According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would allow employers to take employee tips, and does not require them to redistribute the funds. The biggest losers, EPI calculates, would be women:



In other words, nearly 80 percent of the tips that would be taken by employers as a result of this rule would come out of the pockets of women and their families. (The specific share, calculated from unrounded numbers, is 78.7 percent.) Because women are both more likely to be tipped workers and to earn lower wages, this rule would disproportionately harm them.

No word yet on how Ivanka Trump, who has presented herself as a prominent defender of working women, has taken this news. But the Department of Labor’s latest bit of rule-making isn’t an isolated incident. The administration wants to adjust the salary threshold for an Obama-era overtime rule; if it succeeds in raising the threshold, lower-wage workers will find themselves in possession of shrinking bank accounts. Trump also used his executive authority to roll back a number of regulations that would have protected worker safety. As his son Eric reminded us Wednesday morning, green is the only color Trump sees.



