I can’t attest to the practice in the USA, but in the UK & Australia at least, many restaurants used to have ‘no split bills’ policy. (It’s becoming more uncommon, presumably with more sophisticated POS terminals.) Then depending upon who was dining* that would then lead to involved discussions about who had what, and how much was owed, and how this person only has a 20 note, so they’re going to need x dollars from the change.
As recently as last year in a rural Scottish bar/eatery I was treated to sitting next to a table of five older ladies, who upon receipt of the bill (with no split bills allowed) spend at least 20 minutes on this topic, including some pretty shonky maths on occasion.
At the risk of perpetuating stereotypes and only in my experience, behaviour in this situation was often, but not always, gender driven.
I get irritated whenever I see this statement in connection to the recent MW claims/debates. Theres a meme pops up from time to time espousing this BS in response to the $15/hour MW claim, superimposed over a photo of the McDonald’s self service terminals.
The fact is McDonalds begin trialling self service terminals in 2007! Plus however long it would take a company of that size to go from idea to prototype stage, and guess what, Automation was being sought and money spent in it long before $15/hour was so much as a twinkle in some Macca’s employees eye.
It would be meaningless. The economy is not a single pair of variables governed by a simple relationship. There are many inputs and many outputs. Much like genetics and outcomes or human activity and climate change it’s impossible to isolate the variables.
What I do know is that where countries that had no infrastructure and no competitive advantage other than no wage floor have and are continuing to siphon tremendous amounts of jobs from countries that do.
Furthermore there is a survivor bias with regards to the jobs that did stay. Which is why people use the argument that you can’t replace the Wal Mart greeter with a dude in India or China. Note they don’t say the factory worker.
That’s because there was a wage floor then. As long as there is a wage floor and people occupy some form of distorted bell curve distribution of economic value the left tail is either going to be unemployed or making low wages. That’s just reality.
The solution is policy like basic income or means tested assistance. The solution is not counterproductive wage floors.
Wages are a function of the market; how little companies can pay and still reliably fill a position. It’s not the same thing as economic value.
So hiring an extra barista at the Grove Street Starbucks might generate, say, an extra $800 per day in customers that they can serve. But the only bearing that that has on Bobby Barista’s salary is it must be < $800 per day.
Now I’m not saying pay Bobby $800 a day; obviously Starbucks have many costs to cover, and they have risked capital and have no reason to share profits.
What I’m saying is: let’s not confuse those two numbers (which your graph idea implicitly does). The economic value of a given worker in terms of productivity, and her salary, are two different things. That’s why the result of a minimum wage is not necessarily to increase unemployment.
“Means tested assistance”, where there is no minimum wage, is essentially subsidizing businesses.
I don’t need to upgrade my horse and buggy company to use labor more productively because the government is paying a portion of it.
It is the same way in the U.S. and I suspect everywhere in the world. If a group of men go out to eat, they will argue about who gets to pay the whole bill (advocating that they should have the honor) although they often just end up splitting the bill equally regardless of who had what. If it is a group of women, out come the calculators and someone is about to get screwed because of creative math.
What you are paid is your economic value. Real value can only be determined when an exchange has been made. What’s the value of my house? I have a rough idea but until it sells I don’t know. Nor does anyone else. What the Starbucks person is paid is his or her value. The profit is the company’s value.
And no, means tested assistance is not subsidizing business. It is a subsidy for low value individuals. If my only skill is low value and I am making $1/hr and the state is subsidizing my life to the tune of an additional $300/month it is not a subsidy of Acme Ditch Diggers.
Why? Because Acme Ditch Diggers has competitors for labor. If my labor is in demand the other companies will bid higher to attract labor. This is why wage floors are unnecessary and counterproductive. The fact that a majority of working Americans make more than minimum wage is proof that the labor market is competitive.
What minimum wage accomplishes is it prices out of the market low value workers entirely. Now the state is subsidizing 100% of their expenses instead of a fraction. It destroys domestic industries and empowers strategic competitors. It makes the economically ignorant feel better. It empowers corrupt and evil politicians who exploit the economically ignorant.
And on a side note, people saying that those opposed to minimum wage are in favor of slavery or feudalism are being dishonest. Why would I advocate for a basic income if I were pro-slavery?
