when a tipped employee engages in a 
substantial amount of separate, non-tipped related duties, such that he 
or she has effectively ceased to be engaged in a tipped occupation, the 
tip credit is no longer available. Thus, an employer could not take a 
tip credit for the entire shift when a tipped employee spends ``five 
hours, or more'' of a 6-hour shift doing non-tipped work, see NELA, nor 
could it claim the tip credit for all hours worked by a dishwasher who 
picks up a few serving shifts per week, see Patriotic Millionaires. In 
these examples, the employee would not be performing the non-tipped 
related duties contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time 
immediately before or after performing tipped work. By contrast, an 
employer of an employee who has significant non-tipped related duties 
which are inextricably intertwined with their tipped duties should not 
be forced to account for the time that employee spends doing those 
intertwined duties. Rather, such duties are generally properly 
considered a part of the employee's tipped occupation, as is consistent 
with the statute.
    Second, the Department disagrees that the proposed rule's language 
is not specific enough to furnish useful guidance. The requirement that 
related duties be performed contemporaneously with tipped duties is not 
difficult to administer in practice. For example, a barber who cleans 
the combs she is using as she is cutting a customer's hair is 
performing that duty during the same time as--contemporaneously with--
the tip-producing work. The regulatory term ``contemporaneously'' does 
not necessarily mean that the employee must perform tipped and non-
tipped duties at the exact same moment in time.
    Moreover, the allowance for related duties performed ``for a 
reasonable time immediately before or after'' a tipped duty creates a 
sufficiently intelligible distinction between employees engaged in 
tipped occupations and non-tipped occupations. It is true that this 
limit does not create as bright a line as a firm cap on the amount of 
time an employee may spend on particular duties (although the 80/20 
approach creates significantly greater uncertainty in other ways as 
discussed below). But the concept of reasonableness is a cornerstone of 
modern common law and is familiar to employers in a variety of 
contexts. See, e.g., Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 
687-88 (1946) (factfinder may base FLSA back wages award on reasonable 
estimates); 29 CFR 825.302(a) (requiring employee to furnish notice of 
need for FMLA leave ``as soon as practicable''); 42 U.S.C. 12112(a), 
(b)(5)(A) (requiring reasonable accommodations for disabled employees); 
29 U.S.C. 1108(b)(2), (c)(2) (ERISA fiduciaries are entitled to

[[Page 86769]]

receive reasonable compensation from a plan for services provided); 29 
CFR 1604.11(a) (conduct is sexual harassment if it unreasonably 
interferes with an individual's work performance); Burlington N. & S.F. 
Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 67-68 (2006) (Title VII prohibits 
employers from taking actions that a reasonable employee would find to 
be materially adverse); Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 
742, 765 (1998) (employer is vicariously liable under Title VII unless 
it took reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassing behavior); 
Green v. Brennan, 136 S. Ct. 1769, 1776-78 (2016) (constructive 
discharge occurs when a reasonable employee would feel compelled to 
resign). Reasonableness balances a flexible accounting of circumstances 
with a sufficiently definite limit on acceptable conduct in those 
contexts. This flexible approach is appropriate to apply to the 
question of whether particular duties are a part of an employee's 
tipped occupation.
    For example, consider the following scenario: A hotel bellhop 
continuously performs tipped duties such as carrying luggage to guests' 
rooms during a busy 8-hour shift and then works for an additional 2 
hours performing related non-tipped duties such as cleaning, 
organizing, and maintaining bag carts in storage. The 2 hours of 
related non-tipped duties would not be ``for a reasonable time'' after 
the performance of tipped duties. Accordingly, the bellhop was engaged 
in a tipped occupation (bellhop) for 8 hours and a non-tipped 
occupation (cleaner) for 2 hours.
    On the other hand, consider a second scenario in which this hotel 
employee works a 10-hour shift that is less busy. Because there are 
fewer hotel guests to assist, there are times during the bellhop's 
shift when he is not transporting bags for customers. Rather, every 
hour, he transports bags for customers for approximately 48 minutes and 
in between transporting bags, spends approximately 12 minutes 
performing related non-tipped duties, such as sweeping and mopping the 
entrance and cleaning bag carts. At the end of the shift, the employee 
in this scenario would have spent a total of 8 hours on tipped duties 
and 2 hours on non-tipped related duties--the same amounts as in the 
first scenario. But unlike in the first scenario, each period of 
related non-tipped duties would have been performed ``for a reasonable 
time immediately before or after'' the performance of tipped duties. As 
such, the employee would have been engaged in a tipped occupation 
(bellhop) for the entire 10-hour shift.
    Even though the two above scenarios are different, the previous 80/
20 approach drew no distinction between them because it focused solely 
on the precise ratio of time spent on tipped versus related non-tipped 
duties. But that focus obscures the relevant question of whether an 
employee is functionally engaged in one occupation or two. To answer 
this question, it is necessary to examine the context in which time is 
spent on tipped versus related non-tipped duties. If tipped and related 
non-tipped duties were performed at distinct times that never overlap, 
the employee would be engaged in two distinct occupations, even if the 
tipped-to-related-non-tipped ratio were more than 80/20. Conversely, if 
tipped and related non-tipped duties were performed alongside each 
other, the employee would be engaged in a single occupation, even if 
the tipped-to-related-non-tipped ratio were less than 80/20. The final 
rule's ``reasonable time'' standard considers the critical context in 
which tipped and related non-tipped duties are performed and focuses on 
the key issue of whether non-tipped duties form a substantial, 
segregable part of an employee's work. The 80/20 approach does not 
adequately address this issue.
    Third, the guidance establishing the 80/20 approach did not 
adequately consider the practical difficulties in complying with a hard 
quantitative cap. To do so, employers attempted to track the amount of 
time employees spend performing duties that are not tip-producing but 
are related to each employee's tipped occupation. See Littler. But as 
several commenters explained, this proved extremely difficult, if not 
impossible. Inspire Brands, for example, stated that it implemented 
policies within its timekeeping system intended to allow employees to 
switch between different job codes when engaging in different duties, 
but found that doing so ``required substantial managerial resources'' 
and that it was impossible to ``keep track of tipped versus non-tipped 
duties at such a micro level.'' Another commenter representing 
employers stated, ``[t]imekeeping systems are not designed to deal with 
that level of granularity,'' nor ``do tipped employees' jobs allow them 
sufficient time to constantly clock in under a different code when 
finishing one task but before starting another.'' This is especially 
true ``when the tasks are often measured in seconds and are frequently 
part of a `multi-tasking' approach.'' See Johnson Jackson. The 
practical difficulties of complying with the 80/20 approach are also 
evident in case law. For example, as the District Court for the 
Southern District of Florida observed in a decision affirmed by the 
Eleventh Circuit, the non-tipped duties performed by the employees at 
issue were so ``intertwined with indirect tip-producing tasks 
throughout the day'' that determining precisely how much time was spent 
on non-tipped related duties was indeed ``infeasible.'' Pellon, 528 F. 
Supp. 2d at 1314.
    The updated related duties test, in contrast, does not require 
employers to attempt a minute-by-minute accounting of tipped employees' 
work to ensure that non-tipped related work does not exceed a 
quantitative cap. Each employee can instead perform the related, non-
tipped work of his or her tipped occupation as needed in conjunction 
with his or her tipped work--either contemporaneously with or for a 
reasonable time immediately before or after the tipped work--and 
employers may confidently take a tip credit without precisely tracking 
the time spent by the employee as he or she moves between duties.
    Fourth, the 80/20 approach was difficult to administer because it 
required employers to distinguish with precision between non-tipped 
duties (which were subject to the 20 percent cap) and tipped duties 
(which were not). In general, determining whether a duty is tip-
producing is straightforward; WHD and courts ask whether the task 
involves direct interaction with customers. See WHD Opinion Letter 
FLSA2018-27 (referring to tipped duties as those ``involv[ing] direct 
customer service''); Barnhart v. Chesapeake Bay Seafood House Assocs., 
L.L.C., No. CV JFM-16-01277, 2017 WL 1196580, at *6 (D. Md. Mar. 31, 
2017) (``tasks that involve direct customer interaction would fall 
squarely into the tip-producing category, and tasks that are not 
customer-facing would not''); Belt v. P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc., 
401 F. Supp. 3d 512, 519-20 (E.D. Pa. 2019) (considering tasks that 
``did not involve interacting with, nor serving food and beverages to 
customers'' to be untipped work). But the 80/20 approach requires 
precision, not generality, and, as commenters noted, the precise minute 
when an employee ceases to perform a tip-producing duty and begins 
performing a non-tipped, related duty (and vice-versa) is not always 
clear. See, e.g., Inspire Brands. One court, for example, observed that 
applying the 80/20 approach to the plaintiff skycaps, who ``me[t] 
airline travelers at the curb and assist[ed] them with their luggage,'' 
would require it to determine, ``for instance, how far from the curb 
could

[[Page 86770]]

Plaintiffs even walk before they are too far to be considered tipped 
employees[.]'' Pellon, 528 F. Supp. 2d at 1315.
    The updated related duties approach adopted in this final rule 
continues to distinguish between tip producing and non-tip producing 
duties. But because the updated test eschews a numerical analysis, it 
no longer requires precise parsing of whether tasks performed in close 
conjunction with one another are tipped duties or are non-tipped 
related duties that must be aggregated against a 20 percent cap. 
Instead, an employer may take a tip credit whether an employee is 
performing a tipped duty or is performing a related duty 
contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after tipped duties. In addition, as discussed further below, by using 
O*NET to identify duties related to the tipped occupation, courts will 
be able to better and more consistently apply the dual jobs regulation.
    Fifth, the Department disagrees that the 80/20 approach is more 
administrable than the proposed rule. An 80/20 approach may well be 
easy to administer once the precise amount of time an employee has 
spent on various tasks has been tabulated, but it is the categorizing 
of tasks and tracking of each employee's time that makes the 80/20 
approach difficult to administer.
    Sixth, the updated related duties test better effectuates the text 
of section 3(m) than did the 80/20 approach. Section 3(m) permits 
employers to take a tip credit based on whether an employee is engaged 
in a tipped ``occupation,'' not whether the employee is performing 
certain kinds of duties or tasks within the tipped occupation. See 29 
U.S.C. 203(m) and (t). Because the 80/20 approach imposed a hard cap on 
related non-tipped work, regardless of the context, applying this 
policy sometimes precluded an employer from taking the tip credit, even 
for time when a tipped employee arguably continued to be engaged in his 
or her tipped ``occupation.'' By permitting the tip credit for the time 
an employee spends performing non-tipped related duties 
contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or 
after tipped work, the updated approach better approximates the point 
at which a tipped employee has ceased to be engaged in his or her 
tipped occupation and becomes engaged in a non-tipped occupation.
    The updated related duties test also draws this line more 
effectively than the alternative proposed by the National Restaurant 
Association, which would permit an employer to take a tip credit for a 
full shift when an employee performs any tipped work during the course 
of the shift. For example, under that approach an employer could take a 
tip credit for the entire shift of a cook or dishwasher whom it had 
directed to perform a token amount of tipped work during the shift.\13\ 
This is inconsistent with the commonsense understanding of the 
statutory term ``occupation'' in the FLSA, which permits an employer to 
take a tip credit only for the hours that an employee spends working in 
a tipped occupation, not for all hours worked by an employee who spends 
part of his or her time working in a tipped occupation. Removing the 
rigid 20 percent limitation, but permitting an employer to take a tip 
credit for time spent on non-tipped work only when that work is related 
to the tipped occupation and performed in conjunction with tipped work, 
reasonably interprets the statutory text while striking a balance that 
is both protective of employees and manageable for employers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \13\ The employee would also need to earn at least $30 per month 
in tips to meet the full criteria set forth in 29 U.S.C. 203(t).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Seventh, it is not clear what time frame should be used to 
determine compliance with the 80/20 approach. As commenters noted, 
there was confusion with how the 80/20 approach would be determined on 
a workweek basis. Nor is it clear whether a workweek approach would, in 
the dual jobs context, produce results consistent with the FLSA's 
language that allows an employer to take a tip credit based on hours 
worked, not a workweek. Consider a casino that requires its card 
dealers to make periodic security rounds at their pit in order to allow 
other employees to focus fully on the tip-producing work of dealing. 
Over the course of an 8-hour shift each week, a card dealer is required 
to make six half-hour rounds monitoring gaming tables to ensure the 
security of the game (for a total of 3 hours over the course of her 
shift). The hours she spends monitoring gaming tables constitute more 
than 20 percent of her shift devoted to non-tipped related duties, but 
less than 20 percent of her workweek. If the workweek were applied as 
the standard of measurement, then the casino would be permitted to take 
a tip credit for the time spent on security rounds--even if that task 
consumed a substantial portion of the card dealer's designated work day 
that she could have devoted to tip-producing work. If the 80/20 
approach were applied on a shift basis, the employer would be denied 
the tip credit for all eight hours the employee worked even though she 
was working in her tipped occupation for the entire shift. This lack of 
clarity and potential for unintended outcomes counsels against 
continued use of the 80/20 approach and in favor of the updated related 
duties test.
    Eighth, the Department disagrees with some commenters' argument 
that the updated related duties approach violates section 3(m)(2)(B) by 
allowing employers to use tips to meet their minimum wage obligations 
for non-tipped work. Section 3 of the FLSA makes clear that an employer 
that takes a tip credit in compliance with section 3(m)(2)(A) does not 
``keep'' tips in violation of section 3(m)(2)(B). This is because the 
two sections must be read in harmony with each other to avoid internal 
contradiction. Section 3(m)(2)(A) permits an employer to take a tip 
credit for ``tipped employee[s],'' defined under section 3(t) as those 
``engaged in an occupation'' in which they ``customarily and regularly 
receive tips.'' When a tipped employee performs non-tipped duties 
related to the employee's tipped occupation either contemporaneously 
with or for a reasonable time immediately before or after the 
employee's tipped duties, the employee continues to be ``engaged'' in 
the tipped occupation under section 3(t). As a result, an employer that 
takes a tip credit for this time does so in compliance with section 
3(m)(2)(A) and thus does not violate section 3(m)(2)(B).
    As long as an employee's direct cash wage plus tips equals the 
minimum wage (and the employer has met the other criteria for taking a 
tip credit) section 6 of the FLSA is satisfied. If tipped employees do 
not receive sufficient tips to cover the minimum wage, the employer 
must supplement the cash wage payment. Compliance with the FLSA's 
minimum wage requirement, therefore, requires sufficient tip-generating 
activity to satisfy that minimum wage obligation. It is consistent with 
the FLSA for an employer to use tips to cover an employee's non-tipped 
work that is related to the tipped occupation, so long as that employee 
is engaged in a tipped occupation when performing the non-tipped work 
and earns at least the minimum wage for all hours worked. This is the 
exact result envisioned by the FLSA's scheme of satisfying the minimum 
wage with a mixture of a direct cash wage and tips.
    Ninth, the Department disagrees with commenters' suggestions that a 
return to the 80/20 approach is appropriate given that some Federal 
courts have concluded the Department did not sufficiently explain its 
reasoning for the updated related duties test in its 2018

[[Page 86771]]

subregulatory guidance. See Williams v. Bob Evans Rests., LLC, No. 18-
01353, 2020 WL 4692504, at *9 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 13, 2020); Reynolds v. 
Chesapeake & Del. Brewing Holdings, LLC, No. 19-2184, 2020 WL 2404904 
(E.D. Pa. May 12, 2020); Sicklesmith v. Hershey Entm't & Resorts Co., 
No. 19-1675, 2020 WL 902544 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 25, 2020); O'Neal v. Denn-
Ohio, LLC, No. 19-280, 2020 WL 210801 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 14, 2020); Belt, 
401 F. Supp. 3d at 512; Spencer v. Macado's, Inc., 399 F. Supp. 3d 545 
(W.D. Va. 2019); Cope v. Let's Eat Out, Inc., 354 F. Supp. 3d 976 (W.D. 
Miss. 2019); Esry v. P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc., 373 F. Supp. 3d 
1205 (E.D. Ark. 2019); Berger v. Perry's Steakhouse of Ill., LLC, No. 
14-8543, 2019 WL 7049925 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 23, 2019); Flores v. HMS Host 
Corp., No. 18-3312, 2019 WL 5454647 (D. Md. Oct. 23, 2019). But see 
Shaffer v. Perry's Rests., Ltd., No. 16-1193, 2019 WL 2098116, at *1 
(W.D. Tex. Apr. 24, 2019). The Department has now explained through 
this notice-and-comment rulemaking process its reasoning for replacing 
the 80/20 approach with the updated related duties test.
    In sum, the Department adopts the changes to Sec.  531.56(e) as 
proposed, with minor exceptions. First, to ensure that it is read 
consistently with Sec.  531.59(b), which makes the tip credit available 
``only for hours worked by the employee,'' the Department replaces the 
phrase ``amount of time'' in the fourth sentence of proposed Sec.  
531.56(e)(2) with ``hours.'' This correction for consistency does not 
change the meaning of the proposed language. Thus, the fourth sentence 
of Sec.  531.56(e)(2) as adopted reads: ``An employer may take a tip 
credit for any hours that an employee performs related, non-tipped 
duties contemporaneously with his or her tipped duties, or for a 
reasonable time immediately before or after performing the tipped 
duties.'' Second, as discussed in more detail below, the Department 
does not use O*NET's list of duties for an occupation to definitively 
limit the non-tipped duties that are related to that occupation. 
Rather, it refers to O*NET as the source of a list of non-tipped duties 
that are presumed to be related to a tipped occupation.
iii. Comments Regarding the Use of O*NET
    The Department received several comments on proposed Sec.  
531.56(e)(3), which would use O*NET as a source for defining which non-
tipped duties are related to a tipped occupation. Some commenters 
representing employers stated that using O*NET to define related duties 
would make the tip credit easier to administer. Littler, for example, 
stated that employers can ``simply check O*NET and assign the duties 
appearing on that list. Upon doing that, employers can take a tip 
credit for the employee's entire shift.'' The Center for Workplace 
Compliance also supported the proposed update to the regulations, 
stating that it would ``make compliance simpler.''
    The Department also received several comments expressing concerns 
about using O*NET to define related duties. Some commenters, including 
Littler, Fisher Phillips, and NELP, expressed concern about the fact 
that O*NET's listings and identified job duties are subject to change 
and could ``even disappear in the future.'' Some commenters were 
concerned that the list of related duties could expand without limit or 
be manipulated, and some commenters recommended incorporating the O*NET 
definitions in place as of the date of this final rule. The National 
Restaurant Association and another commenter requested that the 
Department state that a task's appearance on O*NET is sufficient but 
not necessary to demonstrate that it is related to the occupation. Some 
commenters advocated for the Department to state that a tipped worker's 
related duties may encompass the duties of any tip-producing occupation 
within the same industry. Finally, State Attorneys General and some 
other commenters disputed whether further clarity regarding related 
duties was necessary, pointing to numerous court cases applying the 
Department's prior guidance, which did not comprehensively define 
related duties.
    After considering the comments, the Department finalizes Sec.  
531.56(e)(3) largely as proposed but with an addition to account for 
concerns raised by commenters. Specifically, the Department adds the 
phrase ``presumed to be'' in two locations in Sec.  531.56(e)(3), so 
that the section now states that a non-tipped duty is presumptively 
related to a tip-producing occupation if it is listed as a task of the 
tip-producing occupation in O*NET.
    O*NET is the most current and comprehensive source of descriptive 
occupational information in the United States. O*NET has conducted 
extensive research and collects occupational data from multiple 
sources: Incumbent workers, occupational experts, employers, and trade 
and professional associations.\14\ This multiple-method approach 
ensures high quality data, which facilitates O*NET's ability to 
identify new and emerging occupations in high-growth industries, and 
new and changing skills requirements in existing occupations. O*NET 
also uses a flexible, common language-based system to describe the 
world of work, making it accessible and understandable. In addition to 
serving job seekers and students, O*NET is used by state workforce 
agencies and the Department's Employment and Training Administration. 
Therefore, the Department believes that O*NET is the best way to give 
employers and employees clear, comprehensible information on related 
duties that will remain current, even in a changing economy. As noted 
by commenters, employers may simply check O*NET and take the tip credit 
for time spent by their employees performing the related duties 
appearing on the list.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \14\ More detailed information about O*NET's data collection can 
be found at https://www.onetcenter.org/ombclearance.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Although some commenters expressed concern that O*NET will not be 
maintained in perpetuity, the Department has no intention of making 
O*NET unavailable at any time in the near future. O*NET has existed for 
more than 20 years and replaced a similar product, the Dictionary of 
Occupational Titles, which had existed since the 1930s. Should O*NET be 
discontinued, the Department would revisit the regulation. The 
Department also declines to incorporate O*NET's current list of tasks 
into the regulation because doing so would limit its usefulness with 
regard to both changing and emerging occupations. In addition, this 
would require the Department to expend substantial resources to 
identify which of the nearly 1,000 occupations in O*NET are tipped and 
which are not, without the benefit of stakeholder input in making these 
determinations.
    Moreover, some commenters suggested that adopting O*NET by 
reference is problematic because automatic updates to the database 
would not go through notice and comment. However, in response to those 
comments and others concerned with changes to O*NET, and in recognizing 
that O*NET is updated using occupational data from various sources and 
may not accurately capture all related non-tipped duties, the 
Department is not adopting the O*NET listings as binding requirements. 
Rather, the Department is adopting O*NET only to assist in determining 
when a tipped employee's non-tipped duties are related to his or her 
tipped occupation. Specifically, the final rule explains that the 
Department will look to the tasks listed within the tip-producing 
occupation in O*NET as guidance on

