Restaurants oppose efforts to raise tipped workers' minimums to level of other workers. Massachusetts and Arizona voters will have their say.

The ballot measures in Arizona and Massachusetts reflect an accelerating debate over the so-called subminimum wage.

Voters in Arizona and Massachusetts are set to decide whether employers should be able to continue to pay tipped workers such as servers and bartenders a lower minimum wage than non-tipped workers.

The upcoming change is the latest in a series of moves to tighten eligibility rules in order to limit temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers. Those changes include imposing caps on the percentage of low-wage foreign workers in some sectors and ending permits in metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.

Federal labor law allows businesses to pay tipped workers, like food servers, bartenders and bellhops, less than the minimum wage as long as customer tips make up the difference.

The issue disproportionately affects women, who make up about 47% of the U.S. workforce but nearly 70% of those who work in tipped professions.

You have no security when it comes to knowing how much you’re going to make.” That uncertainty exists largely because federal labor law allows businesses to pay tipped workers, like food servers, bartenders and bellhops,

Mel Nichols, a 37-year-old bartender in Phoenix, Arizona, takes home anywhere from $30 to $50 an hour with tips included.