You misspelled “simplistic.”
So waiters and waitresses make at least the minimum wage, even without counting tips?
Yes. See: WAC 296-126-022:
“For the purposes of these regulations, gratuities received by employees shall not be considered a part of the minimum wage.”
You can find out more about Washington’s minimum wage requirements here: http://www.lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/Wages/Minimum/
“Washington’s minimum wage applies to workers in both agriculture and non-agricultural jobs, although 14- and 15-year-olds may be paid 85% of the minimum wage ($9.35).”
So that means that tipping is no longer necessary in the state of Washington?
I guess that depends on in what sense you mean by necessary. I tend to agree in theory that as wages on tipped workers go up the average tip should go down.
In practice, as a matter of manners and sociology rather than economic theory, it seems to my experience that tipping practices in Seattle are similar to those in other areas in the US.
It may be helpful at this point to mention that the State of Washington is not the only one to not have a separate tipped minimum wage; per the US DoL this is also the law in Alaska, California, Guam, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon, though the minimum is considerably lower in many of those states and Guam.
(Businesses grossing less than $110,000 per year in Montana have a $4 minimum wage, lower than the federal one. The higher federal minimum wage for non-tipped workers would therefore apply and make the two minimums different. In practice, I don’t imagine many MT restaurants with waitstaff have a gross of under $110k.)
OK, thanks. I just wondered if tipping stopped, since the reason for it no longer applied.
For purposes of this discussion, what, in your mind, is the difference between earnings and pay?
Your pay is just that, your earnings include your tips.
And federal law addresses earnings, not pay. The minimum wage, federal or state, whichever is higher, applies.
This horse has been beaten to death, and people still whine that servers only make $2.10/hr or whatever it is. Not true. No matter how many times it gets repeated.
You are correct in that. Their earnings are above minimum wage. Sometimes well above.
Unless you’re stuck working the midnight shift at Perkins or something. About 10 years ago I worked late night security at a couple of them* and they’d have half a dozen tables over the course of 4-5 hours and the majority of those tables either didn’t tip or left coins. I always felt bad for the people scheduled for that shift.
- We had a contract for all but one of the local Perkins. Then a waitress was raped at that store while taking out the garbage. Then we had their contract too. Mostly just sitting around reading a book, drinking free soda and walking around outside once or twice, midnight to 4 or 5am. Except for the Midway store, which was busy all night and regularly had fights. I got asked not to return as a guard there because I refused to wade into a fight between 10 gang members. :rolleyes:
If the waitstaff can show their tips are below minimum wage the employer is supposed to make up the difference.
https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf
That’s over the course of a pay period. A particular shift could earn less than minimum wage though, which is a real drag.
Yeah, there should be a minimum wage, but wage subsidies are a vastly superior anti-poverty tool. One big reason being that wage subsidies can be based on need, whereas wages are based on value to the employer.
That also means we have to get over getting upset at businesses for hiring workers who still get some government assistance. That’s the way it’s SUPPOSED to work.
I caught this on the news this evening, made me think of this thread…
Several San Jose Restaurants Add Surcharges to Help Pay for Rising Minimum Wage
It’s not quite clear that jobs are being lost, or hours being reduced, but prices for consumers are going up.
The goal of minimum wage is to avoid penalizing businesses that try to pay their employees enough to live on.
…thus incentivizing businesses to underpay their employees, making taxpayers pick up the slack, and ultimately subsidizing business profits with public money.
Because according to the left, there is no such thing as scarcity of resources when it comes to business owners. We are all awash in cash, swimming through it like a Scrooge McDuck gold vault.
Therefore, it will not affect anything one bit to require us to dip into the top portion of that gold vault, or forego one night of binging on hookers and cocaine in order to pay our employees more.
Seriously, though, this has always been my issue with the minimum wage. Many business owners are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. A business owner may not be making a minimum wage himself, yet society has chosen a policy of social welfare to help those who are incapable of earning a decent wage, not on the backs of society in general, or even through progressive income taxation, but putting it on the backs of the category of “business owners”, whether rich or poor themselves.
And the right think the only thing worse than raising prices is raising taxes!