[[Page 86772]]

whether a particular non-tipped duty is related to a tipped occupation. 
In other words, a non-tipped duty listed as a task of a tip-producing 
occupation in O*NET indicates that this duty can be treated as related 
to the tipped occupation. However, if industry-wide practices and 
trends demonstrate that a listed duty is not actually related to the 
tipped occupation, or that an unlisted duty is actually related to that 
occupation, then employers would not be able to rely on O*NET as a 
compliance assistance tool in that particular case. In sum, because any 
updates to O*NET will not result in additional legal requirements for 
affected parties, those changes are not subject to notice and comment.
    Adopting fluctuating databases and standards as guidance is a 
common regulatory practice. For example, the Department refers to the 
Dictionary of Occupational Titles, O*NET's predecessor, when 
determining whether a public employee's volunteer activity is in the 
``same type of services'' that he is paid to perform. See 29 CFR 
553.103; FLSA2008-16 at *3 (Dec. 18, 2008) (clarifying that referring 
to O*NET for this determination is also acceptable). Other Federal 
agencies also use this approach in a variety of contexts. Social 
Security Administration regulations, for instance, refer to the 
Department's Dictionary of Occupational Titles, several Census 
publications, and the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics to rule on benefits applications. See 20 CFR 
416.966(d). Meanwhile, the Department of Education requires 
postsecondary schools to be accredited, but outsources those 
accrediting decisions to accrediting bodies, each of which makes its 
own accreditation rules. See 34 CFR part 602.
    Although some commenters expressed concerns about potential 
manipulation of O*NET, the Department is confident that O*NET, upon 
which numerous stakeholders and governmental entities depend, is 
reliable. O*NET's data collection process ensures this reliability by 
incorporating, among other methods, surveying and random sampling, data 
cleaning, weighting, and the use of experts and occupational analysts.
    Several commenters asked the Department to allow employers to deem 
as ``related'' to a tipped occupation additional duties that are 
neither included in the O*NET duties list for the occupation nor as 
examples in the regulation. The Department does not believe that this 
explicit approach is necessary. Under Sec.  531.56(e)(3) as proposed, 
O*NET's list of non-tipped duties for an occupation was exhaustive; 
non-tipped duties were not related to the occupation unless they 
appeared in the O*NET list of duties. But under Sec.  531.56(e)(3) as 
adopted, O*NET's lists are no longer exhaustive--O*NET lists duties 
that are presumed to be related to the tipped occupation, but that list 
is no longer exhaustive.
    The Department disagrees with the commenters who dispute the need 
for further clarity regarding related duties. The extensive litigation 
over the 80/20 approach attests to the difficulty in determining 
whether particular non-tipped duties were related to an employee's 
tipped occupation. In many of these cases, courts declined to dismiss 
at the pleading stage the plaintiffs' claims that they performed 
unrelated duties for which they were improperly compensated because 
facts developed through discovery could ultimately show that those 
duties were related to the plaintiffs' tipped occupations. See, e.g., 
Knox v. Jones Grp., 201 F. Supp. 3d 951, 959 (S.D. Ind. 2016) (citing 
precedent in reasoning that ``the division between permissible, related 
duties and impermissible, unrelated duties is not categorical''; the 
court would ultimately need to consider ``the qualitative and 
quantitative nature of the allegedly unrelated duties''); Stokes v. 
Wings Inv., LLC, 213 F. Supp. 3d 1097, 1102 (S.D. Ind. 2016) (``After 
conducting discovery, Defendant might be able to show that all of the 
duties identified by Plaintiff are related to her tipped 
occupation[.]''). Using O*NET to identify non-tipped duties that are 
presumed to be related to particular tipped occupations will make it 
simpler for employers, employees, and courts alike to distinguish 
related duties for which employers can take a tip credit from unrelated 
duties for which for which they cannot. Section 531.56(e)(3) as adopted 
may not furnish as much certainty as that section did as proposed, but 
it furnishes much more certainty than the regulatory text prior to this 
final rule, which identified few duties as related or unrelated. 
Additionally, the Department sought and received comment on the use of 
O*NET as a tool for identifying non-tipped duties that would be related 
to a tipped occupation, and the majority of commenters agreed that 
using the database would be useful and would provide much-needed 
clarity.
    Finally, the Department declines commenters' requests to expand the 
related duties for a particular occupation beyond the O*NET tasks 
associated with that occupation to include any tasks associated with 
any other tipped occupation in the same industry. One commenter, by way 
of example, noted an overlap in a number of tasks shared by bartenders 
and servers. That example itself demonstrates why adopting that same-
industry standard would be inappropriate. As reflected in O*NET, the 
North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) places 
bartenders and servers within the Accommodation and Food Services 
industry--an industry that also includes occupations such as hotel 
maids and gaming dealers. It is not part of a hotel bartender's tipped 
occupation to equip rooms with linens, nor is it part of a hotel maid's 
tipped occupation to deal cards or collect wagers.
    In light of these considerations, the Department finalizes the 
regulation to include the O*NET database as a source of non-tipped 
duties that are presumed to be related to a tipped occupation. The 
Department will continue to evaluate and refine its approach with 
respect to O*NET to address concerns that may arise.

E. Civil Money Penalties

i. Civil Money Penalties for Violations of Section 3(m)(2)(B)
    Section 1201(b)(3) of the CAA amended FLSA section 16(e)(2) by 
adding new penalty language: ``Any person who violates section 
3(m)(2)(B) shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $1,100 for 
each such violation, as the Secretary determines appropriate, in 
addition to being liable to the employee or employees affected for all 
tips unlawfully kept, and an additional equal amount as liquidated 
damages, as described in subsection (b).'' The Department's current 
enforcement policy states that the CAA amendments give the Department 
discretion to impose civil money penalties (CMPs) up to $1,100 \15\ 
when employers unlawfully keep employee tips (including when they allow 
managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees' tips). See 
FAB 2018-3. The Department currently follows its normal procedures for 
FLSA CMPs with regard to violations of section 3(m)(2)(B), ``including 
by determining whether the violation is repeated or willful.'' See id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \15\ The CMP amounts in this rule are adjusted for inflation as 
required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 
1990 (Pub. L. 101-410), as amended by the Debt Collection 
Improvement Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-134, sec. 31001(s)) and the 
Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 
2015 (Pub. L. 114-74, sec. 701).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department proposed to incorporate this current guidance into 
the regulations: To use the same

[[Page 86773]]

guidelines and procedures that it follows for assessing CMPs for 
violations of the minimum wage (section 6) and overtime (section 7) 
requirements of the FLSA as it does for violations of section 
3(m)(2)(B). That means the Department proposed to assess CMPs for 
violations of section 3(m)(2)(B) only when it determines the violation 
is repeated or willful.
    Some commenters generally supported the proposal regarding CMPs. 
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) noted that the 
Department ``has taken into account the practical realities of labor 
compliance for small businesses'' by proposing to exercise its 
discretion by assessing CMPs for ``violations of section 3(m)(2)(B) 
only if committed repeatedly or willfully.'' Other commenters, such as 
the National Employment Lawyers Association, the National Women's Law 
Center, and NELP, opposed the proposal, arguing that because ``Congress 
used the words `repeatedly or willfully' for minimum wage and overtime 
violations [in section 16(e)(2)] but omitted such words with respect to 
section 3(m)(2)(B),'' that ``demonstrates Congress' clear intent that 
civil penalties for this latter section do not require a repeated or 
willful violation.'' Senator Murray and Representative DeLauro stated 
that the relevant language ``clearly provides for a civil penalty . . . 
against `any person' and for `each' violation of the tip-protection 
language'' and argued that the Department's proposal was ``in direct 
contravention of this plain language.''
    The CAA amendments state that ``[a]ny person who violates section 
203(m)(2)(B) of this title shall be subject to a civil penalty not to 
exceed $1,100 for each such violation, as the Secretary determines 
appropriate . . . .'' 29 U.S.C. 216(e)(2) (emphasis added). The plain 
meaning of this language is that the Department has the discretion to 
determine when civil penalties are appropriate. While Senator Murray 
and Representative DeLauro's comment acknowledged that this language 
gives the Secretary discretion, they argued ``that discretion is to be 
used to determine the amount of the penalty up to $1,100 depending on 
the particular circumstances,'' rather than whether to assess a CMP at 
all. The Department does not see any inconsistency with its approach 
here. Effectively, the Department is exercising its discretion ``to 
determine the amount of the penalty . . . depending on the particular 
circumstances''; it has determined to assess a CMP of $0 for violations 
that are not repeated or willful. Section 216(e) also authorizes the 
Department to assess CMPs ``not to exceed'' a specified amount in the 
context of child labor, minimum wage, and overtime violations, and the 
Department has long used such discretion to determine the amount of 
penalties assessed in those areas. Unlike the CAA, however, those 
authorizations do not include the language ``as the Secretary 
determines appropriate.'' Therefore, the CAA language granting the 
Secretary discretion to determine the appropriateness of CMPs for 
violations of section 3(m)(2)(B) must refer to the Secretary's 
discretion to determine whether to assess CMPs at all.
    The Department in the 2019 NPRM proposed to explain in the 
regulations its intent to exercise its discretion by limiting the 
assessment of CMPs to repeated and willful violations of section 
3(m)(2)(B). Assessing CMPs only when an employer has repeatedly or 
willfully violated section 3(m)(2)(B), as opposed to doing so for a 
first-time violation, is consistent with how the Department enforces 
other FLSA wage violations. The Department has been assessing CMPs for 
repeated or willful violations of the minimum wage and overtime 
requirements of the FLSA using the guidelines in part 578 and 
procedures in part 580 for nearly three decades. This consistency of 
approach creates familiarity with the Department's requirements in both 
the public and in the Department's staff, in turn engendering 
consistency of compliance among employers and consistency in 
enforcement by the Department's staff, and ultimately improves public 
trust in the law and the Department's enforcement of it. For these 
reasons, the Department finalizes the revisions to the regulations at 
29 CFR 578.1, 578.4, 579.1, 580.2, 580.3, 580.12, and 580.18 as 
proposed.
    In addition to clarifying the circumstances under which it will 
seek CMPs, the Department proposed to revise 29 CFR 578.3 and 579.2 to 
clarify how it determines whether a violation is willful for purposes 
of assessing CMPs. See 84 FR 53964-65. As explained in the NPRM, the 
Department's definition of a ``willful'' violation in Sec. Sec.  578.3 
and 579.2 is based on McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. 128, 
133 (1988), which held that a violation is willful if the employer 
``knew or showed reckless disregard'' for whether its conduct was 
prohibited by the FLSA. Sections 578.3(c)(1) and 579.2 incorporate this 
holding and state that ``[a]ll of the facts and circumstances 
surrounding the violation shall be taken into account in determining 
whether a violation was willful.'' The Department proposed no changes 
to this language.
    Previous Sec. Sec.  578.3(c)(2) and (3) and 579.2 stated that ``an 
employer's conduct shall be deemed knowing'' if the employer received 
advice from WHD that its conduct is unlawful. These sections further 
stated that ``an employer's conduct shall be deemed to be in reckless 
disregard'' of the FLSA's requirements ``if the employer should have 
inquired further'' into whether its conduct complied with the FLSA 
``and failed to make adequate further inquiry.'' In the NPRM, the 
Department discussed concerns with this language that two appellate 
courts had identified. See 84 FR 53964-65 (discussing Rhea Lana, Inc. 
v. Dep't of Labor, 824 F.3d 1023, 1030-32 (D.C. Cir. 2016), and 
Baystate Alt. Staffing, Inc. v. Herman, 163 F.3d 668, 680-81 (1st Cir. 
1998)). Those courts noted the inconsistency between the regulation's 
language, on the one hand, that conduct ``shall be deemed knowing'' if 
the employer was previously advised by WHD that the conduct was 
unlawful, and its language, on the other hand, derived from Richland 
Shoe that WHD shall take into account ``[a]ll of the facts and 
circumstances surrounding the violation'' when determining willfulness. 
See id. The Department explained in the NPRM that it does evaluate all 
of the facts and circumstances surrounding a violation when litigating 
willfulness and that while an employer's receipt of advice from WHD 
that its conduct was unlawful can be sufficient to prove willfulness, 
notwithstanding the regulatory language that appears to be to the 
contrary, it would not necessarily be so. See 84 FR 53965. In light of 
the appellate courts' opinions and the Department's acknowledgement of 
how it litigates willfulness, the NPRM proposed to revise Sec. Sec.  
578.3(c)(2)-(3) and 579.2 to clarify that, in considering all of the 
facts and circumstances, an employer's receipt of advice from WHD that 
its conduct is unlawful and its failure to inquire further regarding 
the legality of its conduct are each ``a relevant fact and 
circumstance'' in determining willfulness. See 84 FR 53978.
    Some commenters supported the proposed revision. The Center for 
Workplace Compliance (CWC) explained that, under the proposal, ``advice 
from [WHD] about the lawfulness of conduct would be a relevant factor 
in determining willfulness, but would not automatically trigger the 
standard.'' CWC stated that the proposed revision ``more closely aligns 
with federal court precedent'' and is ``a more practical

[[Page 86774]]

interpretation that recognizes that employers should not be 
automatically subject to civil money penalties where legitimate 
questions exist concerning coverage of the FLSA.'' Fisher Phillips 
described the proposed revision as ``vague'' but asserted that ``there 
is [often] a legitimate dispute with the Department's position''--
suggesting that an employer's receipt of advice from WHD that its 
conduct was unlawful should not always mean that the violation was 
willful.
    Other commenters, such as Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and NELA, 
opposed the proposed revision. They described Sec.  578.3(c) as stating 
``longstanding, bright line rules'' that ``promote consistency in 
application and certainty for employers.'' They asserted that, ``in 
redefining willfulness, the Department is using the need to implement 
new worker protections in the FLSA as a pretext to weaken worker 
protections--in this case, far beyond the context of tipped 
occupations.'' They stated that the Department ``is misguided at best . 
. . to apply a vaguer, weaker standard to the new statutory provision 
at hand, and it is beyond the pale to apply the same proposal to 
minimum wage, overtime, and child labor standards that are not at issue 
in this rulemaking.'' They criticized the proposed revision as 
treating, in Texas RioGrande Legal Aid's words, ``an employer's 
decision to ignore advice from the Department as a mere factor to be 
considered rather than'' evidence that is ``sufficient'' to show that 
the violation was willful. Finally, NELA stated that the Department did 
not furnish adequate notice of its intent to change ``nontip'' portions 
of the regulations and that the NPRM's statement that Sec.  578.3(c) 
contradicts Supreme Court precedent was considered and rejected when it 
was promulgated in 1992.
    Having considered the comments, the Department adopts the proposed 
revisions with some modifications. The final rule revises Sec.  
578.3(c)(2) and corresponding language in Sec.  579.2 to state that, in 
considering all of the facts and circumstances, an employer's receipt 
of advice from WHD that its conduct was unlawful can be sufficient to 
show that the violation is willful but is not automatically 
dispositive. This revision addresses concerns raised by commenters that 
one fact should not automatically result in a violation being willful 
but that the fact identified in Sec.  578.3(c)(2) can be ``sufficient'' 
for a violation to be willful. In addition, the final rule deletes 
Sec.  578.3(c)(3) and corresponding language in Sec.  579.2. Upon 
further consideration, Sec.  578.3(c)(3) does not just identify a fact 
and address how that fact impacts a willfulness finding (like Sec.  
578.3(c)(2) does). Instead, it addresses a scenario--should have 
inquired further but did not do so adequately--that is tantamount to 
reckless disregard. See Davila v. Menendez, 717 F.3d 1179, 1185 (11th 
Cir. 2013). Accordingly, revising Sec.  578.3(c)(3) in the same manner 
as Sec.  578.3(c)(2) did not seem helpful, and retaining Sec.  
578.3(c)(3) without modifying it would not resolve the concerns raised 
by the appellate decisions discussed above.
    These modified revisions, including deleting Sec.  578.3(c)(3) and 
corresponding language in Sec.  579.2, resolve the tensions identified 
within the Department's regulations and with the Supreme Court's 
decision and comport more precisely with how the Department litigates 
willfulness than did the original proposed revisions. An employer's 
receipt of advice from WHD that its conduct is unlawful is a relevant, 
and may be a determining, factor regarding that employer's 
willfulness--but the law also requires examining all facts and 
circumstances surrounding the violation. Among other situations, proof 
that an employer should have inquired further into whether its conduct 
was in compliance with the Act and failed to make adequate further 
inquiry is only one indicium of reckless disregard. Finally, the 
Department gave adequate notice of its intent to revise Sec. Sec.  
578.3(c)(2)-(3) and 579.2, and the Rhea Lana and Baystate decisions 
give a sufficient basis for reconsidering its regulations on 
willfulness.

