Chicago's mayor recently tied the restaurant industry to slavery while defending his effort to increase the city's minimum wage for tipped workers. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson made the controversial statement after a back-and-forth with the Chicago City Council over phasing out the subminimum wage for tipped workers, which would bring their base pay up from $12.62 per hour to $16.60 per hour.

Getting rid of the subminimum wage has been championed by the mayor and opposed by restaurant owners and associations who say it could threaten their businesses. 

Last month, the Chicago City Council voted to end the wage increase, but Johnson vetoed the decision. 

The city council then failed to override the mayor's veto, securing just 30 of the 34 votes needed to do so. That means the city is back on track to raise the base pay for tipped workers up to the regular minimum wage by 2028. 

At a press conference on Wednesday, Johnson was asked about a perceived lack of transparency in his Reparations Task Force, which the reporter alleged was not in compliance with a state law that mandates public bodies hold public meetings. 

The mayor replied that his task force does hold public meetings and said, 'I am a black man in America calling for the reparations of black people. There is no hiding and escaping that.'

Johnson continued: 'When we do have these public meetings, let's make sure that people participate in them and challenge the city council not to do stuff like take wages away from black and brown people, because that in itself has its vestiges tied to slavery.' 

'You just watched the entire city council, in transparency, try to take wages away from the very people who are part of an industry that has its ties to slavery,' Johnson then said, reasserting his connection between slavery and the restaurant industry.

Tipping in the US proliferated after the Civil War when restaurants would hire recently emancipated black workers but refuse to pay them a wage, relying on patrons to tip them instead, according to the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.

Johnson created his Reparations Task Force in 2024 and funded it with $500,000 of public funds that year. 

On Thursday, the task force began a bus tour meant to engage with local communities and develop an understanding of the 'impacts of systemic harm faced by Black Chicagoans.' 

In Johnson's assertion that his task force is transparent, he specifically mentioned the bus tour. 

After accusing the city council of attempting to take wages away from black people in an industry tied to slavery, the mayor concluded his statement by saying: 'I am boldly declaring that we need reparations in this city, and that's why I'm funding it.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to Mayor Johnson's office for comment. 

The mayor's statements on Wednesday caused a stir on social media, with many users criticizing the idea of reparations and questioning the historical accuracy of his claims. 

'Reality check: Tipping started in Europe centuries before American slavery. Chicago was never a slave city (Illinois banned it in 1818). Most Chicago restaurants are minority-owned,' one user on X wrote. 

'Meanwhile, the city is bleeding businesses, crime is out of control, and Johnson just created a taxpayer-funded Black Reparations Task Force,' the user continued. 

'I don’t have to pay reparations because my family immigrated in the 1890’s. So leave me out of it,' a second user said. 

'More he talks... the more idiotic he is,' a third person wrote.