When it comes to this sort of thing, definitely anecdotes.
That’s why I mentioned the passive voice. If we put the agent in D’Anconia’s sentence to make it accurate, it needs to say, “In the U.S., all employees must be paid the federal or state minimum wage, whichever is higher, BY A COMBINATION OF THEIR CUSTOMERS AND THEIR EMPLOYERS.” Then, yes, it’s true.
Problem is, when we’re talking about employees being paid wages, it’s almost universally understood that the agent is “employer.” D’Anconia may intend this agent, but by leaving it unclear, he strongly implies that something false is true.
Setting aside the issues inherent in the agentless passive voice, if the law is truly unenforced (something I don’t have a position on), it’s categorically different from laws against robbery and sexual assault, which are enforced.
I was hungry and did not have much time before my coach left thanks to the lateness of the meal.
As I said, I was short on time. I had complained to the wait staff already. As was, I had about 10 mins after I finished before they started loading the coach.
That is not correct. The server knew my dissatisfaction.
Ok, so let’s say all this happened in your home town, where tipping is not practiced. What would you have done in these circumstances?
Median hourly wage for the following occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Waiters and Waitresses: $9.61
Cooks, Restaurant: $11.61
Retail Sales Workers: $10.37
Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors: $16.95
Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers: $9.76
Childcare Workers: $10.18
In a case like that, just tip the 15% and be done with it. Forget about it and focus on enjoying what you came to the United States to see.
And which of those has the most unreported, tax-free income?
One study indicates that $11 billion is likely not reported from just credit card tips. That ignores all cash tips. Based on the number of waiters in the country, unreported tips likely total $3.00 to $6.00 per hour per server. Not only is that additional income, it is tax free.
If it’s unreported, how can you come up with a number?
The unreported credit card tips were estimated by Square and the IRS. The IRS separately reported that they believe that only 40 percent of tips are reported and taxed.
I would like to hear from servers whether they think the 40 percent figure seems reasonable. As an outsider, it doesn’t seem unbelievable to me.
Forgive me if I’ve missed this in my skimming the thread; but since most places that have (for example) bussers and bar staff are tipped to out of the server’s tips, is the minimum wage guaranteed after they’ve done so? It’s different at each restaurant, be it 10-50% of each server’s tips per shift.
FWIW, one of my reasons for supporting the abolition of tipping is precisely that it makes tax avoidance so easy. No-one really likes paying taxes, but they’re the price of a civilized society, and everyone should pay their fair share.
If a waiter manages to achieve a gross income of $50,000 or $100,000, or whatever, then he or she should have the same tax burden as a schoolteacher or police officer or office working making $50,000 or $100,000. But that rarely happens, because so much tipped income goes unreported.
Come on, no need to be obtuse just for the sake of it. Economists and other academic researchers have plenty of ways of making reasonably accurate determinations about things like this. Of course, they can never be completely certain, but they can control for a lot of factors, and most such studies outline the assumptions and the methodology that informs their work in order to make clear how confident they are about their calculations.
Now I have this image of Quartz departing in his coach, glorying in his revenge but still craving a cheeseburger and hot tea (with milk). 
Somewhere up thread it was posted that the waitress should have noticed the food was improperly cooked. Really? How were they supposed to see inside the eggs? If I order a steak as 'medium ', other than the little plastic stick in it that says medium, how would the wait staff know how done it is? I’m filing that under “crazy talk”.
As to the op. Wow dude, just wow. Here’s a hint for next time - if you are in a hurry never, ever order eggs Benedict. They take quite some time to prepare and unless you’re at a high end brunch, they’ll most likely be less than mediocre (at least on the west coast). You’re better off with scrambled or over-easy. Ok? And one more thing, use your pie hole to ask the waiter/waitress for some milk. Stiffing that person because of your own inadequacies is not nice, not nice at all.
I have an image of Quartz departing in one of these rather than on a Greyhound.
Surely something more like this, for the nice skyward view.
Glorying? Sigh.
People who complain about having to tip should be made to work as a waiter/waitress for a month.
They’ll soon change their tunes.
It’s sort of weird that Quartz started several threads planning this major trip to see the eclipse, was clearly very excited by it, and has only managed to start a thread about being really rude to a waitress.
Quartz, are you going to give us any kind of run-down of the real purpose of your trip?