F. Additional Proposed Regulatory Revisions

    In the NPRM, the Department proposed to revise Sec.  531.50 to 
reflect the language that the CAA added to the FLSA. The Department 
also proposed to update Sec. Sec.  531.50, 531.51, 531.52, 531.55, 
531.56, 531.59, and 531.60 to reflect the new statutory citation to the 
FLSA's existing tip credit language, previously cited as section 3(m), 
as section 3(m)(2)(A). Additionally, the Department proposed to clarify 
references in Sec. Sec.  531.56(d), 531.59(a) and (b), and 531.60 to 
the amount an employer can take as a tip credit under current section 
3(m)(2)(A). The Department's regulations currently state that an 
employer can take a tip credit for each employee equal to the 
difference between the minimum wage required by section 6(a)(1) of the 
FLSA (currently $7.25 an hour) and $2.13 an hour. To ensure that the 
Department's regulations clearly state employers' obligations under the 
FLSA, the Department proposed to revise Sec. Sec.  531.56(d), 531.59(a) 
and (b), and 531.60 to state, consistent with the text of the statute, 
that the tip credit permitted by section 3(m)(2)(A) is equal to the 
difference between the Federal minimum wage and the cash wage paid by 
the employer. That cash wage must be at least $2.13 per hour, but the 
statute does not preclude an employer from paying more.
    The Department received little comment on these proposed regulatory 
revisions, which merely update the regulations to reflect the new 
statutory language and citations added by the CAA amendments and 
clarify other references consistent with the statutory text. 
Accordingly, the Department adopts as proposed the updates to 
Sec. Sec.  531.50, 531.51, 531.52, 531.55, 531.56, 531.59, and 531.60 
to reflect the new statutory citation to the FLSA's existing tip credit 
language, previously cited as section 3(m), as section 3(m)(2)(A) and 
to revise Sec.  531.50 to reflect the language that the CAA added to 
the FLSA. Additionally, the Department adopts as proposed the 
clarifying references in Sec. Sec.  531.56(d), 531.59(a) and (b), and 
531.60 to the amount an employer can take as a tip credit under section 
3(m)(2)(A).
    In the NPRM, the Department proposed to amend the tip language of 
its Executive Order 13658 regulations. Executive Order 13658 raised the 
hourly minimum wage paid by contractors to workers performing work on 
or in connection with covered Federal contracts. See E.O. 13658, 79 FR 
9851 (Feb. 12, 2014). The Executive order also established a tip credit 
for workers covered by the Order who are tipped employees pursuant to 
section 3(t) of the FLSA. Section 4(c) of the Executive Order 
encourages the Department, when promulgating regulations under that 
Order, to incorporate existing ``definitions, procedures, remedies, and 
enforcement processes'' from a number of laws that the agency enforces, 
including the FLSA, and the Department's current Executive Order 13658 
regulations are modeled after the Department's current FLSA tip 
regulations. The Department proposed to amend Sec.  10.28, consistent 
with its proposed rescissions to portions of the Department's FLSA 
regulations, to remove restrictions on an employer's use of 
nontraditional tip pools and to otherwise align those regulations with 
the authority in the Executive Order. The Department also proposed to 
amend Sec.  10.28, consistent with its proposed revisions to Sec.  
531.56(e), to reflect its current guidance on when an employee

[[Page 86775]]

performing non-tipped work constitutes a tipped employee for the 
purposes of 3(t). The Department received few comments on the proposal 
to amend Sec.  10.28. The Center for Workplace Compliance indicated 
that they ``support DOL's corresponding revisions to the regulations 
implementing the federal contractor minimum wage.'' The Department 
continues to believe that since many Federal contractors also are 
subject to the FLSA regulations proposed, it is important to align the 
corresponding regulations in part 10. Accordingly, in this final rule 
the Department adopts Sec.  10.28 as proposed, with these exceptions: 
As with the fourth sentence in Sec.  531.56(e)(2), the Department 
replaces the phrase ``amount of time'' in the fourth sentence of Sec.  
10.28(b)(2)(ii) with ``hours,'' so that sentence as adopted reads: ``An 
employer may take a tip credit for any hours that an employee performs 
related, non-tipped duties contemporaneously with his or her tipped 
duties, or for a reasonable time immediately before or after performing 
the tipped duties.'' Additionally, as with the changes to Sec.  
531.56(e)(3), the Department adds the phrase ``presumed to be'' in two 
locations in Sec.  10.28(b)(2)(iii).
    The Department attempted to use gender-neutral phrasing in its 
proposed regulations. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid appreciated the 
Department's efforts but noted some omissions. In response, the 
Department has made revisions to Sec. Sec.  531.54(a) and 531.56(a), 
(c), and (e) to make these sections gender-neutral.
    Finally, in this final rule the Department corrects a typographical 
error in the NPRM, identified by the NFIB. In the authority section of 
the regulatory text, the Department corrects the authority to cite 
Title 5, not Title 4. The Department also corrects an additional 
typographical error in Sec.  10.28(b)(2)(iii) referencing examples 
described in paragraph (b)(2)(ii).

IV. Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq., 
and its attendant regulations, 5 CFR part 1320, require the Department 
to consider the impact of paperwork and other information collection 
burdens imposed on the public. This final rule will revise the existing 
information collection burden estimates previously approved under OMB 
control number 1235-0018 (Records to be Kept by Employers--Fair Labor 
Standards Act) because employers may choose to pay the full Federal 
minimum wage and not take a tip credit, and collect tips to operate an 
employer-required, mandatory tip pooling arrangement, thereby 
triggering the new recordkeeping requirement in Sec.  516.28(b).
    In accordance with the PRA, the Department solicited comments on 
the FLSA information collections in the NPRM published October 8, 2019, 
see 84 FR 53956, as the NPRM was expected to impact these collections. 
44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2). The Department also submitted a contemporaneous 
request for OMB review of the proposed revisions to the FLSA 
information collections, in accordance with 44 U.S.C. 3507(d). The 
Department opened OMB control number 1235-0NEW for this action and OMB 
assigned control number 1235-0030 for this action.\16\ As the PRA 
requires, the Department submitted the information collection revisions 
to OMB for review to reflect changes that would result from this final 
rule. The Department reports a slight burden increase for employers 
keeping records concerning employees who receive tips. OMB asked the 
Department to resubmit the information collection request upon 
promulgation of the final rule and after considering public comments on 
the proposed rule.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \16\ The NPRM for this final rule cited 1235-0NEW as the OMB 
control number for revising information collection burdens 
previously approved under control number 1235-0018. A different 
control number was needed for this action because a revision of 
1235-0018 was already under review for another of the Department's 
rulemakings. The creation of a new control number allowed OMB to 
process this action. On December 10, 2019, OMB issued a notice of 
action assigning new control number 1235-0030. Upon conclusion of 
this action by OMB, the Department will submit a nonsubstantive 
change request to combine the control numbers 1235-0018 with 1235-
0030.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Circumstances Necessitating Collection: FLSA section 11(c) requires 
covered employers to make, keep, and preserve records of employees and 
their wages, hours, and other conditions of employment, as prescribed 
by regulation. The Department's regulations at 29 CFR part 516 
establish the basic FLSA recordkeeping requirements. Section 516.28(a) 
currently requires employers to keep certain records concerning tipped 
employees for whom the employer takes a tip credit under the FLSA. 
Among other things, Sec.  516.28(a) requires that the employer identify 
each employee for whom the employer takes a tip credit, identify the 
hourly tip credit for each such employee, and maintain records 
regarding the weekly or monthly amount of tips received (which may 
consist of IRS Form 4070) as reported by the employee to the employer. 
The new recordkeeping regulations found at Sec.  516.28(b)(1) and (2) 
require an employer that does not take a tip credit, but that collects 
employees' tips to operate a mandatory tip pooling arrangement, to 
indicate on its pay records each employee who receives tips and to 
maintain records of the weekly or monthly amount of tips that each such 
employee receives (this may consist of reports that the employees make 
to the employer on IRS Form 4070). The increase in the number of 
respondents and, accordingly, the burden hours associated with records 
to be kept under Sec.  516.28(b)(1)-(2), is attributable to an 
expanding economy increasing the number of establishments employing 
individuals who receive tips since the last PRA revision of this 
recordkeeping requirement.
    Public Comments: The Department sought public comments regarding 
the burdens imposed by information collections contained in the NPRM. 
The Department received few comments relevant to the PRA. The 
Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry expressed support for the 
Sec.  516.28 requirement ``that employers who take a tip credit must 
record which employees are tipped employees.''
    An agency may not conduct an information collection unless it has a 
currently valid OMB approval, and the Department submitted the 
identified information-collection contained in the NPRM to OMB for 
review under the PRA for control number 1235-0030. See 44 U.S.C. 
3507(d); 5 CFR 1320.11. The Department has resubmitted the revised FLSA 
information collections to OMB for approval, and intends to publish a 
notice announcing OMB's decision regarding this information collection 
request. A copy of the information collection request can be obtained 
at http://www.reginfo.gov or by contacting the Wage and Hour Division 
as shown in the For Further Information Contact section of this 
preamble.
    Total annual burden estimates, which reflect both the existing and 
new responses for the recordkeeping information collection, are 
summarized as follows:
    Type of Review: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Agency: Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor.
    Title: Records to be Kept by Employers--Fair Labor Standards Act.
    OMB Control Number: 1235-0030.
    Affected Public: Private Sector: Businesses or other for-profits, 
farms, and not-for-profit institutions; State, local and tribal 
governments; and individuals or households.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 3,763,890 (29,296 from this 
rulemaking).

[[Page 86776]]

    Estimated Number of Responses: 43,709,493 (703,104 from this 
rulemaking).
    Estimated Burden Hours: 983,359 hours (1,953 from this rulemaking).
    Estimated Time per Response: Various (unaffected by this 
rulemaking).
    Frequency: Various (unaffected by this rulemaking).
    Other Burden Cost: $0.

V. Analysis Conducted in Accordance With Executive Order 12866, 
Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 13563, Improved 
Regulation and Regulatory Review

A. Introduction

    Under Executive Order 12866, OMB's Office of Information and 
Regulatory Affairs determines whether a regulatory action is 
significant and, therefore, subject to the requirements of the 
Executive Order and OMB review.\17\ Section 3(f) of Executive Order 
12866 defines a ``significant regulatory action'' as an action that is 
likely to result in a rule that: (1) Has an annual effect on the 
economy of $100 million or more, or adversely affects in a material way 
a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the 
environment, public health or safety, or state, local or tribal 
governments or communities (also referred to as economically 
significant); (2) creates serious inconsistency or otherwise interferes 
with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) materially 
alters the budgetary impacts of entitlement grants, user fees, or loan 
programs, or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or (4) 
raises novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the 
President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the Executive 
order. Because the annual effect of this rule would be greater than 
$100 million, this rule is economically significant under section 3(f) 
of Executive Order 12866.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \17\ 58 FR 51735 (Sept. 30, 1993).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Executive Order 13563 directs agencies to propose or adopt a 
regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify 
its costs; that it is tailored to impose the least burden on society, 
consistent with achieving the regulatory objectives; and that, in 
choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, the agency has 
selected the approaches that maximize net benefits. Executive Order 
13563 recognizes that some benefits are difficult to quantify and 
states that, when appropriate and permitted by law, agencies may 
consider and discuss qualitatively values that are difficult or 
impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and 
distributive impacts.

B. Economic Analysis

i. Introduction
    In March 2018, Congress amended section 3(m) and sections 16(b), 
(c), and (e) of the FLSA to prohibit employers from keeping their 
employees' tips, to permit recovery of tips that an employer unlawfully 
keeps, and to suspend the operations of the portions of the 2011 final 
rule that restricted tip pooling when employers do not take a tip 
credit. This analysis examines the economic impact associated with the 
Department's implementation of those amendments. Specifically, it 
examines the possible transfers resulting from employers who implement 
a new nontraditional tip pool that includes ``back-of-the-house'' 
employees (i.e., janitors, chefs, dishwashers, and food-preparation 
workers) who formerly either did not claim a tip credit and previously 
did not have a mandatory tip pool, or who only had a traditional tip 
pool limited to ``front-of-the-house'' employees. The Department is 
also amending its ``dual jobs'' regulation to replace the 80/20 
approach with the updated related duties test. The Department 
qualitatively discusses potential economic impacts of this update but 
does not quantify them due to lack of data and the wide range of 
possible responses by market actors that cannot be predicted with 
specificity. Commentators provided neither needed data nor a reliable 
quantitative estimate of economic impacts that the Department could 
use. The Department quantified rule familiarization costs and 
qualitatively discusses additional costs, cost savings, and benefits. 
To perform the quantitative analysis, the Department compared the 
impact relative to a pre-statutory baseline (i.e., before Congress 
amended the FLSA in March 2018). If the Department were to look at 
economic impacts relative to a post-statutory baseline, there would 
likely be no impact of the tip pooling aspect of the final rule, aside 
from rule familiarization costs, as the transfers arise from the 
changes put forth in the statute.
    The economic analysis covers employees in two industries and in two 
occupations within those industries. The two industries are classified 
under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) as 
722410 (Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)) and 722511 (Full-service 
Restaurants); referred to in this analysis as ``restaurants and 
drinking places.'' The two occupations are classified under Bureau of 
Labor Statistics (BLS) Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes 
SOC 35-3031 (Waiters and Waitresses) and SOC 35-3011 (Bartenders).\18\ 
The Department understands that there are other occupations beyond 
servers and bartenders with tipped workers, such as SOC 35-9011 (Dining 
room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers), SOC 35-9031 
(Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop), and others, 
as well as other industries that employ workers who receive tips, such 
as NAICS 722515 (snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars), NAICS 722513 
(limited service restaurants), NAICS 721110 (hotels and motels), and 
NAICS 713210 (casinos). Nonetheless, the Department concentrates its 
analysis on the above two occupations because they constitute a large 
percentage of total tipped workers and more than half (56.5 percent) of 
the workers in these occupations receive tips (see Table 1 for shares 
of workers in these occupations who report receiving tips).
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    \18\ In the Current Population Survey, these occupations 
correspond to Bartenders (Census Code 4040) and Waiters and 
Waitresses (Census Code 4110). The industries correspond to 
Restaurants and Other Food Services (Census Code 8680) and Drinking 
Places, Alcoholic Beverages (Census Code 8690).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The analysis presents its estimates over a 10-year time horizon. 
When summarizing the costs and transfers of the rule, the Department 
presents the first year's impact, as well as the 10-year annualized 
costs and transfers with 3 percent and 7 percent discounting.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \19\ Discount rates are directed by OMB. See Circular A-4, OMB 
(Sept. 17, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Since the Department's analysis relies on data collected before 
2020, it reflects the state of the economy prior to the COVID-19 
pandemic. The Department acknowledges that data on tipped workers will 
possibly look different following the economic effects of the pandemic, 
and discusses potential effects here.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the restaurant industry 
and tipped workers. The unemployment rate for the Food Services and 
Drinking Places industry jumped from 5.7 percent in February 2020 to 
35.4 percent in April 2020. Although the rate has fallen by more than 
half of its peak, 16.4 percent of these workers were still unemployed 
as of September 2020.\20\ Even as restaurants begin to reopen across 
the nation, and tipped workers return to their jobs, uncertainty exists

