A good night would be anything above $250. A bad night for Holder is anything less than $100 in tips for six or seven hours of work. 'It's definitely stressful when something as uncontrollable as the weather can have an effect on your income,' she said. But Holder's take-home pay depends much more on things she can't control-like whether it's snowing outside, or whether people in the neighborhood have just paid their bills for the month. In Chicago beginning July 1, the non-tipped minimum wage will go up to $10 and the tipped wage will bump from $4.95 per hour to $5.45.
Tipped workers in Illinois can be paid less than the non-tipped minimum wage, which is currently $8.25 an hour. So, the extra 50 cents per hour she'll get once Chicago's minimum wage hike phases in next month won't make much of a difference. 'It's weird, when you take home cash every night, you don't really think of your income in terms of weekly or monthly,' she said. But really, it's all about the tips-which, she said, makes it hard to establish a consistent budget.
Holder, 24, makes $4.95 an hour tending bar at Halsted's Bar and Grill in Boystown, which she supplements with a few hours a week manning the door at Hydrate, a gay bar across the street. Hayley Holder's hourly wage is so far from her mind that sometimes she forgets to pick up her paychecks.