Nevada’s (NV) Minimum Wage Requirements

Several people have asked me to talk about the Nevada minimum wage for tipped employees. As you may know if you read this blog regularly, Nevada is one of 15 states that have the minimum wage set at $5.15 per hour, the same level as the current federal minimum wage.

However, a recent change in the Nevada minimum wage requires that any employer who does not provide health benefits, must pay a minimum wage of $6.15 per hour. In order to qualify for the $5.15 rate, an employer must offer health insurance for the employee and their dependants at a total cost of less than 10 % of the employee’s gross income.

In addition, the Nevada minimum wage is indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), so it increases annually with inflation. The Nevada wage uses the CPI for all urban consumers across the U.S., not just in Nevada, as its guide.

That’s great, but where does that leave tipped employees in Nevada? The answer is very simple. In Nevada, tipped employees must be paid the minimum wage, period. Unlike many other states, Nevada does not allow an employee’s wages to be reduced, because they receive tips.

This is a great deal for bartenders, restaurant servers and other tipped employees in Nevada. In many states, tipped employees may be paid as little as $2.13 per hour, which is the federal minimum for tipped employees. Nevada is one of only 7 U.S. states that does not allow wages to be reduced for tipped employees. The others are Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Washington and Oregon. The minimum hourly rate for tipped employees in these states ranges from $4.00 per hour for a small business owner in Montana, to the state minimum wage of $7.93 per hour in Washington.

The other 43 state in the union all allow some form of reduced wage for tipped employees. These range from $2.23 per hour in Delaware to $7.00 per hour in Hawaii. In most states, employees who earn tips are entitled to hourly wages that range from $2.23 to about $4.00 per hour. Nevada employees, of course, can be grateful that they are entitled to far more.