LANSING — Michigan’s newly amended sick time and tipped wage laws went into effect Friday afternoon, in what could be the end to a seven-year-long legal saga.
The Legislature approved bipartisan changes to the state’s policies late Thursday night, hours before other laws were set to go into effect. Gov. Whitmer signed the bills — SB 8 and HB 4002 — into law Friday afternoon.
Before Friday, Michigan’s minimum wage sat at $10.56 an hour, with the tipped wage at $4.01.
On Friday, the minimum wage increased to $12.48 an hour, also bumping the tipped wage to $4.74.
Without legislative intervention, those changes would’ve kicked off a complete phase-out of the tipped wage and raised the figure to $5.99 immediately.
“Just having that clear number, having an answer, I think, was one of the biggest concerns — that the past few months, no one has known what is going to happen, or what they will need to pay their employees,” said Haley Bennett, director of government relations with Traverse Connect.
The newly passed laws also alter some of the sick time requirements included in the original initiative. Small business employees can take up to 40 hours of paid sick time per year, while large business workers can take an additional 32 hours paid.
All workers accrue one hour for every 30 hours worked, and all businesses can front-load their employees’ sick time and not track accrual for the rest of the year.
“Rhat’s one of the things that relieves some of the administrative burden of this — you know, that’s more paperwork, more documentation,” said Russ Knopp, co-owner of Comfort Keepers of Northwest Michigan. “And if you can do that front loading and avoid all of that accrual and all that documentation, it’s going to make it more efficient.”
The law defines a small business as one with 10 or fewer employees, including any part-time or temporary workers in that figure.
Small businesses are exempt from the requirements until October 1st of this year.
Employers are also allowed to make future new hires wait 120 days to take earned sick time, up from 90 days in the original law.
The law allows employers to avoid no-call no-shows by establishing a written sick time policy that is given to employees upon hiring. Employers would not be allowed to reject those requests if they don’t provide a pre-written policy, or change the policy without notifying employees.
“I think it’s really important,” Knopp said. “It’s critical in our industry that sick people don’t go to work.”
One Fair Wage, an organizer of the original policy initiative, has said they will launch a referendum campaign to overturn the tipped wage compromise. That initiative would need about 360,000 valid signatures to appear on the 2026 ballot.