[[Page 86777]]

regarding the long-term impacts. Even in areas with limited pandemic-
related restrictions, business may be affected as some customers may 
remain reluctant to eat at restaurants due to the pandemic. As a 
result, employers may not be hiring or staffing at pre-pandemic levels, 
at least in the near term. In a survey of full service restaurant 
operators conducted by the National Restaurant Association from August 
26 through September 1, 2020, staffing plans were mixed--26 percent of 
operators said they plan to add employees and 25 percent said they plan 
to lay off or furlough employees.\21\ During the short term, as the 
economic effects of the pandemic linger, the labor market for tipped 
workers will be less predictable, and aggregate tips may be reduced, 
though the amount of tips per employee may or may not be impacted. 
Because unemployment in tipped industries is still higher than it was 
at the beginning of the year, the transfer estimate for the first year 
of the RIA's time horizon could be reduced. The Department lacks data 
to determine how much the transfer estimate will be reduced, and 
believes that this effect will be temporary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \20\ BLS Current Population Survey, https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04034262/?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&include_graphs=true.
    \21\ National Restaurant Association, Restaurant Employment 
Recovery is in Danger of Stalling, Sept. 4, 2020, https://restaurant.org/articles/news/restaurant-employment-recovery-is-in-danger.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department acknowledges these changes in the industry but 
believes that the justifications for the Rule remain as strong as--if 
not more so than--before the pandemic. More flexibility in compensation 
and labor allocation will help businesses retain workers and maintain 
capacity. Further, the increased cooperation and efficiency that the 
final rule promotes will help businesses maintain quality of service--
and therefore support tipped-employee compensation and provide 
increased certainty to tipped workers--at a time when the industry as a 
whole is struggling.
ii. Estimated Transfers
    Under this regulation, transfers could arise when employers that 
already pay the full Federal minimum wage and previously did not have a 
mandatory tip pool or had only a traditional tip pool institute 
nontraditional tip pools in which tipped employees, such as servers and 
bartenders, are required to share tips with employees who do not 
customarily and regularly receive tips, such as cooks and dishwashers. 
The Department believes that including back-of-the-house workers in tip 
pools could help promote cooperation and collaboration among employees. 
This increased cooperation and flexibility could lead to Pareto 
improvement: Efficiencies that allow employers to engage in tip-pooling 
without decreasing wages for anyone while increasing wages for some. 
However, even in the event that tip-pooling requires a transfer from 
the front-of-the-house, directly observable transfers will mainly occur 
among employees because the statute prohibits employers from keeping 
employee tips.
    It is possible that there will be subsequent transfers after the 
initial tip pooling and redistribution takes place. Because back-of-
the-house workers could now be receiving tips, employers may offset 
this increase in total compensation by reducing the direct wage that 
they pay back-of-the-house workers (as long as employers do not reduce 
the employees' direct wages below the applicable minimum wage), and 
such an outcome is what is modeled to produce the quantitative estimate 
of transfers. However, there are reasons to believe this may not be 
common in practice. Consider a pastry chef currently making $20 per 
hour. The Department assumes that, in practice, this established wage 
would restrict an employer's ability to reduce the total compensation 
wage (i.e., wages plus pooled tips) below that rate. The chef, who last 
year was paid $20 per hour in Georgia, could in theory, with this rule, 
have her direct wage reduced to the Federal minimum wage of $7.25, with 
tip pooling adding to that wage and bringing the total take-home to 
near or above $20. However, even if the pooled tips amounted to $15 per 
hour, the minimum wage would prevent the employer from reducing her 
direct wage to $5. If pooled tips account for only $3 per hour on 
average, it is unlikely the employer would be able to reduce her hourly 
wage rate below $17, more than twice as much as is allowed by law, 
because of the market effects impacting wages.
    A number of commenters raised the prospect that employers could use 
tip pooling to ultimately transfer tips to themselves by reducing the 
base wages of back-of-the-house workers since those workers would now 
be earning tips to offset the wage reduction. However, employers in 
states that permit tip credits--which is a majority of states--may 
already transfer to themselves up to the full amount of the tip credit 
(up to $5.12 per hour) directly from front-of-the-house workers without 
first initiating a system of tip pooling for back-of-the-house workers 
by taking the credit and paying those front-of-the-house workers the 
lower direct cash wage (at least $2.13 per hour).
    The analysis assumes that employers will institute nontraditional 
tip pools with employees who do not customarily and regularly receive 
tips only in situations that are beneficial to them. Accordingly, it 
assumes that employers will include back-of-the-house employees in 
their tip pools only if they believe that they can do so without losing 
their front-of-the-house staff and without reducing the overall quality 
of the customer experience. To attract and retain the tipped workers 
that they need, employers must pay these workers as much as their 
``outside option,'' which is the hourly earnings that they could 
receive from another employer in a non-tipped job with a similar skill 
level requirement to their current position. For each tipped worker, 
the Department assumes a transfer could occur only if their total 
earnings, including tips, is greater than the predicted outside-option 
wage from a non-tipped job. While the Department identified serious 
methodological faults with a commenter's outside option analyses, which 
are discussed later in this document, the approach comports in 
principle to expected market behavior, and therefore the Department 
built an outside option calculation into this analysis to frame the 
potential upper bound of total transfers.
    The transfer calculation herein excludes workers who are paid a 
direct cash wage below the full FLSA minimum wage of $7.25, because 
under the amended statute and the Department's rule, employers who take 
a tip credit are still subject to section 3(m)(2)(A)'s restrictions on 
tip pools. Some employers may begin paying their tipped workers a 
direct cash wage of at least the full FLSA minimum wage to institute a 
tip pool with back-of-the-house workers. The potential transfer due to 
this scenario is not quantified due to uncertainty regarding how many 
employers would choose to no longer use the tip credit. Choosing to no 
longer take a tip credit would require a change to employers' payroll 
systems and methods of compensation to which employers and employees 
are accustomed, and it would increase the employers' out of pocket 
payroll expenses, both of which could discourage employers from making 
this change.
    The transfer calculation also excludes workers who are paid a 
direct cash wage by their employers, exclusive of any tips received, 
that exceeds the applicable minimum wage (either the Federal or 
applicable state minimum wage). The Department assumes that because 
these employers are already paying more than required under applicable 
law for these

[[Page 86778]]

workers, any reduction in compensation would result in these workers 
leaving that employment. These employees would therefore not have their 
tips redistributed through a nontraditional tip pool.
    The Department does not attempt to definitively interpret 
individual states' laws. However, some servers and bartenders work in 
states that either prohibit mandatory tip pooling or impose stricter 
limits on who can participate in a mandatory tip pool than are in this 
rule,\22\ or in states in the Tenth Circuit where, as a result of 
Marlow, 861 F.3d at 1159, employers that do not take a tip credit were 
already permitted to institute nontraditional tip pools at the time 
Congress amended the FLSA. The transfer estimate excludes tipped 
employees in these states whom the changes in this rule may not 
affect.\23\ The Department first determined total transfers for all 
servers and bartenders using the method described above. The Department 
then excluded workers whom the changes would not affect due to their 
respective state laws. Finally, the Department further reduced the 
total transfer amount to account for the uncertain number of employers 
who are expected to decline to change their tip pooling practices 
because it will require changes to practices to which employers and 
employees are accustomed, including payroll and recordkeeping changes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \22\ See, e.g., Minn. Stat. sec. 177.24, subd. 3 (``No employer 
may require an employee to contribute or share a gratuity received 
by the employee with the employer or other employees or to 
contribute any or all of the gratuity to a fund or pool operated for 
the benefit of the employer or employees.''); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 
149, sec. 152A(c) (``No employer or person shall cause, require or 
permit any wait staff employee, service employee, or service 
bartender to participate in a tip pool through which such employee 
remits any wage, tip or service charge, or any portion thereof, for 
distribution to any person who is not a wait staff employee, service 
employee, or service bartender.'')
    \23\ Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, 
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New 
York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    To compute potential tip transfers, the Department used individual-
level microdata from the 2017 Current Population Survey (CPS), a 
monthly survey of about 60,000 households that is jointly sponsored by 
the U.S. Census Bureau and BLS. Households are surveyed for four 
months, excluded from the survey for eight months, surveyed for an 
additional four months, and then permanently dropped from the sample. 
During the last month of each rotation in the sample (month 4 and month 
16), employed respondents complete a supplementary questionnaire in 
addition to the regular survey. These households and questions form the 
CPS Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG) and give more detailed 
information about those surveyed.\24\ Because the CAA went into effect 
in March 2018, the Department used CPS data from 2017, the most recent 
full year of data that predates the CAA, to calculate the transfer. In 
this analysis, 2017 wage data are inflated to 2019 dollars using the 
GDP deflator. For purposes of rule familiarization costs, the 
Department used the most recent year of data (2019) to reflect 
employers reading the rule after it is published.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \24\ See Current Population Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/surveys/cps.html (last visited Aug. 13, 2019); CPS 
Merged Outgoing Rotation Groups, NBER, http://www.nber.org//.html 
(last visited Aug. 13, 2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The CPS asks respondents whether they usually receive overtime pay, 
tips, and commissions (OTTC), which allows the Department to estimate 
the number of bartenders and wait staff in restaurants and drinking 
places who receive tips.\25\ CPS data are not available separately for 
overtime pay, tips, and commissions, but the Department assumes very 
few bartenders and wait staff at restaurants and drinking places 
receive commissions, and the number who receive overtime pay but not 
tips is also assumed to be minimal.\26\ Therefore, when bartenders and 
wait staff responded affirmatively to this question, the Department 
assumed that they receive tips. Based on CPS data, the Department 
identified 2,546 observations (unique data points), which based on the 
survey's methodology represent 2.2 million individuals, of respondents 
claiming to fall in the two categories of Waiters and Bartenders. The 
number of observations decreases as the analysis refines the universe 
of applicable employees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \25\ This question is asked only of hourly employees and 
nonhourly workers are consequently excluded from the transfer 
estimate. The Department did not quantify transfers from nonhourly 
workers because without knowing the prevalence of tipped income 
among nonhourly workers, the Department cannot accurately estimate 
potential transfers from these workers. However, the Department 
believes the transfer from nonhourly workers will be small because 
only 13 percent of wait staff and bartenders in restaurants and 
drinking places are nonhourly workers, whom the Department believes 
may have a lower probability of receiving tips.
    \26\ According to BLS Current Population Survey data, in 2017, 
workers in service occupations worked an average of 35 hours per 
week. See https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2017/cpsaat23.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    All data tables in this analysis include estimates for the year 
2017 as the baseline. To identify the relevant population, the 
Department removed from the analysis workers who do not receive tips. 
Table 1 presents the estimates of the share of bartenders and wait 
staff in restaurants and drinking places who reported that they usually 
earned OTTC in 2017. Approximately 64 percent of bartenders and 55 
percent of wait staff reported usually earning OTTC in 2017. These 
numbers include workers in all states, including states where the 
changes in this rule are assumed not to affect. These numbers also 
include workers who are paid a direct cash wage below the full FLSA 
minimum wage of $7.25 (that is, employees whose employers are using a 
tip credit). Both these populations are excluded from the transfer 
calculation. Only 56.5 percent of workers in these occupations report 
earning tips, which may be low and could result in an underestimation 
of transfers. The Department did not adjust for this possibility 
because it lacked the data to do so and also estimates there is 
sufficient downward pressure on the total transfer estimate due to 
other factors that were not adjusted for. Discussions of these can be 
found in section V.B.ii (Estimated Transfers and Outside-Option Wage 
Calculation).

 Table 1--Share of Bartenders and Waiters/Waitresses in Restaurants and Drinking Places Who Earned Overtime Pay,
                                              Tips, or Commissions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                     Workers            Report earning OTTC
                                                                  responding to  -------------------------------
                  Occupation                     Total workers     question on
                                                   (millions)          OTTC           Workers         Percent
                                                                    (millions)      (millions)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.........................................             2.21             1.92            1.08            56.5
Bartenders....................................             0.34             0.27            0.17            63.5

[[Page 86779]]

 
Waiters/Waitresses............................             1.88             1.65            0.91            55.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: CEPR, 2017 CPS-MORG.
Occupations: Bartenders (Census Code 4040) and Waiters and Waitresses (Census Code 4110).
Industries: Restaurants and other food services (Census Code 8680) and Drinking places, alcoholic beverages
  (Census Code 8690).

    Of the 1.08 million bartenders and wait staff who receive OTTC, 
only 688,000 reported the amount received in OTTC. Therefore, the 
Department imputed OTTC for those workers who did not report the amount 
received in OTTC. As shown in Table 2, 54 percent of bartenders' 
earnings (an average of $281 per week) and 49 percent of waiters' and 
waitresses' earnings (an average of $238 per week) were from overtime 
pay, tips, and commissions in 2017. For workers who reported receiving 
tips but did not report the amount, the ratio of OTTC to total earnings 
for the sample who reported their OTTC amounts (54 or 49 percent) was 
applied to their weekly total income to estimate weekly tips. Nonhourly 
workers, who are not asked the question on receipt of OTTC, are assumed 
to not be tipped employees.

  Table 2--Portion of Income From Overtime Pay, Tips, and Commissions for Bartenders and Waiters/Waitresses in
                                         Restaurants and Drinking Places
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                           Those who report the amount earned in OTTC
                                              ------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                    Percent of
                  Occupation                                     Average weekly   Average weekly     earnings
                                                   Workers          earnings           OTTC        attributable
                                                                                                      to OTTC
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total........................................          688,171           $486.95         $244.48              50
Bartenders...................................          105,787            521.51          280.61              54
Waiters/Waitresses...........................          582,384            480.67          237.91              49
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: CEPR, 2017 CPS-MORG, inflated to $2019 using the GDP deflator.
Occupations: Bartenders (Census Code 4040) and Waiters and Waitresses (Census Code 4110).
Industries: Restaurants and other food services (Census Code 8680) and Drinking places, alcoholic beverages
  (Census Code 8690).

1. Outside-Option Wage Calculation
    As discussed above, to determine potential transfers of tips, the 
Department assumes that employers will redistribute tips from tipped 
employees to employees who are not customarily and regularly tipped in 
a nontraditional tip pool only if the tipped employee's total earnings, 
including the tips the employee retains, are greater than the 
``outside-option wage'' that the tipped employee could earn in a non-
tipped job. To model a worker's outside-option wage, the Department 
used quantile regression analysis to attempt to predict the wage that 
these workers would earn in a non-tipped job. Hourly wage was regressed 
on age, age squared, age cubed, education, gender, race, ethnicity, 
citizenship, marital status, veteran status, metro area status, and 
state for a sample of non-tipped workers.\27\ The Department restricted 
the regression sample to workers earning at least the Federal minimum 
wage of $7.25 per hour (inclusive of OTTC), and those who are employed. 
This analysis excludes states where the law prohibits non-tipped back-
of-the-house employees from being included in the tip pool and states 
governed by the Marlow decision.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \27\ For workers who had missing values for one or more of these 
explanatory variables we imputed the missing value as the average 
value for tipped/non-tipped workers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In calculating the outside-option wage for tipped workers, the 
Department developed a model that defined the comparator sample for 
tipped workers in two different ways: (1) All non-tipped workers (i.e., 
workers who are either not waiters, waitresses, or bartenders, or do 
not work in restaurants or drinking places), and (2) Non-tipped workers 
in a set of occupations that are likely to represent outside options. 
The Department selected the list of relevant occupations by exploring 
the similarity between the knowledge, activities, skills, and abilities 
required by the occupation to that of servers and bartenders. The 
Department searched the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) system 
for occupations that share important similarities with waiters and 
waitresses and bartenders--the occupations had to require ``customer 
and personal service'' knowledge and ``service orientation'' 
skills.\28\ The list was further reduced by eliminating occupations 
that are not comparable to the waitress and bartender occupations in 
terms of education and training, as waiter and waitress and bartender 
occupations do not require formal education or

[[Page 86780]]

training.\29\ See Appendix Table 1 for a list of these occupations.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \28\ For a full list of all occupations on O*NET, see https://www.onetcenter.org/taxonomy/2010/updated.html.
    \29\ Approximately 14 percent of waiters and waitresses and 16 
percent of bartenders have college degrees, even though a degree is 
not generally required to obtain such positions. According to 
research, the degree itself may carry an earnings premium for these 
workers. Therefore, excluding outside option occupations based on 
education attainment inflates the transfer estimates produced from 
this analysis because it compares these workers to artificially 
suppressed wage alternatives (e.g., only those positions for which 
at least this 14 percent of servers would be over-qualified). 
However, since in most cases servers and bartenders are not required 
to have degrees, and it is unclear the degree to which including 
additional occupations in the outside option pool may skew the 
results, the Department opted to exclude these comparator 
occupations and simply highlight this fact here. BLS data on the 
share of workers with bachelor's degrees working in jobs that only 
require a high school diploma are presented in a study by Vedder, 
R., Denhart, C., and Robe, J. (2013), available here: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED539373.
    \30\ The Appendix and data tables are included in the rulemaking 
docket at www.regulations.gov.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The transfer estimates presented in this analysis use this sample 
of limited occupations to predict each tipped worker's outside-option 
wage, that is, the wage that the tipped worker could earn in a non-
tipped job. The Department also ran the regression to predict the 
outside-option wage using all non-tipped workers as the outside-option 
sample, and found that transfers are approximately 30 percent lower in 
that specification. This implies that the resulting transfer estimate 
is likely a significant overestimate.
    The regression calculates a distribution of outside-option wages 
for each worker. The Department considered two methods: (1) Using the 
50th percentile and (2) using the same percentile for each worker as 
they currently earn in the distribution of wages for wait staff and 
bartenders in restaurants and drinking places in the state where they 
live.\31\ The second method accounts for the fact that two workers may 
have the exact same characteristics (age, race, education, etc.), but 
one worker may have a higher or lower outside-option wage because he or 
she is a more or less effective employee. This method assumes that a 
worker's position in the wage distribution for wait staff and 
bartenders in restaurants and drinking places reflects his or her 
position in the wage distribution for the outside-option occupations. 
The Department believes this method is more appropriate than the 50th 
percentile method.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \31\ Because of the uncertainty in the estimate of the 
percentile ranking of the worker's current wage, the Department used 
the midpoint percentile for workers in each decile. For example, 
workers whose current wage was estimated to be in the zero to tenth 
percentile range were assigned the predicted fifth percentile 
outside-option wage, those with wages estimated to be in the 
eleventh to twentieth percentile were assigned the predicted 
fifteenth percentile outside-option wage, etc.
    \32\ The 50th percentile method results in a higher transfer 
estimate ($176 million, compared to $109 million).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    To calculate the outside option wage, the Department first 
calculated the hourly wage decile (including tips) for each of the 
tipped workers identified above (i.e., in a tipped occupation/industry 
and report earning OTTC), relative to other tipped workers.\33\ Second, 
the Department ran quantile regressions of the hourly wages of workers 
in non-tipped occupations that are similar to the tipped workers' 
occupations (Appendix Table 1). The regressions controlled for state 
dummy variables, education level, sex, age, race, citizenship status, 
marital status, veteran status, and metropolitan area status. Workers 
reporting an hourly wage with overtime, tips, and commissions of less 
than $7.25 were excluded from this analysis.\34\ The regression results 
are included in Appendix A. Third, based on the regression estimates, 
the Department calculated a predicted wage in a non-tipped occupation 
for each worker in a tipped occupation, for each of the ten deciles. 
The Department then used the predicted wage from the decile regression 
applicable to each tipped worker (i.e., based on his or her wage 
percentile) as his or her outside wage. Lastly, for the workers in 
tipped occupations, the Department removed some that did not have 
applicable data, including workers as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \33\ All workers in tipped occupations/industries earning at 
least $7.25/hour when including tips were broken into deciles. This 
sample included about 1,500 observations (representing approximately 
1.3 million workers) in the non-excluded states.
    \34\ The quantile regressions using non-tipped workers in 
comparable occupations included 21,086 observations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Without wage data,
     with negative or zero tips (after removing overtime pay),
     with hourly wages including tips less than or equal to 
than their outside option wage, and
     with hourly wages including tips less than the state 
minimum wage.
    After making these exclusions, the analysis includes 237 
observations.\35\ Upon adjusting the universe of observations for 
employees who report earning tips, residing in states that may be 
impacted by this rule, individuals reporting wages lower than the 
applicable minimum wage, and those reporting wages higher than the 
minimum wage, only 37 observations remain, representing 24,743 
workers.\36\ The Department does not know the degree to which the 
reduced sample size may impact the findings of its analysis. 
Nonetheless, the Department remains confident that the outside option 
calculation is of sufficient merit to retain it in the analysis, 
insofar as it is instructive in setting an approximate upper bound for 
the potential total transfers due to tip pooling.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \35\ Based on the original CPS methodology, these observations 
were calculated to represent 205,170 individuals. Due to the 
subsequent calculations conducted in this analysis, the Department 
remains confident in its findings but recognizes methodological 
constraints may impact the ability to extrapolate the findings 
across the originally representative universe with as much accuracy.
    \36\ The same constraints apply to this extrapolation as 
described in the previous footnote, to an even greater degree.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), in their comment, 
asserted that the assumptions used to calculate the Department's 
outside option were flawed because they do not account for the search 
and travel costs that an employee would incur when deciding to change 
jobs. According to IPI, this caused the Department to overestimate the 
value of the outside-option wage for affected workers, leading to an 
underestimate in the overall size of the transfer. The Department 
acknowledges that search and travel costs are part of an employee's 
decision to leave his or her current job, but believes these costs to 
be relatively minimal (due to being time-limited) and highly variable 
from employee to employee and location to location. The Department does 
not have data to estimate these and other highly individualized costs 
employees might face in considering their outside option nor does the 
commenter provide or address them. Instead, the Department's outside 
option regression controls for location and other factors that may 
relate to differences in these costs.
2. Per Worker Transfer Calculation
    After determining each tipped worker's outside-option wage, the 
Department calculated the potential transferrable tips as the lesser of 
the following four numbers:
    A. The positive differential between a worker's current earnings 
(wage plus tips) and his or her predicted outside-option wage,
    B. The positive differential between a worker's current earnings 
and the state minimum wage,
    C. The total tips earned by the worker, or
    D. Zero if the worker currently earns a direct cash wage above the 
full applicable minimum wage.
    The second number is included for cases where the outside-option 
wage predicted by the analysis is below the