Yeah, a lot of people seem to labor under the assumption that because the pay rate on the paycheck is so small, that tip-compensated employees are necessarily only bringing home that amount of cash. It’s not so; for many, the paycheck is almost incidental to the amount of tips they bring home each night.
Look at it this way- if a waiter has a shift of 4 hours, and 4 tables an hour, that’s 16 tables. Let’s say that he makes an average of $5 per table in tips. That’s $80 in tips for that 4 hour shift. He also made like $8.52 in paycheck wages during that shift.
So for a single 4 hour shift, Joe Waiter made $88.52 for an effective hourly wage of $22.13. If he got his minimum wage boosted to $12 and tipping was discouraged/disallowed, then he’d take an effective $10/hr pay cut.
And I suspect that an average $5 tip over the course of a shift, or 4 tables an hour is probably on the low side, especially as far as the average tip goes, in more expensive restaurants.
Anecdotally, I worked as a busboy in a Chili’s back in 1989. I got 1% of the entire restaurant tip pool for the shift I worked. And I made somewhere between $15-20 most days on the lunch shift. I wasn’t making today’s minimum wage when all was said and done, but I was making well more than the $3.35 of the time. Boosting me to minimum and eliminating my measly tipout would have decreased my earnings as well.
You’re familiar with the concept of productivity, right? And that it’s not the same thing as salary / wages?
e.g. Imagine I pay someone $10 an hour to prepare burgers but then someone shows up who’s willing to do the job for free (he just wants something to do to get out of the house). It’s not that preparing burgers suddenly has zero value to me and my business. It’s simply that the market price just dropped.
Your analysis with the graph does a bait and switch between productivity and price, as is often the case in this context, to imply minimum wage necessarily involves paying someone more than their “worth”.
Yes it is. Remember that number productivity? So digging ditches might only contribute $5 per hour of extra profit to my business, but no problem because I can pay the worker less than that. Meanwhile the worker could be working for another employer where they would contribute $10 per hour but why bother changing jobs when the government is making up the difference anyway?
Of course automation has been going of for some time. Do you “get irritated” when someone points out that higher labor costs makes automation more viable, sooner? Or do you just not like facts?
Well, I suspect that you are an ass. My experience is that the women I know are just as likely to try to grab the whole bill, then the one who pays it finds extra money in her pocket later that she didn’t put there, after the goodbye hugs.
Probably but the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. I got so sick of the check bickering when I was the sole male that went out to eat with a group (affluent) women that I just took all the cash out out of my wallet, threw it on the table, told them it was my treat and walked out. I am not even sure how they ever split up the excess but that probably was a good catfight as well. I never spoke to any of them again and that is probably for the best. That isn’t the only example. I have witnessed it all my life as have people all over the world. It is just easier for me to pay for everyone. If I wanted to hear girls fight, I would have stayed home and put my daughters into a cage match (I am sure they would be more than happy to oblige).
That isn’t a new concept. It is recognized all around the world. The reason for it is fairly simple. It is a simple dominance display by men even if it is generous. Men don’t like to admit financial weakness so they opt to overpay or at least play it really casually when money becomes a question. That isn’t a virtue but it does create a noticeable difference in social situations.
Firstly you skipped the part of my argument about productivity so I’ll assume you concede the point.
But secondly on the on the subject of government top ups for wages, yes most governments do not do it on a 1:1 scale because they recognize the importance of still encouraging labor to move to where it is more productive. But nevertheless, it’s a compromise: the tax paying public is helping make flawed business plans profitable.
Ideally we would then put extra taxes on those profits to make up the difference…and the net effect would be the same as a minimum wage.
I’m not sure what your point is about most workers earning more than the minimum wage. Of course they do.
I don’t know where around the world you have been - but in the past decades, with more women having real Jobs and getting more equality and recognition in Germany, the idea of the “male” part of the couple (or Group) Dining automatically having to pay for everybody, or the related idea that Splitting by the Server is unknown is something that developed in the past decades.
I have a book from the 50s, about an aspiring, but mostly breadless writer, dating the rich daughter of a Hotel owner, and when they go out, she Slips him bills under the table so he can pay. Even in the 80s, when I read the book, the whole idea was so WTF? to me that I had to ask my parents who confirmed that it was usual for the man to pay in the 50s and 60s. And also that women were given menus without Prices so they wouldn’t know that the salmon or Hummer was expensive.
