New York State has often led other states through innovation over worker practices and policies. It was the first state to recognize the rights of domestic workers. But when it comes to pay it is lagging behind other states, and that is having a dire effect on families in the state.

In 2014 hundreds of thousands of workers received a pay increase when the minimum wage rose from $7.25 an hour to $8.00 an hour, with further increases scheduled from 2015 to 2016. Excluded from this benefit though were 172,000 tipped workers in the food services and hotel industry. The report, New York's Tipped Workers and the Sub-Minimum Wage," found the minimum wage for workers is $5.00 an hour -- 63% of the statewide minimum wage.

These tipped workers are twice as likely to live in poverty compared to non-tipped workers, and rely more on public health benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid. This predicament represents a shift of employer responsibility to the public on two levels not just through tips to support lower wages, but through taxpayer funds to pay for public services.

"The people who serve us drinks and meals and work full-time should not be paid a sub-minimum wage. But that's the reality for thousands of workers in New York," said David R. Jones, President and CEO of the Community Service Society, the group that produced the report. "Even though the economy is creating jobs in large numbers, the issue is one of adequate wages for a day's work. The status quo of paying workers poverty wages for full-time work is unacceptable. Our state leaders can improve the situation by mandating a single minimum wage covering all workers."

Specifically the report found one out of five tipped workers in New York State makes less than the current state minimum wage of $8.00 an hour even when including tips. Thirty percent of tipped workers in the state earn less than $8.88 an hour, which for a full-time, year round worker translates to $18,470 annually -- not enough to keep a family of three out of poverty.

"At a lot of these places they don't even pay the minimum wage to the servers. They just give you $10 for the shift, or $16 for 12-hour shift," said Alexandra Sanjuan, 44. "In other places they don't even pay. You work for the tips."

Sanjuan has worked in the restaurant industry since moving to America from Colombia in 1998, and said she never made enough to support herself and her two children.

The report says the situation for Latino and Asian tipped workers, who represent nearly two-thirds of all tipped workers in New York City, is made worst because they are often the head of the household, and the primary or sole source of income.

Advocates want to see workers make the state minimum wage, saying they help create stable middle-class jobs. The report says 75 percent of hospitality workers in the city are 25 years old or older, and nearly half the head the household.

"There is ample evidence from around the country that an equal minimum wage for tipped workers will not be the end of restaurants or the hospitality industry," said Apurva Mehrota, author of the report and a CSS policy analyst. "Yes, instead of working toward eliminating the minimum wage gap for tipped workers, that gap is only growing larger in New York, and will grow larger still in the coming years unless action is taken."