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The $2.13 wage has a catch — and it is in your favor.
When an employer pays a tipped cash wage below minimum wage, the law requires tips to close the gap — and if they don't, the employer must pay the difference every single pay period. This calculator checks your cash wage plus tips against the minimum and computes exactly what you're owed if you fall short.
Tipped workers use it after a slow week: if cash wage plus tips misses the minimum, the employer owes the difference — this computes the exact top-up. Workers moving states use it to learn whether they just landed in a no-tip-credit state with full minimum wage plus tips.
$2.13/hour cash wage against the $7.25 federal minimum — a maximum tip credit of $5.12. If tips don't bring you to $7.25 in any workweek, the employer must pay the difference. Many states set higher floors, and California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Alaska, and Minnesota prohibit tip credits entirely — servers there get full state minimum wage plus tips.
No. The top-up obligation is computed per workweek. A $300 Friday cannot legally cover a $20 Tuesday across the week boundary, and within the week the test is total cash wage plus tips divided by hours. Slow weeks trigger the top-up regardless of what you made last week.
Only tips you actually receive and keep after any lawful pool. Mandatory service charges auto-added to large parties are not tips under federal law unless the employer passes them to you — check whether your house treats them as commission or distributes them.