Although if you are invited and intentionally pick by Price and not taste, you are a bad guest. Trying to Charge as much as possible by picking the most expensive item = jerk. Trying to pick the cheapest item to not put your inviter out too much = lack of communication. If somebody invites but has limited funds, you Need to talk about Splitting the bill before you order, or go somewhere cheaper.
It’s simply a remnant of a mostly outdated macho System where the male was breadwinner and didn’t give his wages to the wife to be managed* , instead “generously” inviting here. Down to Teenagers, who both have an allowance, but still expect the Boy to pay.
I’m sorry if you are still moving in such old-fashioned circles.
*as is done e.g in Japan, where majority of Society believes that women are much better at finances and Managing Money, because they have been doing it for centuries, while men don’t worry their pretty Little heads about complicated stuff like that
Um, wait. It’s called “Minimum wage” not Maximum wage. Obviously a 16 year old doing half-a-dozen Routine Jobs, learned in one afternoon, at McDs will get Minimum wage, whereas a skilled waitress of 30 years, with 10 years experience in high-class Restaurants, working at a high-end seafood Restaurant, will be paid a much higher wage by her employer, because in a high-end Restaurant, any competent Manager knows a) how much more there is to a good waiter than just “taking orders and carrying full plates from kitchen to table” to make the customers enjoy the eating-out-experience b) finding a good waiter/waitress and keeping them is important, because an incompetent waiter will quickly loose them customers.
At least, that’s what happens in our (socialist) Country where unions negotiate a fixed wage, but nothing prevents companies from paying more for qualified employees who are valuable in making high-paying customers happy.
So it’s a shift, too. Thanks, that partly explains it - writers for TV and novels will often draw upon their own experiences, so there’s a Generation lag between what appears today in media actually refering 20 years back.
Chinese Restaurants have been quoted as being cheap with low Service, but how much has the development of “more eating out because cheaper” in the US been pushed by Mexican Restaurants and Food trucks in big cities? They seem to be developments of the past 2 decades, with before the only Option of cheap Food being McD etc.?
There’s also the question of whether customers want Automation. Maybe People want McD to be cheap and will accept robots grilling and delivering their burgers. But when they want to spend a nice evening in a Mom-and-Pop local Restaurant, the may want to know that a human Person cooked their meal, and see a smiling human face bring their Food, and Chat about what’s to be recommend.
In Star Trek: DS9, we learn that although Replicators can produce every Food (and tea), Siskos Father still runs a Restaurant - because he enjoys cooking, and apparently People enjoy eating out and paying for it (however which way) despite replicators.
In fact, there currently seems to be a trend where People treasure and deliberatly buy hand-made or small-manufactured items which still have a better Quality than cheap mass-produced stuff from China.
How many of those niche markets can survive, compared to the mass of consumers who currently can’t afford nice things if expensive? That depends. Maybe 10%of the market, maybe 1%. We will see.
But this Special Segment of consumers who look for Quality or a Special experience (LOHAs LOHAS - Wikipedia) - they will want to know that their waiters are decently paid.
Why wouldn’t it be sustainable ? If people wanna keep tipping, it’s fine. If they leave without tipping because the meal is expensive enough already, it’s fine too. Here in Paris, food can be cheap or hella expensive - and people still tip on top of it once in a while, when the meal was really good or the service remarkable. It’s not an expected thing, and you’re not an asshole if you don’t tip like you are in the US. It works perfectly fine.
FWIW, when travelling to the States I always found waiters obnoxious as fuck. Coming to the table every 3 minutes with a plaster smile, do you need this, do you want that, hey my name is Cindy can I refill your whatever… Cindy, back the hell off, I’ll call you if I need you.
Of course the reason Cindy does it is to get a tip, because she *needs *that tip to eat. It’s bullshit. Fuck culture, pay your bloody workers. Can you imagine that crap in any other industry ? If Jim from IT passed by your desk every 20 minutes like a human Clippy to make sure your Word document is in tippy top shape ? Hell, it can even be a PR/marketing thing. “Come eat here, our waiters aren’t hungrier than your dog ! And they’ll actually leave you the fuck alone !”