[[Page 86781]]

state minimum wage, because the worker will not earn less than his or 
her applicable state minimum wage. The third number is included because 
the maximum potential tips that can be transferred from an employee 
cannot be greater than his or her total tips. Total tips for each 
worker were calculated from the OTTC variable in the CPS data. For 
hourly-paid workers, the Department subtracted predicted overtime pay 
to better estimate total tips.\37\ For workers who reported receiving 
overtime, tips, and commissions, but did not report the amount they 
earned, the Department applied the ratio of tipped earnings to total 
earnings for all waiters and waitresses and bartenders in their state 
(see Table 2).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \37\ Predicted overtime pay is calculated as (1.5 x base wage) x 
weekly hours worked over 40.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department set the transfer to zero if the worker currently 
earns a direct cash wage above the full applicable minimum wage. If the 
employer is paying a tipped employee a direct cash wage above the 
required full minimum wage, this indicates the wage is set at the 
market clearing wage and any reduction in the wage (e.g., by requiring 
tips to be transferred to back-of-the-house workers) would cause the 
employee to quit and look for other work commensurate with the value 
they provide. Therefore, where an employer is paying a tipped employee 
above the full applicable minimum wage, the Department assumes the 
employer would generally not require the employee to contribute tips to 
a nontraditional tip pool.
    The Department includes an example to demonstrate how the outside 
option and the hourly transfers are calculated. Suppose a worker, with 
tips, earns $16.82 per hour. She earns a direct cash wage of $8.33 per 
hour, which is the relevant state minimum wage (both values adjusted to 
2019 dollars using the GDP deflator), and $8.49 per hour in tips. The 
outside option wage for her wage decile is $15.44. We then calculate 
the following values:

 Hourly wage ($16.82) minus state minimum wage ($8.33): $8.49
 hourly wage ($16.82) minus outside option wage ($15.44): $1.38
 hourly tips ($16.82 minus $8.33): $8.49

    The lesser of these three numbers is $1.38 per hour; therefore, 
hourly transfers are determined to be $1.38.
    One notable constraint to this methodology is that it does not 
account for variations in total number of hours worked or the number of 
weeks worked per year, which have a direct impact on compensation.\38\ 
If the averages of usual hours differ between a restaurant service job 
and an outside option, not adjusting the resultant figures accordingly 
could present a transfer estimate above or below reality. For example, 
a bartender working 4 hours per night and 5 days per week might make 
$30 per hour, but work only 20 hours per week (earning $600 per week). 
Comparing that wage to her outside option wage, set at $20 per hour but 
with 40 hours per week, would result in a $10 per hour loss, totaling 
$200 per week. Yet in reality she would earn more in the outside option 
role than in the original restaurant service role ($800 total, or $200 
more), and the transfer calculation could be drastically overestimated. 
Conversely, the outside option transfer calculation would be 
underestimated if the same bartender works five 12-hour shifts at the 
same wage rate. The Department recognizes this as a constraint to its 
approach. It nonetheless maintains that the resultant transfer estimate 
is instructive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \38\ On average, from the dataset employed for the regression 
analysis, the tipped workers included in the outside option 
calculation usually work 14 percent fewer hours per week than the 
non-tipped workers included in the regression (30 hours versus 35 
hours).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Total Annual Transfer
    Next, the Department estimates total weekly transfers. Estimated 
per worker hourly transfers were multiplied by usual hours to estimate 
weekly transfers per worker (on average $192.40 per week). Estimated 
weekly transfers were then aggregated over the relevant population 
(24,743 workers, based on the 37 CPS observations in the refined 
employee universe).
    To determine the potential annual total tip transfer, the 
Department first multiplied the estimated weighted sum of weekly tip 
transfers for all wait staff and bartenders who work at full-service 
restaurants and bars in the United States by 45.2 weeks--the average 
weeks worked in a year for waiters and waitresses and bartenders in the 
2017 CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Using this methodology, 
the maximum possible transfer from front-of-the-house employees is 
estimated not to exceed $217.2 million (24,743 workers x $194.20 per 
week x 45.2 weeks).\39\ This represents the total transfers that the 
Department estimates would occur in the extremely unlikely situation 
where every employer that does not take a tip credit institutes tip 
pools that include back-of-the-house workers and where none of the 
front-of-the-house workers see an increase in total tips. In reality, 
even when it is seemingly economically beneficial when considering the 
wage dimension, many employers may not change their tip pooling 
practices because it would require changes to current practices to 
which they and their employees are accustomed, including their payroll 
and recordkeeping systems.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \39\ An additional source of uncertainty with regard to the 
magnitude of the estimated transfers is due to sampling error, the 
use of sample data to make inferences about the population. The 
estimated standard error on the point estimate of total potential 
tip transfers per year is large. The 95 percent confidence interval 
around this estimate is $128.6 million to $305.3 million, a 41 
percent swing either higher or lower than the provided estimate. 
Additionally, this confidence interval itself is too narrow due to 
the inability to take into account the stratified sampling design of 
the CPS, which means the spread is likely larger.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department was unable to determine what proportion of the total 
tips estimated to be potentially transferred from these workers will 
realistically be transferred. For a range of reasons presented in this 
analysis, the Department expects that the potential transfers fall 
significantly below the above-calculated $217.2 million, and therefore 
considered the midpoint between this amount and zero to be a reasonable 
estimate of the potential transfers. The Department accordingly 
estimates that transfers of tips from front-of-the-house workers will 
be $109 million in the first year that this rule is effective. Assuming 
these transfers occur annually, and there is no real wage growth, this 
results in 10-year annualized transfers of $109 million at both the 3 
percent and 7 percent discount rates. These transfers, in and of 
themselves, could have benefits which are discussed further below.
    The $217 million transfer amount could also be an overestimation 
because employers do not have perfect information about employees' 
outside option wages. Employers could decide not to implement a 
nontraditional tip pool in order to ensure that they do not lose any of 
their front-of-the-house workers.
    The earnings reduction for front-of-house workers could also be 
reduced if instituting a nontraditional tip pool leads to increased 
cooperation and productivity among workers, which the Department 
expects will occur. This, in turn, could lead to better service for 
customers, and higher tip amounts. Such effects would be categorized as 
benefits of the rule, rather than transfers, so please see section 
V.B.iii.3. for further discussion of these potential benefits.
    As noted above, the Department acknowledges that it is possible 
some employers might choose to respond to

[[Page 86782]]

the rule by decreasing back-of-the-house workers' wages, as the rule 
will allow these employees' wages to be supplemented with tips, and 
such an outcome is what is modeled to produce the $109 million estimate 
of transfers from front-of-house employees to employers. (The 
Department notes that, because employers cannot take a tip credit for 
employees in nontraditional tip pools, an employer who institutes such 
a program would be precluded from taking a tip credit for their front-
of-the-house workers and would have to pay those workers at least the 
full minimum wage.)
    Furthermore, although some employers may consider implementing a 
tip pooling system that substitutes back-of-the-house workers' hourly 
wages for tips, tips fluctuate at any given time. Thus, employers' 
ability to do so would be limited by market forces, such as, 
potentially, workers' aversion to risk and the endowment effect 
(workers potentially valuing their set wages more than tips of the same 
average amount). Furthermore, the minimum wage limits an employer's 
ability to decrease back-of-the-house wages. In the NPRM, the 
Department stated that it lacked data to quantify the extent to which 
this will occur, and this remains true. The Department requested 
information during the comment period on this point and received no 
applicable data.
    In its comment, IPI asserted that the Department's transfer 
calculation wrongly assumes the restaurant industry is perfectly 
competitive. According to IPI's comment, the assumption of perfect 
competition underestimates the degree to which employers will be able 
to transfer wages from employees and understates the total volume of 
transfers. The Department acknowledges that, the less competitive the 
labor market, the greater the ability of employers to reduce worker 
wages to an amount near the minimum wage.\40\ However, the Department 
does not have sufficient information to estimate the magnitude of this 
effect beyond the controls it already applied in its outside-options 
regression, and maintains that existing data on average wages indicate 
that employers face constraints consistent with market competition.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \40\ The Department further notes, however, that even a worker 
who receives minimum wage and also participates in the tip pool will 
in every conceivable scenario make more than a worker whose sole 
compensation is the minimum wage.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Some commenters asserted that the Department failed to provide a 
quantitative analysis of the potential transfer between employees and 
employers. For example, IPI suggested that, ``DOL could, using its 
already stated assumptions, isolate the subset of employers that would 
be able to capture the transfer. The Department could then construct a 
range of values for that subset using the same data sources and methods 
used to construct the overall transfer estimate.'' The Department 
acknowledges that employers could ultimately capture some transfers, as 
stated above. Employers would be more able to lower the base wages of 
back-of-the-house employees, and therefore capture the transfer, over a 
longer time horizon. It is unlikely that they could immediately lower 
wages of existing employees. Importantly, by instituting a 
nontraditional tip pool, employers would disqualify themselves from 
taking a tip credit for front-of-the-house workers, which is already 
permitted by law. Moreover, it is probably less complex and more direct 
for employers to continue such established arrangements than it is to 
set up a new nontraditional tip pool to reduce overall employee wages, 
if that is their objective.
    Finally, even if employers are able to lower the base wages of 
back-of-the-house employees, it is possible that they would reinvest 
these wage savings back into the business, or use it to generate 
additional efficiencies. This, in turn, could lead to improvements in 
the overall customer experience, which could lead to customers leaving 
higher tips. This increase in tips would ultimately benefit all 
employees in the tip pool.
    Employers face a strong incentive to take action that will boost 
productivity and maximize long-term profits. The Department did not 
attempt to account for this point in the outside option analysis, but 
nonetheless holds that employers face real incentives. All of the 
employers in the population sample used for the regression analysis are 
eligible to take a tip credit, and therefore already have means by 
which to transfer tips to themselves via reduced wait staff wages if 
that were their goal. Thus, the employers who decide to implement tip 
pooling will likely do so because they believe it will boost 
productivity and profits. If employees have the incentive for greater 
cooperation because they all share in the tip pool, it is quite 
possible the quality of service will increase and result in a higher 
absolute value of tips in the pool. Consider a cook who, motivated by 
his participation in a tip pool, walks past a table and decides to stop 
and chat for a minute to ask about how the patrons are enjoying the 
food--this would likely be well received and may very well result in 
higher tips in the pool, in which the cook would now be eligible to 
partake. Conceivably, such quality and efficiency improvements could 
result in back-of-the-house and front-of-the-house workers all 
receiving higher tipped wages.
    One commenter, IPI, said that the Department should consider social 
costs and transfers when promulgating this rule, such as an increase in 
reliance on public benefits and adverse health consequences. If total 
compensation were reduced and if that reduction caused individual 
workers to rely on public benefits, then the transfers described as 
being borne by front-of-house workers would instead be partially borne 
by the Federal, state, or local government funding the benefits 
program. However, such an outcome is uncertain, and an attempted 
analysis of it would be characterized by lack of data. The Department 
notes that these same or newly hired workers may receive more 
compensation due to the rule and thus there could be a reduction in any 
reliance they presently have on social welfare benefits.
iii. Estimated Costs, Cost Savings, and Benefits
    In this subsection, the Department addresses costs attributable to 
the rule, by quantifying regulatory familiarization costs and 
qualitatively discussing additional recordkeeping costs. The Department 
qualitatively discusses benefits and cost savings associated with the 
rule. Lastly, the Department qualitatively discusses the potential 
costs, transfers, and benefits associated with the revisions to Sec.  
531.56(e).
1. Regulatory Familiarization Costs
    Regulatory familiarization costs represent direct costs to 
businesses associated with reviewing the new regulation. It is not 
clear whether regulatory familiarization costs are a function of the 
number of establishments or the number of firms.\41\ Presumably, the 
headquarters of a firm will conduct the regulatory review for 
businesses with multiple restaurants, and may also require chain 
restaurants to familiarize themselves with the regulation at the 
establishment level. To

[[Page 86783]]

reduce the chance of underestimating costs, the Department used the 
number of establishments in its cost estimate--which is larger than the 
number of firms--and assumes that regulatory familiarization occurs at 
both the headquarters and establishment levels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \41\ An establishment is commonly understood as a single 
economic unit, such as a farm, a mine, a factory, or a store, that 
produces goods or services. Establishments are typically at one 
physical location and engaged in one, or predominantly one, type of 
economic activity for which a single industrial classification may 
be applied. An establishment is in contrast to a firm, or a company, 
which is a business and may consist of one or more establishments, 
where each establishment may participate in a different predominant 
economic activity. See BLS, ``Quarterly Census of Employment and 
Wages: Concepts,'' https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cew/concepts.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department assumes that all establishments will incur some 
regulatory familiarization costs regardless of whether the employer 
decides to change its tip pooling practices as a result of the 
rule.\42\ There may be differences in familiarization cost by the size 
of establishments; however, our analysis does not compute different 
costs for establishments of different sizes. To estimate the total 
regulatory familiarization costs, the Department used (1) the number of 
establishments in the two industries, Drinking Places (Alcoholic 
Beverages) and Full-Service Restaurants; (2) the wage rate for the 
employees reviewing the rule; and (3) the number of hours that it 
estimates employers will spend reviewing the rule. Table 3 shows the 
number of establishments in the two industries. To estimate the number 
of potentially affected establishments, the Department used data from 
BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \42\ This includes establishments in states excluded from the 
transfer calculation.

          Table 3--Number of Establishments With Tipped Workers
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Industry                          Establishments
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAICS 722410 (Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages))..            42,912
NAICS 722511 (Full-service Restaurants)...............           250,056
                                                       -----------------
    Total.............................................           292,968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: QCEW, 2019.

