Photograph by Sasha Arutyunova for TIME
Sasha Arutyunova, an alum of the Department of Photography & Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts, has had her photo featured on the cover of TIME Magazine. The photo is a part of a series that accompanies the article "Low Wages, Sexual Harassment and Unreliable Tips. This Is Life in America’s Booming Service Industry" written by Alana Semuels and Malcolm Burnley which appears in the August 22, 2019 issue.
"The decade-long economic expansion has been a boon to those at the top of the economic ladder. But it left millions of workers behind, particularly the 4.4 million who rely on tips to earn a living, fully two-thirds of them women. Even as wages have crept up—if slowly—in other sectors of the economy, the minimum wage for waitresses and other tipped workers hasn’t budged since 1991. Indeed, there is an entirely separate federal minimum wage for those who live on tips. It varies by state from as low as $2.13 (the federal tipped minimum wage) in 17 states including Texas, Nebraska and Virginia, up to $9.35 in Hawaii. In 36 states, the tipped minimum wage is under $5 an hour. Legally, employers are supposed to make up the difference when tips don’t get servers to the minimum wage, but some restaurants don’t track this closely and the law is rarely enforced. Waitresses are emblematic of the type of job expected to grow most in the #American economy in the next decade—low-wage service work with no guaranteed hours or income.”
The article was published in partnership with The Fuller Project, a non-profit newsroom that reports on issues impacting women.