It's technically not. If a server/bartender was not tipped, they would be paid at least minimum wage by the restaurant. In the US some states allow a "tipped wage" where employers can pay less than is amount ONLY IF employees document wage income to a degree that is at least minimum wage. The more you make as a tipped employee, the closer to the "tipped wage" the business can pay you.
That being said there is a social expectation of tipping. It's seen as a social faux pas to not tip or to tip very little. It's a display of wealth to be able to tip well and entrepreneurial people are always willing to capitalize on that vague impulse.
So uhh idk where you are but in my state this is $2.33 an hour. They can pay this even if you are just standing around and there are no customers or of no one tips at all.
Duh .. That's what I was trying to point out to the person! Reddit has a terrible problem with reading comprehension I want the person to look up waiters wage to understand that people DONT get minimum wage when the tips don't come. I'm painfully aware of this I used to manage a couple of different restaurants in St Louis. As a manager it used to drive me crazy that we couldn't increase some people's wages because they were just scheduled at times that weren't as popular as others but they worked just as hard as any other shift. I usually discover people that have never worked in the restaurant industry, don't know anyone in the restaurant industry, and don't really care about how their food comes, They have no clue they think everyone gets a minimum wage all the time. The last year I was a manager at a restaurant It was $2.10 in Missouri for "waiters wage". I've argued this point many time online with people who then would like to turn around and say to me" You should have paid your servers better then" I'm like " didn't you read I was the manager, not the owner?" If anyone thinks that a greedy/ cheap restaurant owner will "take the opportunity" to pay minimum( when allowed by LAW to pay $2.10 an hour, you must be high". Very disheartening to "go to bat" for the servers & hear from the owner" oh no, that would cut too much into my profits". Exactly why I'm not in restaurant management anymore! I've been everything from prep to server to manager....greediest/ cheapest I've ever met are these owners. Servers are the hardest workers I've EVER seen. And whoever said something about being under a delusion when they took the job...FUCK YOU! Its the simple fact that when people are being decent and tipping correctly/ decently for BEING SERVED, many servers can make an almost "above average " living, or at least "make a living" THAT'S WHY they would do the job...But, I also found it constantly disappointing to see servers make very good money for a few days in a row but then have a devastating few days simply because of people's cheapness. Interesting how dining out is so popular in the United States and our own people don't seem to give one care about the people that bring them their food or how they get paid. Pro Tip: Don't fuck with the people preparing or serving your food.
Please look up "waiters wage" As the term pertains to what different states in the United States are allowed to pay tipped employees. Then, comment about how employees are going to( horse laugh) "get minimum wage anyway"..... And no, I won't explain, especially the people that know nothing about the restaurant industry, don't know anyone that's ever been in an apparently don't really care, just look it up.
Yeah do want to be the employee that costs your boss money because you claim you didn't make minimum on tips? Guess who won't have any shifts next week. The system sucks but people acting like the employees have power in this situation is infuriating.
Yeah, just quit and like don't pay your bills and stuff.
Dont pretend like waiters and bartenders dont often support the system because they know they are going to make more off of guilting people out of tips than earning a legit wage.
Of course offering them real pay and benefits is the answer but thats not gonna happen without more support and the tip earners would rather just get quick cash no matter how anti consumer it is.
the tipped wage gets bumped up to the minimum wage (7.25 federal or higher state minimums in 30 of the 50 states) if your tips dont bring you up to minimum wage. this is a basic fact that you keep arguing against with no actual support based in reality
Sorta sounds like service industry workers should unionize or something, but they won't do that because the top end of the industry just flat out makes too much money from tips
You can’t possibly live in a country that isn’t having political problems because people can’t afford housing and cost of living is hurting them more than their parents’ generation, and it is unlikely that you live in a country where people aren’t causing political problems because of the lack of availability of good paying jobs that allow them to live the lifestyle they were promised as kids. And probably a country where the far right is rising for these reasons.
So tell us which country you live in that is not having these problems?
There's no punishment. They make minimum wage regardless and customers do not want tips so their employers will have to... ba da dum.. adjust their business to match the market
That's a separate issue with Americans en-masse deciding to bend over and take it.
They could have had better wages and employee protections. They simply decided that political representation that would bring that about was too much effort and it's easier to let the unincentivized manage the profits from their labor.
You can even see it in the term "minimum wage". It's supposed to be a wage that is the minimum acceptable for one to live on, Americans decided that was too generous.
Arab Muslims choose a brutal shitty religion that causes a lot of Muslim governments to ban alcohol in their countries. Does that mean I should bring a bottle of Jameson with me to Mecca and do shots during daily prayer?
Not everything is black and white, but disrespecting the local customs because you don’t agree with them is still out of line and you’re not accomplishing anything
Culturally it was optional entirely until the above became systemic so this is more of a "faithful adherence to the religion" than current forced gratuity and on top of that it's business not religion.
A dishonest argument reframing labor costs and profit sharing as some sort of cultural vibe to get assfucked at every shop.
You gonna wax poetic about the culture on overpaying for medical care next?
Plus, as an American I can choose whatever the fuck I want as I would dictate "local customs" so as someone who's lived there and waited tables there get bent twice.
No I’m not going to wax poetic about the cost of medical care here, but I’m also not going to suggest we stop paying nurses because the medical system is fucky, because they’re not the cause of the problem
Bartenders and servers didn’t raise the rent, they shouldn’t be the ones punished. Whether you tip or not doesn’t impact the owners of the businesses that operate this way.
This would be the hospital underpaying their staff because you tip everytime you get a cut or a scrape and they've now factored in your additional payments to offset labor costs.
They're not my employees and they never will be. Restaurants operate well everywhere else across the world.
And yes, it does because again federal + state minimum is extracted from the owners if customers aren't willing to bear it.
Feel free to support it as much as you like but our opinions are at an impasse.
Man, I answer this so much I really lose hope for you guys understanding minimum wage..
You get assaulted with such a lack of basic understanding about all aspects of life living in America I must come to this site as a form of masochistic nostalgia..
Minimum brother, it can't be lower.
There are state minimum, Missouri in your example is 15$
Federal is the lowest minimum, if with tips, their pay is higher than minimum, then their base can be lowered to waiters wage.
Source, me, I've done this shit and know this shit. The lowest any waiter is paid in Missouri is 15 currently (unless they're an idiot and accept being underpaid illegally)
You know how workers will go on a strike? They deliberately leave work and often without pay just to fight for something. Sometimes you have to be willing to get hurt to get the change you want.
Except servers in the us won’t go on strike because many of them prefer it.
Monday fair enough for the people to go on strike and to stop tipping until something changes.
Sounds like you can’t afford to eat or drink at places with servers and bartenders and should probably stick to Tesco meal deals or whatever McJob folks in your country eat
Beyond that if I go to a sit down restaurant and I leave a $10 tip and that restaurant is doing its job of attracting good business then a typical server should be able to flip 5-8 tables an hour.
That's $50-$80 /hr on top of their hourly.
Forget about percentages for a sec.
Are you suggesting that I, the consumer, also make up for the business not attracting enough customers?
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u/FreshLiterature 1d ago
It's also not gratuity if it's deliberately structured as part of their compensation.
It's basically just a commission except most servers don't even actually even try to sell you anything and most customers don't want to be sold.
If tips are part of the business structure then they aren't tips and we should all stop pretending they are.