    The Department assumes that a Compensation, Benefits, and Job 
Analysis Specialist (SOC 13-1141) (or a staff member in a similar 
position) with a mean wage of $33.58 per hour in 2019 will review the 
rule.\43\ Given the change in this rule, the Department assumes that it 
will take on average about 15 minutes to review the final rule. The 
Department has selected a small time estimate because it is an average 
for both establishments making changes to their compensation structure 
and those who are not (and consequently will have negligible or no 
regulatory familiarization costs). Further, the change effected by this 
regulation is unlikely to cause major burdens or costs. Assuming 
benefits are paid at a rate of 46 percent of the base wage, and 
overhead costs are 17 percent of the base wage, the reviewer's 
effective hourly rate is $54.74; thus, the average cost per 
establishment is $13.68 for 15 minutes of review time. The number of 
establishments in the selected industries was 292,968 in 2019. 
Therefore, regulatory familiarization costs in Year 1 are estimated to 
be $4.01 million ($13.68 x 292,968 establishments), which amounts to a 
10-year annualized cost of $469,902 at a discount rate of 3 percent or 
$570,700 at a discount rate of 7 percent. Regulatory familiarization 
costs in future years are assumed to be de minimis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \43\ A Compensation/Benefits Specialist ensures company 
compliance with Federal and state laws, including reporting 
requirements; evaluates job positions, determining classification, 
exempt or non-exempt status, and salary; plans, develops, evaluates, 
improves, and communicates methods and techniques for selecting, 
promoting, compensating, evaluating, and training workers. See BLS, 
``13-1141 Compensation, Benefits, and Job Analysis Specialists,'' 
https://www.bls.gov/oes-current-oes131141.htm (last visited July 27, 
2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Other Costs
    The Department also assumes that there will be a minimal increase 
in recordkeeping costs associated with this rule. Under the 
Department's previous regulations, employers were only required to keep 
records of which employees receive tips, the hours those employees 
worked, and how much each employee receives if the employer takes a tip 
credit. Some employers also kept records of the time employees spent on 
tipped duties and non-tipped duties to demonstrate compliance with the 
Department's 80/20 approach to enforcing the dual-jobs regulation. 
Under this rule, employers that do not take a tip credit but collect 
tips to institute a mandatory tip pool must keep records showing which 
employees are included in the tip pool, and the amount of tips they 
receive, as reported by employees to the employer. As those records are 
already required under IRS Form 4070, there will be minimal additional 
recordkeeping costs for employers that pay the full Federal minimum 
wage in direct cash wages and choose to institute a nontraditional tip 
pool.
    Employers may incur some training costs associated with 
familiarizing first line managers and staff with the rule; however, the 
Department believes these costs will be de minimis.
3. Benefits
    In their comment, IPI stated that the Department should better 
support its assertions regarding the proposed rule's benefits. In 
response, the Department has further elaborated on the benefits 
discussed in this section.
    Section 3(m)'s tip credit language allows an employer to meet a 
portion of its Federal minimum wage obligation from the tips customers 
give employees. If an employer takes a tip credit, section 3(m)(2)(A) 
applies, along with its requirement that only employees who customarily 
and regularly receive tips be included in any mandatory tip pool. When 
an employer does not take a tip credit, however, the rule would allow 
the employer to act in a manner currently prohibited by regulation--
that is, by distributing tips to employees who are employed in 
occupations in which they do not customarily and regularly receive tips 
(e.g., cooks or dishwashers) through a tip pool. The rule, therefore, 
gives employers greater flexibility in determining their pay policies 
for tipped and non-tipped workers. Allowing employers and employees to 
structure tip pools in a manner that fits the needs of their business 
will improve efficiency and enhance cooperation amongst employees. By 
creating an atmosphere of cooperation, diminishing incentives for 
employees to unduly compete amongst themselves, and allowing workers at 
all levels to profit directly from quality service, employers with 
nontraditional tip pools may realize efficiencies and take on more 
business and more tips. This could cause an overall increase in 
business, employment, tips, and wages for all workers, not to mention 
increased job security and job satisfaction.
    The Department conducted a literature review of relevant academic 
studies that address the nexus of service quality and remuneration. One 
analysis

[[Page 86784]]

has suggested that tip pooling promotes and rewards cooperation among 
employees as serving customers is often a cooperative endeavor among 
front- and back-of-the-house employees; this study further suggests 
that tip pooling leads to uniformly better service, which in turn, 
leads to increased patronage and increased tipping.\44\ Another study 
indicates that tip pooling may foster customer-focused service, promote 
employee camaraderie, and increase productivity.\45\ Additionally, 
under the changes in this rule and per the transfer analysis discussed 
above, the employer will be able to distribute customer tips to back-
of-the-house employees like cooks and dishwashers, possibly resulting 
in increased earnings for those employees. This would allow employers 
to hire more or higher quality workers for those roles. Finally, the 
Department believes that allowing employers to expand tip pools beyond 
customarily and regularly tipped workers like servers and bartenders 
could help incentivize back-of-the-house workers to perform better, 
which may improve the customer's experience.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \44\ Samuel Estreicher & Jonathan R. Nash, The Case for Tipping 
and Unrestricted Tip-Pooling: Promoting Intrafirm Cooperation, 59 
B.C.L. Rev. 1 (2018), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol59/iss1/2.
    \45\ Ofer H. Azar, The Implications of Tipping for Economics and 
Management, 30 (10) Int'l J. Soc. Econ., 1084-94 (2003), http://individual.utoronto.ca/diep/c/azar2003.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As noted above, Estreicher and Nash (2018) assert that tip pooling 
leads to uniformly better service, which in turn, leads to increased 
tipping.\46\ The potential for increased tipping deserves some 
additional consideration. Theoretically, if the tip pool amount 
increases due to improved service, then the possible reduction in 
earnings noted in the transfer analysis for front-of-the-house workers 
could be overestimated. The Department conducted a literature review of 
both (1) the direct relationship between tip pooling and tips and (2) 
the indirect relationship between dining experience and tips received. 
The Department did not identify studies that show a direct empirical 
relationship between tip pooling and tip levels, although studies such 
as Estreicher and Nash (2018) present related findings. There is some 
literature on the relationship between dining quality (e.g., service 
quality, food quality) and tip amounts. However, much of this 
literature is based on relatively small, locality-specific, non-
representative samples. That does not mean their findings are 
inaccurate, but tempers the Department's interest in extrapolating the 
findings across the U.S. economy. Several particularly applicable 
papers are briefly described here. The key takeaway is the relationship 
between dining quality and tip amount varies, so, despite having 
relative confidence in the direction of the impact (i.e., improved 
quality leads to higher tips), the amount non-traditional tip pooling 
may impact tips is unknown.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \46\ Samuel Estreicher & Jonathan R. Nash, The Case for Tipping 
and Unrestricted Tip-Pooling: Promoting Intrafirm Cooperation, 59 
B.C.L. Rev. 1 (2018), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol59/iss1/2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The literature generally found a positive but small to moderate 
impact of quality of service on tips. The following are examples:
     Conlin, Lynn, and O'Donoghue (2003) find that a one-point 
increase in service quality (on scale from 1 to 5) increases tip 
percent by either 1.43 or 1.464 percentage points (depending on the 
model, both statistically significant).\47\ The average tip percent is 
17.56 percent so this is approximately an 8 percent increase. A one-
point increase in food quality (which may improve after implementation 
of a non-traditional tip pool) increased the tip percent by either 
0.585 or 1.481 percentage points (depending on the model; only the 
latter is statistically significant).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \47\ Conlin, M., Lynn, M., and O'Donoghue, T. (2003). The Norm 
of Restaurant Tipping. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Cornell 
University, School of Hospitality Administration site: http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/133.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Lynn (2003) finds that service ratings explained an 
average of less than two percent of the variation in a restaurant's tip 
percentages.\48\ Although the paper cites empirical findings of 
increases in tips for servers who take certain actions (e.g., smiling, 
writing ``thank you'' on check, drawing a picture such as a smiley face 
on check), actions taken by back-of-the-house workers may also increase 
tips.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \48\ Lynn, M. (2003). Tip Levels and Service: An Update, 
Extension, and Reconciliation. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant 
Administration Quarterly. October-December.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Bodvarsson and Gibson (1997) estimated that within the 
seven central Minnesota restaurants in their survey, a one unit 
increase in service quality (on a scale of 1-5) was associated with 
slightly higher tips (0.44 to 0.54 percent of the bill or $0.14 on 
average).\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \49\ Bodvarsson, B. and Gibson, W.A. (1997). Economics and 
Restaurant Gratuities: Determining Tip Rates. The American Journal 
of Economics and Sociology, 56(2): 187-203, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1997.tb03460.x.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Whaley, Kim, and Kim (2019) find that tipping size is 
positively related to server quality, food quality, and ambiance 
(although indirectly and occur through an intermediary variable of 
customer value).\50\ However, the magnitudes of these impacts on tips 
are relatively small.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \50\ Whaley, J., Kim, S., and Kim, Y. (2019). Drivers and Impact 
of Restaurant Tipping Behavior, Journal of Foodservice Business 
Research, 22:2, 117-131, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15378020.2019.1570773.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Cost Savings
    The cost savings associated with this rule would result in part 
from the increased earnings for back-of-the-house employees. Higher 
earnings for these employees could result in reduced turnover, which 
reduces hiring and training costs for employers. This rule will also 
give employers greater flexibility for tip pooling, and could reduce 
effort spent ensuring that the tip pool is limited to only customarily 
and regularly tipped employees. The Department believes that the cost 
savings would outweigh any increased rule-familiarization and 
recordkeeping costs.
    This rule may also reduce deadweight loss. Deadweight loss is the 
loss of economic efficiency that occurs when the perfectly competitive 
equilibrium in a market for a good or service is not achieved. Minimum 
wages may prevent the market from reaching equilibrium and thus result 
in fewer hours worked than would otherwise be efficient. Allowing 
nontraditional tip pools may cause a shift in the labor demand or 
supply curves for wait staff and bartenders. This could result in the 
market moving closer to the competitive market equilibrium. Although 
deadweight loss reductions are most commonly thought about in 
quantitative terms, such as new hiring or expanded hours for existing 
workers, quality could be how it manifests itself; in this case, 
deadweight loss reduction would be another term for some of the same 
benefits discussed elsewhere in this regulatory impact analysis.
    The Department did not quantify the potential reduction in 
deadweight loss because of uncertainty (e.g., what the appropriate 
demand and supply elasticities may be).
5. Costs, Benefits, and Potential Transfers Associated With Revision to 
Dual Jobs Regulation
    The Department is amending its dual jobs regulation to reflect its 
recent guidance replacing the 80/20 approach with the updated related 
duties test.
    In the NPRM, the Department stated the removal of the arbitrary 20 
percent cap on tasks that are not directly tied to receipt of a tip may 
result in tipped workers such as wait staff and

[[Page 86785]]

bartenders performing more non-tipped related duties such as ``cleaning 
and setting tables, toasting bread, making coffee, and occasionally 
washing dishes or glasses.'' Consequently, employment of workers 
currently performing these duties, such as dishwashers and cooks, may 
fall on the margin. In addition, the Department acknowledged that one 
possibility from taking on related, non-tipped duties would be that 
tipped workers might lose tipped income by spending more of their time 
performing duties where they are not earning tips, while still 
receiving cash wages of less than minimum wage (total compensation 
would nonetheless remain at or above the minimum wage). However, the 
Department did not suggest that this was the only possible outcome; 
another distinct possibility, for instance, is that these ``non-
tipped'' activities could result in greater overall tips for the 
worker.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \51\ For example, if cleaning and setting tables helps a 
restaurant turn over tables more quickly and the server is able to 
wait on one additional party at each table during a shift, the 
``non-tipped'' work may, in fact, result in an increase in the total 
tip and total compensation that the employee receives for a shift.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department stated that it lacked the data to quantify any 
potential reduction in tips or employment, because data does not exist 
on the amount of time that tipped employees currently spend on tipped 
duties or related, non-tipped duties.\52\ Several commenters criticized 
the Department's lack of a quantitative analysis, but did not 
themselves provide data on the amount of time that tipped employees 
currently spend on tipped or related, tipped duties. See, e.g., NELP, 
NELA; State Attorneys General; National Women's Law Center; Leadership 
Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The Economic Policy Institute 
(EPI), in particular, asserted that the removal of the 20 percent cap 
on related duties could cost workers millions each year. In its 
comment, EPI cited to a blog post where it had published an analysis 
claiming, ``the proposed rule would cost workers more than $700 million 
annually if finalized.'' \53\ EPI argued that employers will 
``exploit'' this new regulation by shifting non-tipped work from 
traditionally non-tipped to tipped staff, paying an hourly rate less 
than the full minimum wage for that work, and then applying a tip 
credit from tips received by the tipped staff for tipped work. The blog 
post estimates the change in total earnings that could occur if this 
shift took place. The Department carefully considered EPI's blog 
analysis, but concluded that flaws in EPI's premise and methodology 
render the analysis an inadequate estimate of any potential 
transfer.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \52\ Note that the Department quantified a potential transfer in 
the tip pooling portion of this analysis, unlike the impacts due to 
the related duties test, because the Department has greater 
confidence in the ability to model a simpler system (i.e., interplay 
between the minimum wages with and without a tip credit, for front-
of-the-house workers) than the complexities of the related duties 
system (e.g., ambiguous baseline, competing incentives of market 
actors, uncertain magnitudes of changes, etc.). It is consistent for 
the Department to not attempt to quantify impacts for a portion of 
the regulation for which it has less confidence in accurately 
estimating the input variables for a more dynamic interplay of 
factors. The Department requested comments and data to inform these 
approaches, and while it received a number of comments, none of them 
provided data or sufficient methodological parameters to increase 
the Department's confidence in a quantitative analysis.
    \53\ The Department notes that the comment itself lacks any 
specificity to replicate the estimates it purports to support the 
conclusions. To better understand the basis for these assertions, 
the Department reviewed the blog post at one point in time (and is 
unaware whether the post was modified at any time during the notice 
and comment period or thereafter) which itself lacks certain data 
and calculations necessary to reproduce it and evaluate its rigor. 
Further, because the comment itself merely concludes without the 
blog's analysis that transfers would occur, the Department treats 
those conclusions as unsupported assertions. However, because the 
comment pointed to the blog post and the blog post itself contains a 
number of errors, which color the conclusions cited in the comment, 
the Department evaluates the blog post here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department conducted additional sensitivity analyses of the 
outside-options estimate conducted in the tip pooling section. For 
example, two variations were evaluated that more closely align with the 
EPI's outside option wage regression used to estimate the impacts of 
the 80/20 provision. When EPI's linear regression model is used instead 
of a quartile regression, estimated transfers are approximately 42 
percent higher, but this analysis did not include control variables, 
which the Department believes would better analyze whether location is 
simply being captured by the transfer calculation rather than regional 
variability. The Department believes a quantile regression is more 
appropriate because it compares more similar workers. In addition, EPI 
did not include veteran status and metro status as control variables in 
the regression; when these are removed from the Department's model, the 
results are essentially unchanged. Furthermore, EPI did not provide 
information on the methodological specifications, including details on 
central assumptions, upon which their analysis relied.
    The analysis described in EPI's blog post does not consider the 
amount of time tipped employees currently spend on tipped versus 
related, non-tipped duties or how this final rule would affect that 
amount. Instead, it assumes that the final rule would enable certain 
duties-shifting practices that employers may use to reduce tipped 
employees' earnings and estimates the amount of that reduction. This 
assumption, which undergirds EPI's entire analysis, proceeds from a 
fundamental misunderstanding of this final rule and the 80/20 approach 
it replaces.
    According to the blog post, EPI is concerned that replacing the 80/
20 approach with the final rule would enable the following type of 
duties-shifting practice: ``a restaurant that employs a cleaning 
service to clean the restaurant each night'' could avoid paying a 
direct cash wage of at least the full Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per 
hour for cleaning services by ``requir[ing] servers to spend an extra 
hour or two performing such work and only pay them the tipped minimum 
wage of $2.13 per hour,'' and then applying a tip credit to make up the 
difference. However, taking a tip credit under these circumstances is 
clearly prohibited under this final rule. Consistent with the 
discussion in Section III.D.ii, an employee who performs related, non-
tipped duties for ``an extra hour or two'' each night after the end of 
a shift would not be performing those related, non-tipped duties 
contemporaneously with tipped duties or for a reasonable time 
immediately before or after tipped duties. As such, the employer could 
not take a tip credit for time spent on the related, non-tipped duties 
performed well after tipped duties. Moreover, the practice that EPI is 
concerned about is presently permitted under the 80/20 approach, which 
allows a restaurant to apply a tip credit to time a server spends 
cleaning each night at the end of his or her shift if the arbitrary 
ratio is maintained. For example, a restaurant could apply a tip credit 
where it requires its servers to clean the dining area for up to 2 
hours after finishing an 8-hour shift.
    As a second example, EPI's blog post envisions a situation in which 
a restaurant that needs three dishwashers would purposefully employ 
only a single dishwasher and ``require all servers to wash dishes 
periodically over the course of their shifts'' to fill the expected 
gap. Again, this practice is permitted under the 80/20 approach, as 
long as the restaurant maintains the arbitrary ratio between tipped 
service duties and non-tipped dishwashing duties. A restaurant with a 
dozen servers could easily require them to perform the work of two 
dishwashers and still maintain the 80/20 ratio

[[Page 86786]]

needed to apply a tip credit to the dishwashing work. But this same 
practice would actually not be feasible under the final rule, which 
requires related non-tipped dishwashing duties to be performed 
contemporaneously or for a reasonable time immediately before or after 
tipped service duties. To be sure, a restaurant could theoretically 
micromanage servers to ensure that they perform dishwashing and service 
duties in close temporal proximity, but that effort would likely be 
prohibitively costly. The restaurant would have to hire managers to 
supervise servers' minute-by-minute tasks, and major business 
disruptions would result because servers' use of time would be dictated 
by maintaining temporal proximity between serving and dishwashing, 
rather than by any actual need to serve customers or wash dishes.\55\ 
No rational restaurant would bear these managerial expenses and 
business disruptions just to save a maximum of approximately $5 per 
hour on dishwashing.\56\ As such, it would be highly infeasible for a 
restaurant to shift dishwashing duties onto servers as contemplated by 
EPI under the final rule. Furthermore, this does not even begin to 
address the shock this supposed shift in duties would deliver to the 
underlying business model that relies on many duties occurring 
simultaneously to provide quality of service concentrated around common 
meal times, which would make it impossible for wait staff and 
bartenders to take on the full scope of additional duties that EPI 
hypothesized.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \55\ The second example in EPI's blog post is distinguishable 
from the Department's example in section III.D.ii explaining that 
the final rule would permit a hotel to take a tip credit for time 
when a bellhop performing related, non-tipped duties in between 
serving guests during a slow shift. In the Department's example, the 
natural pace of business needs dictates when the bellhop performs 
related, non-tipped duties versus tipped customer service duties. By 
contrast, in EPI's example, maintaining close temporal proximity 
between non-tipped and tipped duties, as oppose to actual business 
needs, dictates when servers perform service versus dishwashing 
duties. The restaurant would need to direct servers' minute-by-
minute tasks to ensure this artificial objective is given priority 
over the restaurant's actual business needs of serving customers and 
washing dishes.
    \56\ According to EPI's blog post, the duties-shifting enables a 
restaurant to pay $2.13 per hour for non-tipped duties instead of 
the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, thus achieve labor cost 
saving of $5.12 per hour for the non-tipped duties.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In sum, EPI's calculation is based entirely on the premise that 
replacing the 80/20 approach with this final rule would increase 
certain duties-shifting practices that it deems exploitative. But the 
opposite may very well be true because those ``exploitative'' practices 
are permitted under the 80/20 approach and prohibited under the final 
rule. The Department does not believe it is possible to overcome the 
flawed premise that is central to EPI's attempt to quantify the 
potential transfers occasioned by the rule. That said, the Department 
acknowledges that such transfers could occur in some cases, but 
believes that employees will nonetheless benefit from this rule. For 
instance, replacing the 80/20 approach with this final rule would 
prevent the exploitative practices described in EPI's blog post. And 
employees may receive higher earnings as a result of the efficiencies 
that this rule advances.
    As explained in the NPRM, the Department believes there will be 
considerable cost savings and efficiencies associated with this change. 
In particular, the Department believes--and several commentators 
agreed--that by eliminating the cost to scrutinize employees' time to 
demonstrate compliance with the 80/20 approach, employers will see a 
reduction in regulatory cost and be able to adopt work arrangements 
that better serve customers, leading to more business and greater tips. 
Additionally, the revisions add clarity by referring to the list of 
duties presumed to be related on O*NET. The Department anticipates that 
the cost of occasionally referring to O*NET to ensure that employees' 
non-tipped duties are related to their tipped duties will be 
significantly less than the cost of continually monitoring the time 
employees have spent performing particular tasks.
iv. Summary of Transfers and Costs
    Below is a summary table of the quantified transfers and costs for 
the RIA. Transfer costs in years two through ten are assumed to be the 
same as in Year 1.

