.webp "Jim Conway, 64, retired last year after almost 40 years working in restaurants, most recently at an Olive Garden outside of Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen for The Washington Post)")
Jim Conway started working in restaurants in 1982, making $2.13 an hour, plus tips.
And though the world has changed significantly in the nearly 40 years since then, his hourly wage has not. At the Olive Garden outside of Pittsburgh where he worked when the pandemic hit last year, he was making $2.83 an hour, the minimum wage for tipped workers in Pennsylvania, plus tips.
