evidence: Raising Ohio’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 will benefit nearly 1 million working Ohioans (19% of the Ohio workforce). This includes 470,000 currently paid less than $15 who will receive a direct benefit, and 500,000 currently paid up to $17.25, who will get a raise as employers adjust their pay scales.Schedule [...] For tipped workers this measure could help to make sure they are paid all the wages they’re already owed. In Ohio, if a tipped worker’s wage and tips combined fall short of the minimum wage, the employer is required by law to make up the difference. Yet the system opens the door to labor abuses including sexual harassment and wage theft. The Restaurant Opportunities Center found that women in the leisure and hospitality industry face double the rate of workplace sexual harassment as their peers in other industries, both from the customers whose tips they rely on directly and from managers who control whether they work busy shifts.[41] Policy Matters Ohio found that half of wage theft cases from nonpayment of the minimum wage occurred in the leisure and hospitality industry, where roughly 100,000 workers are victims every year.[42] For these reasons, eight states have done away with the subminimum wage for tipped workers, providing for "equal treatment."