          Table 4--Summary of Transfers and Costs Calculations
                             [2019 Dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Potential tip        Regulatory
                                       transfers        familiarization
                                      (millions)       costs  (millions)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  $108.6 (range: $0                 $4.0
                                   to $217.2).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      10-Year Annualized Estimates
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3% Discount Rate................  $108.6 (range: $0                  0.5
                                   to $217.2).
7% Discount Rate................  $108.6 (range: $0                  0.6
                                   to $217.2).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

VI. Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis--Certification

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA), 5 U.S.C. 601 et seq., 
as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 
1996, Public Law 104-121 (1996), requires Federal agencies engaged in 
rulemaking to consider the impact of their rules on small entities, 
consider alternatives to minimize that impact, and solicit public 
comment on their analyses. The RFA requires the assessment of the 
impact of a regulation on a wide range of small entities, including 
small businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and small governmental 
jurisdictions. Accordingly, the Department examined the regulatory 
requirements of the rule to determine whether they would have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.
    In its analysis, the Department used the Small Business 
Administration size standards, which determine whether a business 
qualifies for small-business status.\57\ According to the 2017 
standards, Full-service Restaurants (NAICS 722511) and Drinking Places 
(Alcoholic Beverages) (NAICS 722410) have a size standard of $7.5 
million in annual revenue.\58\ The Department used this number to 
estimate the number of small entities. Any establishments with

[[Page 86787]]

annual sales revenue less than this amount were considered small 
entities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \57\ SBA, Summary of Size Standards by Industry Sector, 2017, 
www.sba.gov/document/support--table-size-standards.
    \58\ Id., Subsector 722.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department used the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 Economic Census 
to obtain the number of establishments (operating the entire year) and 
annual sales/receipts for the two industries in the analysis: Full-
service Restaurants and Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages).\59\ From 
annual receipts/sales, the Department can estimate how many 
establishments fall under the size standard. Table 5 shows the number 
of private, year-round establishments in the two industries by 
revenue.\60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \59\ U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 Economic Census, Accommodation and 
Food Services: Subject Series--Estab. & Firm Size: Summary 
Statistics by Sales Size of Establishments for the U.S., 2012, 
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml.
    \60\ The small-business size standard for the two industries is 
$7.5 million in annual revenue. However, the final size category 
reported in the table is $5 million-$9 million. This is a data 
limitation because the 2012 Economic Census reported this category 
of $5 million-$9 million and not $5 million-$7.5 million. Thus, the 
total number of firms shown may be slightly higher than the actual 
number of small entities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Department assumes that a Compensation, Benefits, and Job 
Analysis Specialist (SOC 13-1141) (or a staff member in a similar 
position) with a mean wage of $33.58 per hour in 2019 will review the 
rule.\61\ Given the change in this rule, the Department assumes that it 
will take on average about 15 minutes to review the final rule. The 
Department has selected a small time estimate because it is an average 
for both establishments making changes to their compensation structure 
and those who are not (and consequently will have negligible or no 
regulatory familiarization costs). Further, the change effected by this 
regulation is unlikely to cause major burdens or costs. Assuming 
benefits are paid at a rate of 46 percent of the base wage, and 
overhead costs are 17 percent of the base wage, the reviewer's 
effective hourly rate is $54.74; thus, the average cost per 
establishment is $13.68 for 15 minutes of review time. The Department 
applied this cost to all sizes of establishments since each 
establishment would incur this cost regardless of the number of 
affected workers. Finally, the impact of this rule was calculated as 
the ratio of annual cost per establishment to average sales receipts 
per establishment. As shown, the annual cost per establishment is less 
than 0.02 percent of average annual sales for establishments in all 
small entity size classes. The impact of this rule on small 
establishments will be de minimis. The Department certifies that the 
rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial 
number of small entities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \61\ A Compensation/Benefits Specialist ensures company 
compliance with Federal and state laws, including reporting 
requirements; evaluates job positions, determining classification, 
exempt or non-exempt status, and salary; plans, develops, evaluates, 
improves, and communicates methods and techniques for selecting, 
promoting, compensating, evaluating, and training workers. See BLS, 
``13-1141 Compensation, Benefits, and Job Analysis Specialists,'' 
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131141.htm (last visited July 27, 
2020).

                                        Table 5--Costs to Small Entities
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Average annual                          Annual cost per
                                       Number of           sales per        Annual cost per    establishment  as
  Annual revenue/sales/receipts   establishments \a\  establishment  ($)  establishment  ($)  percent of  sales/
                                                              \b\                 \c\              receipts
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                         722511 Full-Service Restaurants
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<$100,000.......................              10,211             $69,548              $13.68                0.02
$100,000 to $499,999............              28,651             197,202               13.68                0.01
$250,000 to $499,999............              39,554             412,801               13.68                0.00
$500,000 to $999,999............              46,793             806,378               13.68                0.00
$1,000,000 to $2,499,999........              45,173           1,759,168               13.68                0.00
$2,500,000 to $4,999,999........              17,039           3,816,221               13.68                0.00
$5,000,000 to $9,999,999........               3,531           7,252,978               13.68                0.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  722410 Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<$100,000.......................               4,622              70,992               13.68                0.02
$100,000 to $249,999............              11,610             192,269               13.68                0.01
$250,000 to $499,999............               9,059             394,111               13.68                0.00
$500,000 to $999,999............               5,138             775,656               13.68                0.00
$1,000,000 to $2,499,999........               3,386           1,694,767               13.68                0.00
$2,500,000 to $4,999,999........                 755           3,772,747               13.68                0.00
$5,000,000 to $9,999,999........                 164           7,445,953               13.68                0.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a\ Limited to establishments operated for the entire year.
\b\ Inflated to $2019 using the GDP deflator.
\c\ The annual cost per establishment is the regulatory familiarization cost per establishment calculated in
  section V.B.iii.1.

VII. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act Analysis

    The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, 2 U.S.C. 1532, requires 
agencies to prepare a written statement, which includes an assessment 
of anticipated costs and benefits, before proposing any Federal mandate 
that may result in excess of $100 million (adjusted annually for 
inflation) in expenditures in any one year by state, local, and tribal 
governments in the aggregate, or by the private sector. This rulemaking 
is not expected to affect state, local, or tribal governments. While 
this rulemaking would affect employers in the private sector, it is not 
expected to result in expenditures greater than $100 million in any one 
year. See section V.B for an assessment of anticipated costs and 
benefits to the private sector.

VIII. Executive Order 13132, Federalism

    The Department has reviewed this final rule in accordance with 
Executive Order 13132 regarding federalism and determined that it does 
not have federalism implications. The final rule would not have 
substantial direct effects on the states, on the relationship between 
the National Government and the states, or on the distribution of

[[Page 86788]]

power and responsibilities among the various levels of government.

IX. Executive Order 13175, Indian Tribal Governments

    This final rule would not have substantial direct effects on one or 
more Indian tribes, on the relationship between the Federal Government 
and Indian tribes, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities 
between the Federal Government and Indian tribes.

List of Subjects

29 CFR Part 10

    Administrative practice and procedure, Construction industry, 
Government procurement, Law enforcement, Reporting and recordkeeping 
requirements, Wages.

29 CFR Part 516

    Minimum wages, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Wages.

29 CFR Part 531

    Wages.

29 CFR Part 578

    Penalties, Wages.

29 CFR Part 579

    Child labor, Penalties.

29 CFR Part 580

    Administrative practice and procedure, Child labor, Penalties, 
Wages.

    Signed in Washington, DC, this 21st day of December, 2020.
Cheryl M. Stanton,
Administrator, Wage and Hour Division.

    For the reasons set forth above, the Department amends title 29, 
parts 10, 516, 531, 578, 579, and 580 of the Code of Federal 
Regulations as follows:

PART 10--ESTABLISHING A MINIMUM WAGE FOR CONTRACTORS

0
1. The authority citation for part 10 is revised to read as follows:

    Authority: 5 U.S.C. 301; section 4, E.O. 13658, 79 FR 9851, 3 
CFR, 2014 Comp., p. 219; Secretary of Labor's Order No. 01-2014 
(Dec. 19, 2014), 79 FR 77527 (Dec. 24, 2014).


0
2. Amend Sec.  10.28 by revising paragraphs (b)(2), (c), (e), and (f) 
to read as follows:


Sec.  10.28  Tipped employees.

* * * * *
    (b) * * *
    (2)(i) In some situations an employee is employed in a dual job, 
as, for example, where a maintenance person in a hotel also works as a 
server. In such a situation the employee, if he or she customarily and 
regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips for his or her work as 
a server, is a tipped employee only with respect to his or her 
employment as a server. The employee is employed in two occupations, 
and no tip credit can be taken for his or her hours of employment in 
the occupation of maintenance person.
    (ii) Such a situation is distinguishable from that of an employee 
who spends time performing duties that are related to his or her tip-
producing occupation but not themselves directed toward producing tips. 
For example, a server may spend part of his or her time cleaning and 
setting tables, toasting bread, making coffee, and occasionally washing 
dishes or glasses. Likewise, a counter attendant may also prepare his 
or her own short orders or may, as part of a group of counter 
attendants, take a turn as a short order cook for the group. An 
employer may take a tip credit for any hours that an employee performs 
related, non-tipped duties contemporaneously with his or her tipped 
duties, or for a reasonable time immediately before or after performing 
the tipped duties.
    (iii) In addition to the examples described in paragraph (b)(2)(ii) 
of this section, a non-tipped duty is presumed to be related to a tip-
producing occupation if the duty is listed as a task in the description 
of the tip-producing occupation in the Occupational Information Network 
(O*NET) at www.onetonline.org. Occupations not listed in O*NET may 
qualify as tipped occupations. For those occupations, duties usually 
and customarily performed by employees are presumed to be related 
duties as long as they are included in the list of duties performed in 
similar O*NET occupations.
    (c) Characteristics of tips. A tip is a sum presented by a customer 
as a gift or gratuity in recognition of some service performed for the 
customer. It is to be distinguished from payment of a fixed charge, if 
any, made for the service. Whether a tip is to be given, and its 
amount, are matters determined solely by the customer. Customers may 
present cash tips directly to the employee or may designate a tip 
amount to be added to their bill when paying with a credit card or by 
other electronic means. Special gifts in forms other than money or its 
equivalent such as theater tickets, passes, or merchandise, are not 
counted as tips received by the employee for purposes of determining 
wages paid under the Executive order.
* * * * *
    (e) Tip pooling. Where tipped employees share tips through a tip 
pool, only the amounts retained by the tipped employees after any 
redistribution through a tip pool are considered tips in applying the 
provisions of FLSA section 3(t) and the wage payment provisions of 
section 3 of the Executive order. There is no maximum contribution 
percentage on mandatory tip pools. However, an employer must notify its 
employees of any required tip pool contribution amount, may only take a 
tip credit for the amount of tips each employee ultimately receives, 
and may not retain any of the employees' tips for any other purpose.
    (f) Notice. An employer is not eligible to take the tip credit 
unless it has informed its tipped employees in advance of the 
employer's use of the tip credit. The employer must inform the tipped 
employee of the amount of the cash wage that is to be paid by the 
employer, which cannot be lower than the cash wage required by 
paragraph (a)(1) of this section; the additional amount by which the 
wages of the tipped employee will be considered increased on account of 
the tip credit claimed by the employer, which amount may not exceed the 
value of the tips actually received by the employee; that all tips 
received by the tipped employee must be retained by the employee except 
for a tip pooling arrangement; and that the tip credit shall not apply 
to any worker who has not been informed of the requirements in this 
section.

PART 516--RECORDS TO BE KEPT BY EMPLOYERS

0
3. Revise the authority citation for part 516 to read as follows:

    Authority: Sec. 11, Pub. L. 75-718, 52 Stat. 1066, as amended 
(29 U.S.C. 211). Section 516.28 also issued under 29 U.S.C. 203(m), 
as amended by sec. 2105(b), Pub. L. 104-188, 110 Stat. 1755; sec. 
8102(a), Pub. L. 110-28, 121 Stat. 112; and sec. 1201, Div. S., Tit. 
XII, Pub. L. 115-141, 132 Stat. 348. Section 516.33 also issued 
under Pub. L. 75-718, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended (29 U.S.C. 201 et 
seq.). Section 516.34 also issued under Sec. 7, Pub. L. 101-157, 103 
Stat. 944 (29 U.S.C. 207(q)).


0
4. Amend Sec.  516.28 by revising the section heading and adding 
paragraph (b) to read as follows:


Sec.  516.28  Tipped employees and employer-administered tip pools.

* * * * *
    (b) With respect to employees who receive tips but for whom a tip 
credit is not taken under section 3(m)(2)(A), any employer that 
collects tips received by employees to operate a mandatory tip-pooling 
or tip-sharing arrangement shall maintain and preserve payroll or other 
records containing the information and

[[Page 86789]]

data required in Sec.  516.2(a) and, in addition, the following:
    (1) A symbol, letter, or other notation placed on the pay records 
identifying each employee who receive tips.
    (2) Weekly or monthly amount reported by the employee, to the 
employer, of tips received (this may consist of reports made by the 
employees to the employer on IRS Form 4070).

PART 531--WAGE PAYMENTS UNDER THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938

0
5. Revise the authority citation for part 531 to read as follows:

    Authority: 29 U.S.C. 203(m) and (t), as amended by sec. 3(m), 
Pub. L. 75-718, 52 Stat. 1060; sec. 2, Pub. L. 87-30, 75 Stat. 65; 
sec. 101, sec. 602, Pub. L. 89-601, 80 Stat. 830; sec. 29(B), Pub. 
L. 93-259, 88 Stat. 55 sec. 3, sec. 15(c), Pub. L. 95-151, 91 Stat 
1245; sec. 2105(b), Pub. L. 104-188, 110 Stat 1755; sec. 8102, Pub. 
L. 110-28, 121 Stat. 112; and sec. 1201, Div. S., Tit. XII, Pub. L. 
115-141, 132 Stat. 348.


0
6. Revise Sec.  531.50 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.50  Statutory provisions with respect to tipped employees.

    (a) With respect to tipped employees, section 3(m)(2)(A) provides 
that, in determining the wage an employer is required to pay a tipped 
employee, the amount paid such employee by the employee's employer 
shall be an amount equal to--
    (1) The cash wage paid such employee which for purposes of such 
determination shall not be less than the cash wage required to be paid 
such an employee on August 20, 1996 [i.e., $2.13]; and
    (2) An additional amount on account of the tips received by such 
employee which amount is equal to the difference between the wage 
specified in paragraph (a)(1) of this section and section 6(a)(1) of 
the Act.
    (b) Section 3(m)(2)(A) also provides that an employer that takes a 
tip credit against its minimum wage obligations to its tipped employees 
must inform those employees of the provisions of that subsection, and 
that the employees must retain all of their tips, although the employer 
may require those employees to participate in a tip pool with other 
tipped employees that customarily and regularly receive tips.
    (c) Section 3(m)(2)(B) provides that an employer may not keep tips 
received by its employees for any purposes, including allowing managers 
and supervisors to keep any portion of employees' tips, regardless of 
whether the employer takes a tip credit under section 3(m)(2)(A).
    (d) ``Tipped employee'' is defined in section 3(t) of the Act as 
any employee engaged in an occupation in which he or she customarily 
and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips.

0
7. Revise the first sentence of Sec.  531.51 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.51  Conditions for taking tip credits in making wage 
payments.

    The wage credit permitted on account of tips under section 
3(m)(2)(A) may be taken only with respect to wage payments made under 
the Act to those employees whose occupations in the workweeks for which 
such payments are made are those of ``tipped employees'' as defined in 
section 3(t). * * *

0
8. Revise Sec.  531.52 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.52  General restrictions on an employer's use of its 
employees' tips.

    (a) A tip is a sum presented by a customer as a gift or gratuity in 
recognition of some service performed for the customer. It is to be 
distinguished from payment of a charge, if any, made for the service. 
Whether a tip is to be given, and its amount, are matters determined 
solely by the customer. An employer that takes a tip credit against its 
minimum wage obligations is prohibited from using an employee's tips 
for any reason other than that which is statutorily permitted in 
section 3(m)(2)(A): As a credit against its minimum wage obligations to 
the employee, or in furtherance of a tip pool limited to employees who 
customarily and regularly receive tips. Only tips actually received by 
an employee as money belonging to the employee may be counted in 
determining whether the person is a ``tipped employee'' within the 
meaning of the Act and in applying the provisions of section 3(m)(2)(A) 
which govern wage credits for tips.
    (b) Section 3(m)(2)(B) of the Act provides that an employer may not 
keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, regardless of 
whether the employer takes a tip credit.
    (1) An employer may exert control over an employee's tips only to 
distribute tips to the employee who received them, require employees to 
share tips with other employees in compliance with Sec.  531.54, or, 
where the employer facilitates tip pooling by collecting and 
redistributing employees' tips, distribute tips to employees in a tip 
pool in compliance with Sec.  531.54.
    (2) An employer may not allow managers and supervisors to keep any 
portion of an employee's tips, regardless of whether the employer takes 
a tip credit. A manager or supervisor may keep tips that he or she 
receives directly from customers based on the service that he or she 
directly provides. For purposes of section 3(m)(2)(B), the term 
``manager'' or ``supervisor'' shall mean any employee whose duties 
match those of an executive employee as described in Sec.  
541.100(a)(2) through (4) or Sec.  541.101 of this chapter.

0
9. Revise Sec.  531.54 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.54  Tip pooling.

