Who is allowed to share my tip pool in Massachusetts?
The short answer
The rule in Massachusetts
| Who can receive pool money | Wait staff employees, service employees, and service bartenders only. |
|---|---|
| Employer’s role | May administer a valid tip pool and record amounts for bookkeeping or tax reporting. |
| Managers and supervisors | Can’t share in a tip pool on a day they have any managerial responsibilities, even if they help serve (Attorney General). |
“No employer or person shall cause, require or permit any wait staff employee, service employee, or service bartender to participate in a tip pool through which such employee remits any wage, tip or service charge, or any portion thereof, for distribution to any person who is not a wait staff employee, service employee, or service bartender.” (Mass. General Laws c.149 §152A: service charges and tips; tip pools)
What’s different in Massachusetts
Federal law lets the kitchen into a required pool once every worker gets $7.25 an hour in cash. Section 152A draws the line by job instead: pool money can reach only wait staff, service employees, and service bartenders. The statute doesn’t switch on your cash wage, which is $6.75 in Massachusetts against a $15.00 minimum.
The Attorney General’s office is also stricter on managers in one way. Federal law keeps a manager out of the pool by duties; the AG says a manager who serves tables still can’t share on any day they had managerial duties. Which coworkers count as a “service employee” turns on definitions in the statute that this page doesn’t restate.
Official sources
Last verified
. Checked the agency pages linked above.
Still open: The Attorney General’s tips law page returned “not found” when we checked; the rules here come from the statute text and an AG press release.