As D.C. residents await the passage of a congressional budget fix, and D.C. council members grow anxious about a six-week budget season delay, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) continues to drop hints about an economic plan that, in the face of federal government job and tax revenue loss, positions sports, entertainment and hospitality as the District’s primary economic engine.
And as a show of goodwill to local restaurateurs, Bowser has included in that plan a repeal of Initiative 82, a minimum tipped wage ballot measure that, despite its popularity among D.C. residents and unionists, has shouldered the blame for the increased overhead costs and dining fees that are crippling restaurant owners and consumers.
While it remains to be seen whether the I-82 repeal will survive the budget process, Bowser said that her legislative counterparts and constituents will soon come to understand that she didn’t make her decision lightly.
“They know the importance of restaurants to our economy and local hiring and keeping D.C. residents employed,” Bowser said on Monday at The Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street in Northeast, where she revealed what she described as her transformational growth agenda.
That agenda includes a mixture of investments and incentives for visitors, small businesses, restaurants and developers, including: investments in Downtown, including Capital One Arena along with the renewal and support of Gallery Place-Chinatown; expansion of the Housing in Downtown program to Georgetown and Mt. Vernon Triangle; development of RFK campus; and renovations to National Theatre, Lincoln Theatre, and Howard Theatre.
This agenda, part of Bowser’s yet-to-be-fully released Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, includes $820,000 for the 250th birthday celebration of the U.S. in July 2026. The Bowser administration also expressed plans to continue leveraging the D.C. Venture Capital Program, at the level of $52 million in combined District public and private funds, to make equity investments in burgeoning tech companies.
Other provisions of the growth agenda build upon Bowser’s proposed repeal of I-82 by institutionalizing sales tax holidays in August, and two other times throughout 2026, and reforming zoning procedures to increase development.
The mayor has also proposed a pause to energy efficient net zero standards and incentives to revitalize commercial corridors throughout the entire city. Her goal, as she explained on Monday, centered on creating an environment that encourages businesses to stay in the District and create an atmosphere that generates revenue growth.
“They can see that we are out of line with the rest of the region and we are losing investment [in] new restaurants, growing restaurants and employees to other parts of the region,” Bowser said about the D.C. Council. “So I think that we’re going to make [a] strong case to the members of the council about why this is important. We have to save this industry and there are things that are going to be out of our control with other increasing costs. But this one is in our control.”
The Tug-of-War between Restaurants and Workers
In 2022, nearly 75% of D.C. voters approved I-82, also known as the District of Columbia Tip Credit Elimination Act. This happened years after the D.C. Council repealed Initiative 77, a nearly identical ballot measure that voters approved by a 12-point margin.
If I-82 law remains intact, then, by 2027, the tipped minimum wage in D.C. will reach $16.10, on par with the standard minimum wage.
Before the passage of this law, the District’s tipped minimum wage stood at $5.35. While tipped workers supplemented that income through their service and customers’ good graces, I-82’s implementation placed the onus on restaurateurs— not customers– to increase tipped workers’ pay on the front end, a which advocates said would significantly reduce the unpredictability of pay that tipped workers accumulate during shifts.
However, many D.C. residents— including those sitting on the D.C. Council— have complained about the service charges that establishments have passed on to consumers since I-82’s passage, and whether those fees go to restaurant workers. More than a year after the council passed legislation that omits service charges from the revenue calculation that determines how much restaurant owners pay in rent, local restaurants continue to struggle, to the point that more than two out of five local establishments are anticipated to shutter, according to a survey that the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington conducted earlier this year.
On Monday, after Bowser completed her presentation, Nina Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, conducted a panel that included Rahman “Rock” Harper, owner of Hill Prince on H Street in Northeast, and Yohannes Tafesse, founder and CEO of Gratitude Systems, a technology company specializing in AI, 5G, cloud and cybersecurity.
In speaking about I-82, Harper said the law has made it harder for restaurants to thrive in the District.
“We’re diverse. So, you know, the challenges are diverse,” Harper said. “We have labor shortages, increased rents, and, you know, regulatory [matters] when I-82 was implemented. Minimum wage was always legal, right? No one was ever making less than minimum wage. What I-82 did was…force us to make it up front a certain way [with] less maneuverability and that’s just been really challenging.”
A day later, on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building, several dozen members of UNITE Here Local 25 protested in opposition to the very notion of an I-82 repeal. The act of civil disobedience, which took place hours before the council’s legislative meeting, centered on how best to create an economic environment of benefit to working-class D.C. residents.
While Elizabeth Falcon, executive director of D.C. Jobs with Justice, empathized with the unique budget situation that Bowser’s facing, she said the mayor hasn’t done her due diligence in engaging restaurant workers and other proletarians about this issue.
“She’s only talking to your bosses,” Falcon said on the steps of the Wilson Building. “When was the last time the mayor came and talked to you about the conditions in your workplace? When was the last time he asked you about the experience of a restaurant? Never. When was the last time she came to a construction site and made sure that it was safe? Never.”
Minutes later, protesters stormed the fifth floor of the Wilson Building, waiting and chanting in anticipation of a legislative meeting where they would be able to confront D.C. council members in between votes on emergency rental assistance, Title IX regulations, and Dr. Antoinette Mitchell’s confirmation as state superintendent.
But not before Falcon framed what Bowser’s announcement means for tipped-wage workers and other marginalized communities.
“What Bowser has announced in the last couple days is an attack on all working people,” Falcon said. “She is choosing this moment to say, ‘In my budget, when I am supposed to be investing in Washingtonians, the people who work and live here,’ what she is saying is, ‘I want to make it faster to evict you, I want to cut your pay, and I want to invest in billion-dollar projects with no respect for us.’
“We will not take that. We want good jobs in Washington, D.C. We deserve nothing less.”
Some D.C. Councilmembers Respond
With Trump administration-induced federal government layoffs, a $1.1 billion budget gap for Fiscal year 2025, and a proposal for a new Commanders football stadium on RFK campus, the council has its hands full this year — especially with Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal not yet before the legislative body.
Upon learning that Bowser plans to repeal I-83, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) questioned whether the majority of the council would support such a move.
By that time, at least one of his council colleagues—D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) — criticized Bowser’s move as a slight against D.C. voters and restaurant workers in a statement that union organizers circulated.
D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) also spoke out against the repeal, choosing instead to tout a discussion with various stakeholders about how to create an economic environment of benefit to restaurateurs and tipped workers.
“Our restaurant workers deserve a livable wage,” Parker said on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building on Tuesday morning during a protest organized by UNITE Here Local 25, which represents hundreds of D.C.-based restaurant workers.
“I recognize that our restaurants are struggling,” Parker continued during a protest centered not only on I-82, but a project labor agreement for RFK campus. “And I recognize that many of our restaurants do need support, so it’s important for us to find alternatives to provide relief to them while we protect the pay and support for our own construction project.”
Despite his opposition to the ballot initiative, Mendelson said he wouldn’t support reversing a course of action approved by District voters. He did however acknowledge the issues that have to be sorted out another way.
“It’s very hard on customers that restaurant patrons are not clear what they’re doing with tips, as opposed to service charges, as opposed to, well, the wait staff already getting higher wages, because of this phased-in implementation,” Mendelson said. “I think it’s really hard on the restaurant workers, and I’ve heard from many who say that they’re actually getting less income now and I really don’t know who’s benefiting from this.”