    (a) Monies counted as tips. Where employees practice tip splitting, 
as where waiters give a portion of their tips to the busser, both the 
amounts retained by the waiters and those given the bussers are 
considered tips of the individuals who retain them, in applying the 
provisions of sections 3(m)(2)(A) and 3(t). Similarly, where an 
accounting is made to an employer for his or her information only or in 
furtherance of a pooling arrangement whereby the employer redistributes 
the tips to the employees upon some basis to which they have mutually 
agreed among themselves, the amounts received and retained by each 
individual as his or her own are counted as his or her tips for 
purposes of the Act. Section 3(m)(2)(A) does not impose a maximum 
contribution percentage on mandatory tip pools.
    (b) Prohibition against keeping tips--(1) Meaning of ``keep.'' 
Section 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition against keeping tips applies 
regardless of whether an employer takes a tip credit. Section 
3(m)(2)(B) expressly prohibits employers from requiring employees to 
share tips with managers or supervisors, as defined in Sec.  
531.52(b)(2), or employers, as defined in 29 U.S.C. 203(d). An employer 
does not violate section 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition against keeping tips 
if it requires employees to share tips with other employees who are 
eligible to receive tips.
    (2) Full and prompt distribution of tips. An employer that 
facilitates tip pooling by collecting and redistributing employees' 
tips does not violate section 3(m)(2)(B)'s prohibition against keeping 
tips if it fully distributes any tips the employer collects no later 
than the regular payday for the workweek in which the tips were 
collected, or when the pay period covers more than a single workweek, 
the regular payday for the period in which the workweek ends. To the 
extent that it is not possible for an employer to ascertain the amount 
of tips that have been received or how tips should be distributed prior 
to processing payroll, tips must be distributed to employees as soon as 
practicable after the regular payday.
    (c) Employers that take a section 3(m)(2)(A) tip credit. When an 
employer

[[Page 86790]]

takes a tip credit pursuant to section 3(m)(2)(A):
    (1) The employer may require an employee for whom the employer 
takes a tip credit to contribute tips to a tip pool only if it is 
limited to employees who customarily and regularly receive tips; and
    (2) The employer must notify its employees of any required tip pool 
contribution amount, may only take a tip credit for the amount of tips 
each employee ultimately receives, and may not retain any of the 
employees' tips for any other purpose.
    (3) An employer may not participate in such a tip pool and may not 
include managers and supervisors in the pool.
    (d) Employers that do not take a section 3(m)(2)(A) tip credit. An 
employer that pays its tipped employees the full minimum wage and does 
not take a tip credit may impose a tip pooling arrangement that 
includes dishwashers, cooks, or other employees in the establishment 
who are not employed in an occupation in which employees customarily 
and regularly receive tips. An employer may not participate in such a 
tip pool and may not include supervisors and managers in the pool.

0
10. Revise Sec.  531.55(a) to read as follows:


Sec.  531.55  Examples of amounts not received as tips.

    (a) A compulsory charge for service, such as 15 percent of the 
amount of the bill, imposed on a customer by an employer's 
establishment, is not a tip and, even if distributed by the employer to 
its employees, cannot be counted as a tip received in applying the 
provisions of sections 3(m)(2)(A) and 3(t). Similarly, where 
negotiations between a hotel and a customer for banquet facilities 
include amounts for distribution to employees of the hotel, the amounts 
so distributed are not counted as tips received.
* * * * *

0
11. Amend Sec.  531.56 by revising the second and third sentences in 
paragraph (a) and paragraphs (c), (d), and (e) to read as follows:


Sec.  531.56  ``More than $30 a month in tips.''

    (a) * * * An employee employed in an occupation in which the tips 
he or she receives meet the minimum standard in the preceding sentence 
is a ``tipped employee'' for whom the wage credit provided by section 
3(m)(2)(A) may be taken in computing the compensation due him or her 
under the Act for employment in such occupation, whether he or she is 
employed in it full time or part time. An employee employed full time 
or part time in an occupation in which he or she does not receive more 
than $30 a month in tips customarily and regularly is not a ``tipped 
employee'' within the meaning of the Act and must receive the full 
compensation required by the provisions of the Act in cash or allowable 
facilities without any deduction for tips received under the provisions 
of section 3(m)(2)(A).
* * * * *
    (c) Individual tip receipts are controlling. An employee must him- 
or herself customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in 
tips in order to qualify as a tipped employee. The fact that he or she 
is part of a group which has a record of receiving more than $30 a 
month in tips will not qualify him or her. For example, a server who is 
newly hired will not be considered a tipped employee merely because the 
other servers in the establishment receive tips in the requisite 
amount. For the method of applying the test in initial and terminal 
months of employment, see Sec.  531.58.
    (d) Significance of minimum monthly tip receipts. More than $30 a 
month in tips customarily and regularly received by the employee is a 
minimum standard that must be met before any wage credit for tips is 
determined under section 3(m)(2)(A). It does not govern or limit the 
determination of the appropriate amount of wage credit under section 
3(m)(2)(A) that may be taken for tips under section 6(a)(1) (tip credit 
equals the difference between the minimum wage required by section 
6(a)(1) and the cash wage paid (at least $2.13 per hour)).
    (e) Dual jobs. (1) In some situations an employee is employed in a 
dual job, as for example, where a maintenance person in a hotel also 
works as a server. In such a situation the employee, if he or she 
customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips for 
his or her work as a server, is a tipped employee only with respect to 
his or her employment as a server. The employee is employed in two 
occupations, and no tip credit can be taken for his or her hours of 
employment in the occupation of maintenance person.
    (2) Such a situation is distinguishable from that of an employee 
who spends time performing duties that are related to his or her tip-
producing occupation but are not themselves directed toward producing 
tips. For example, a server may spend part of his or her time cleaning 
and setting tables, toasting bread, making coffee and occasionally 
washing dishes or glasses. Likewise, a counter attendant may also 
prepare his or her own short orders or may, as part of a group of 
counter attendants, take a turn as a short order cook for the group. An 
employer may take a tip credit for any hours that an employee performs 
related, non-tipped duties contemporaneously with his or her tipped 
duties, or for a reasonable time immediately before or after performing 
the tipped duties.
    (3) In addition to the examples described in paragraph (e)(2) of 
this section, a non-tipped duty is presumed to be related to a tip-
producing occupation if the duty is listed as a task in the description 
of the tip-producing occupation in the Occupational Information Network 
(O*NET) at www.onetonline.org. Occupations not listed in O*NET may also 
qualify as tipped occupations. For those occupations, duties usually 
and customarily performed by employees are presumed to be related 
duties as long as they are included in the list of duties performed in 
similar O*NET occupations.

0
12. Revise Sec.  531.59 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.59  The tip wage credit.

    (a) In determining compliance with the wage payment requirements of 
the Act, under the provisions of section 3(m)(2)(A) the amount paid to 
a tipped employee by an employer is increased on account of tips by an 
amount equal to the formula set forth in the statute (minimum wage 
required by section 6(a)(1) of the Act minus cash wage paid (at least 
$2.13)), provided that the employer satisfies all the requirements of 
section 3(m)(2)(A). This tip credit is in addition to any credit for 
board, lodging, or other facilities which may be allowable under 
section 3(m).
    (b) As indicated in Sec.  531.51, the tip credit may be taken only 
for hours worked by the employee in an occupation in which the employee 
qualifies as a ``tipped employee.'' Pursuant to section 3(m)(2)(A), an 
employer is not eligible to take the tip credit unless it has informed 
its tipped employees in advance of the employer's use of the tip credit 
of the provisions of section 3(m)(2)(A) of the Act, i.e.: The amount of 
the cash wage that is to be paid to the tipped employee by the 
employer; the additional amount by which the wages of the tipped 
employee are increased on account of the tip credit claimed by the 
employer, which amount may not exceed the value of the tips actually 
received by the employee; that all tips received by the tipped employee 
must be retained by the employee except for a tip pooling arrangement 
limited to employees who

[[Page 86791]]

customarily and regularly receive tips; and that the tip credit shall 
not apply to any employee who has not been informed of the requirements 
in this section. The credit allowed on account of tips may be less than 
that permitted by statute (minimum wage required by section 6(a)(1) 
minus the cash wage paid (at least $2.13)); it cannot be more. In order 
for the employer to claim the maximum tip credit, the employer must 
demonstrate that the employee received at least that amount in actual 
tips. If the employee received less than the maximum tip credit amount 
in tips, the employer is required to pay the balance so that the 
employee receives at least the minimum wage with the defined 
combination of wages and tips. With the exception of tips contributed 
to a tip pool limited to employees who customarily and regularly 
receive tips as described in Sec.  531.54, section 3(m)(2)(A) also 
requires employers that take a tip credit to permit employees to retain 
all tips received by the employee.

0
13. Revise Sec.  531.60 to read as follows:


Sec.  531.60  Overtime payments.

    When overtime is worked by a tipped employee who is subject to the 
overtime pay provisions of the Act, the employee's regular rate of pay 
is determined by dividing the employee's total remuneration for 
employment (except statutory exclusions) in any workweek by the total 
number of hours actually worked by the employee in that workweek for 
which such compensation was paid. (See part 778 of this chapter for a 
detailed discussion of overtime compensation under the Act.) In 
accordance with section 3(m)(2)(A), a tipped employee's regular rate of 
pay includes the amount of tip credit taken by the employer per hour 
(not in excess of the minimum wage required by section 6(a)(1) minus 
the cash wage paid (at least $2.13)), the reasonable cost or fair value 
of any facilities furnished to the employee by the employer, as 
authorized under section 3(m) and this part, and the cash wages 
including commissions and certain bonuses paid by the employer. Any 
tips received by the employee in excess of the tip credit need not be 
included in the regular rate. Such tips are not payments made by the 
employer to the employee as remuneration for employment within the 
meaning of the Act.

PART 578--TIP RETENTION, MINIMUM WAGE, AND OVERTIME VIOLATIONS--
CIVIL MONEY PENALTIES

0
14. The authority citation for part 578 is revised to read as follows:

    Authority: 29 U.S.C. 216(e), as amended by sec. 9, Pub. L. 101-
157, 103 Stat. 938, sec. 3103, Pub. L. 101-508, 104 Stat. 1388-29, 
sec. 302(a), Pub. L. 110-233, 122 Stat. 920, and sec. 1201, Div. S., 
Tit. XII, Pub. L. 115-141, 132 Stat. 348; Pub. L. 101-410, 104 Stat. 
890 (28 U.S.C. 2461 note), as amended by sec. 31001(s), Pub. L. 104-
134, 110 Stat. 1321-358, 1321-373, and sec. 701, Pub. L. 114-74, 129 
Stat 584.


0
15. The heading of part 578 is revised to read as set forth above.

0
16. Revise Sec.  578.1 to read as follows:


Sec.  578.1  What does this part cover?

    Section 9 of the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1989 amended 
section 16(e) of the Act to provide that any person who repeatedly or 
willfully violates the minimum wage (section 6) or overtime provisions 
(section 7) of the Act shall be subject to a civil money penalty not to 
exceed $1,100 for each such violation. In 2001, the Wage and Hour 
Division (WHD) adjusted this penalty for inflation pursuant to the 
Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-
410), as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (Pub. 
L. 104-134, section 31001(s)). The Genetic Information 
Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 amended section 16(e) of the Act to 
reflect this increase. See Public aw. 110-233, sec. 302(a), 122 Stat. 
920. Section 1201(b)(3) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, 
amended section 16(e) to add that any person who violates section 
3(m)(2)(B) of the Act shall be subject to a civil money penalty not to 
exceed $1,100. The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 
1990 (Pub. L. 101-410), as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement 
Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-134, section 31001(s)) and the Federal Civil 
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 
114-74, section 701), requires that inflationary adjustments be 
annually made in these civil money penalties according to a specified 
cost-of-living formula. This part defines terms necessary for 
administration of the civil money penalty provisions, describes the 
violations for which a penalty may be imposed, and describes criteria 
for determining the amount of penalty to be assessed. The procedural 
requirements for assessing and contesting such penalties are contained 
in part 580 of this chapter.

0
17. Revise Sec.  578.3 to read as follows:


Sec.  578.3   What types of violations may result in a penalty being 
assessed?

    (a) In general. (1) A penalty of up to $1,162 per violation may be 
assessed against any person who repeatedly or willfully violates 
section 3(m)(2)(B) of the Act.
    (2) A penalty of up to $2,074 per violation may be assessed against 
any person who repeatedly or willfully violates section 6 (minimum 
wage) or section 7 (overtime) of the Act. The amount of the penalties 
stated in paragraphs (a)(1) and (2) of this section will be determined 
by applying the criteria in Sec.  578.4.
    (b) Repeated violations. An employer's violation of section 
3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or section 7 of the Act shall be deemed to be 
``repeated'' for purposes of this section:
    (1) Where the employer has previously violated section 3(m)(2)(B), 
section 6, or section 7 of the Act, provided the employer has 
previously received notice, through a responsible official of the Wage 
and Hour Division or otherwise authoritatively, that the employer 
allegedly was in violation of the provisions of the Act; or
    (2) Where a court or other tribunal has made a finding that an 
employer has previously violated section 3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or 
section 7 of the Act, unless an appeal therefrom which has been timely 
filed is pending before a court or other tribunal with jurisdiction to 
hear the appeal, or unless the finding has been set aside or reversed 
by such appellate tribunal.
    (c) Willful violations. (1) An employer's violation of section 
3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or section 7 of the Act shall be deemed to be 
``willful'' for purposes of this section where the employer knew that 
its conduct was prohibited by the Act or showed reckless disregard for 
the requirements of the Act. All of the facts and circumstances 
surrounding the violation shall be taken into account in determining 
whether a violation was willful.
    (2) For purposes of this section, the employer's receipt of advice 
from a responsible official of the Wage and Hour Division to the effect 
that the conduct in question is not lawful can be sufficient to show 
that the employer's conduct is knowing, but is not automatically 
dispositive.

0
18. Revise Sec.  578.4(a) to read as follows:


Sec.  578.4  Determination of penalty.

    (a) In determining the amount of penalty to be assessed for any 
repeated or willful violation of section 3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or 
section 7 of the Act, the Administrator shall consider the seriousness 
of the violations and the size of the employer's business.
* * * * *

[[Page 86792]]

PART 579--CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS--CIVIL MONEY PENALTIES

0
19. The authority citation for part 579 is revised to read as follows:

    Authority: 29 U.S.C. 203(m), (l), 211, 212, 213(c), 216; Reorg. 
Plan No. 6 of 1950, 64 Stat. 1263, 5 U.S.C. App; secs. 25, 29, 88 
Stat. 72, 76; Secretary of Labor's Order No. 01-2014 (Dec. 19, 
2014), 79 FR 77527 (Dec. 24, 2014); 28 U.S.C. 2461 Note.


0
20. Amend Sec.  579.1 by:
0
a. Revising paragraph (a) introductory text;
0
b. Redesignating paragraph (a)(2) as paragraph (a)(2)(i); and
0
c. Adding paragraph (a)(2)(ii).
    The revision and addition read as follows:


Sec.  579.1  Purpose and scope.

    (a) Section 16(e), added to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 
(FLSA), as amended, by the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1974, and 
as further amended by the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1989, the 
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, the Compactor and Balers 
Safety Standards Modernization Act of 1996, the Genetic Information 
Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act 
of 2018, provides for the imposition of civil money penalties in the 
following manner:
    * * * * *
    (2) * * *
    (ii) Any person who repeatedly or willfully violates section 
203(m)(2)(B) of the FLSA, relating to the retention of tips, shall be 
subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $1,162 for each such 
violation.
* * * * *

0
21. Amend Sec.  579.2 by revising the definition of ``Willful 
violations'' to read as follows:


Sec.  579.2   Definitions.

* * * * *
    Willful violations under this section has several components. An 
employer's violation of section 12 or section 13(c) of the Act relating 
to child labor or any regulation issued pursuant to such sections, 
shall be deemed to be willful for purposes of this section where the 
employer knew that its conduct was prohibited by the Act or showed 
reckless disregard for the requirements of the Act. All of the facts 
and circumstances surrounding the violation shall be taken into account 
in determining whether a violation was willful. In addition, for 
purposes of this section, the employer's receipt of advice from a 
responsible official of the Wage and Hour Division to the effect that 
the conduct in question is not lawful can be sufficient to show that 
the employer's conduct is knowing, but is not automatically 
dispositive.

PART 580--CIVIL MONEY PENALTIES--PROCEDURES FOR ASSESSING AND 
CONTESTING PENALTIES

0
22. The authority citation for part 580 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: 29 U.S.C. 9a, 203, 209, 211, 212, 213(c), 216; Reorg. 
Plan No. 6 of 1950, 64 Stat. 1263, 5 U.S.C. App; secs. 25, 29, 88 
Stat. 72, 76; Secretary's Order 01-2014 (Dec. 19, 2014), 79 FR 77527 
(Dec. 24, 2014); 5 U.S.C. 500, 503, 551, 559; 103 Stat. 938.


0
23. Revise the first sentence of Sec.  580.2 to read as follows:


Sec.  580.2  Applicability of procedures and rules.

    The procedures and rules contained in this part prescribe the 
administrative process for assessment of civil money penalties for any 
violation of the child labor provisions at section 12 of the Act and 
any regulation thereunder as set forth in part 579 of this chapter, and 
for assessment of civil money penalties for any repeated or willful 
violation of the tip retention provisions of section 3(m)(2)(B), the 
minimum wage provisions of section 6, or the overtime provisions of 
section 7 of the Act or the regulations thereunder set forth in 29 CFR 
subtitle B, chapter V. * * *

0
24. Revise the first sentence of Sec.  580.3 to read as follows:


Sec.  580.3  Written notice of determination required.

    Whenever the Administrator determines that there has been a 
violation by any person of section 12 of the Act relating to child 
labor or any regulation thereunder as set forth in part 579 of this 
chapter, or determines that there has been a repeated or willful 
violation by any person of section 3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or section 7 
of the Act, and determines that imposition of a civil money penalty for 
such violation is appropriate, the Administrator shall issue and serve 
a notice of such penalty on such person in person or by certified mail. 
* * *

0
25. Amend Sec.  580.12 by revising the first sentence of paragraph (b) 
of to read as follows:


Sec.  580.12  Decision and Order of Administrative Law Judge.

* * * * *
    (b) The decision of the Administrative Law Judge shall be limited 
to a determination of whether the respondent has committed a violation 
of section 12, or a repeated or willful violation of section 
3(m)(2)(B), section 6, or section 7 of the Act, and the appropriateness 
of the penalty assessed by the Administrator. * * *
* * * * *

0
26. Amend Sec.  580.18 by revising the third sentence in paragraph 
(b)(3) to read as follows:


Sec.  580.18  Collection and recovery of penalty.

* * * * *
    (b) * * *
    (3) * * * A willful violation of sections 3(m)(2)(B), 6, 7, or 12 
of the Act may subject the offender to the penalties provided in 
section 16(a) of the Act, enforced by the Department of Justice in 
criminal proceedings in the United States courts. * * *

[FR Doc. 2020-28555 Filed 12-29-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-27-P