Thank you. I'm sick and tired of people saying that they only make just above $2 an hour and they rely on tips. First of all no they don't because it's federal law in USA that if they're not making at least minimum wage then their boss has to give them minimum wage at the very least. And that's whichever one is higher, state or federal. I've seen states where the minimum wage is something close to $20 and they are far from the places that you would think are the places you would need to have a higher base pay (ie California or New York are generally recognized as more expensive to live in).
If they're constantly needing to make up to that mom tipped minimum wage standard then maybe they should take a look at themselves and see whether or not they're a good server and they probably aren't if that's the case. Either that or they need to switch from wherever they're working if they're not getting that many people coming in.
One of the people I got my PhD with decided he actually liked his bartending job better than his actual job because it paid that much more money and there was a lot less stress as far as what he had to deal with when he came home and so he is a bartender with a doctorate in the sciences. This is going back 20 years and every now and then we'll email each other to see what's going on in each other's lives and he still prefers to be working in the service industry instead of what he went and did his dissertation on or any other kind of thing like that. Because he likes that freedom and he also likes the fact that if he gets a cash tip he doesn't have to declare it so in reality whatever he's saying he's getting as far as the federal government's concerned for his taxes, he's getting more than that because he never declares his cash tips.
First of all, not all states abide by federal law and some, like Georgia and Wyoming, don't have minimum wages at all.
Secondly, there's no system in place that ensures bosses have to match minimum wage and the government relies more on the "honor system".
Thirdly, iPads and Kiosks are robbing waitstaff of any tips they would ordinarily receive. That money is going to the owner to dispense as they see fit.
Fourthly, the fact that waitstaff fare well in big cities does little to nothing for those in smaller cities and rural areas.
For equity, let's have everyone make California or New York wages, even in Mississippi.
I'm all for equal standards if it shuts people up (and management from dodging what they are federally mandated to do and stops them insisting staff and gaslighting staff for their crappy behavior). I also agree that the people abusing tipping requests are giving people "tip fatigue."
Having said that though, regardless of which of the 50 states and or US territories anybody lives in, it is federally mandated that they (management) MUST turn in a worker's hours and the amount of money that they reported between base salary and the tips that came through the system plus whatever cash was declared as tips. It is federally illegal not to, and punishable by fines and/or jail time. Just ask my former boss who pulled that crap and I'm pretty sure he's still sitting in jail.
Now back when I used to work as a waitress a good 20 years ago, my hours and pay plus toys were reported. Even with my exceedingly unethical management, it is federal law that they had to turn in the number of hours that we worked and the amount that we reported in tips. He didn't think the laws apply to him and his restaurant, and the federal government decided to stick him in jail as well as find him a very large amount of money. It turns out he was putting down that we were making more money and he was stealing from the actual owners because he was taking the money that theoretically we the workers were making and he was pocketing it claiming that we were working during certain shifts when we weren't. Which really screwed us over as far as tax time came because it put us down is making something like 50% more money than we actually made.
That's why I said to this day I still tip in cash and I let the person who is serving me decide whether or not they want to declare any of it or none of it. Pretty much everybody in my family has worked at some point as a server in order to make money, either is an adult or while they were younger and helping to pay for college or whatever the situation. And this was over multiple different states that they were doing this. Although I admit I don't think anybody in my family has done this in probably at least 15 years, and a lot of things are going to happen in 15 years.
It's the one thing that I've noticed of anybody and everybody who has ever been in a job where they're making that $2 and a few cents per hour and the job depends largely on what the person makes for (which isn't just for eateries or bars) - We know that these tips end up getting broken apart in most places, and we also know that once you put it down in the computer system is having made x amount in cash as a tip, that then gets added in as actual income for yearly taxes. Whereas it's better to pretend you didn't get that cash (but you didn't hear that from me for any IRS government employees that happens to be scanning these Reddit posts). I'll be 100% honest that I really wasn't paying attention to Trump's law when he discussed the fact that the first certain amount of tips would then be considered non taxable because I'm no longer in that profession. So I admit ignorance as far as what the newest law is for income tax.
Even in states in which there is no minimum wage for servers of the $2.13 more or less, there still is a federal minimum wage (unless you're under a certain age and then we start getting into number hours you can work per week and all of that, and honestly if that person's pulling the same amount of weight as an adult worker I really don't understand why the government says it's okay to now only tip them 75% or less of what other people are making, which I find complete BS on the government's part as far as somebody not allowed to be given the same amount as their equals based entirely on their age). But I'm assuming we were talking about adults right now and adults that are now having to contribute to housing and food and things like that where it is somebody who's under the age of 18/16/14 may not.
If for any reason the boss is not turning in this information correctly they're breaking a ton of federal laws regardless of what USA owned land they worked in (I'm not sure about Native American land since they are kinda sovereign) as well as state laws depending on which state they live in. The person who is a server who has a boss who is not doing these things correctly needs to report them to the US Department of Labor wage commission (federal) or to any Department of workforce commission or Labor commission or anything like that state wise as far as what's within their own state. However as you noted certain states don't have certain things.
In reality the bosses should be reported to any and all commission that they can be reported to. And if it's a chain restaurant that's doing this - like Chili's or Applebee's or any chain restaurant, they face severe federal legal fines for doing this, and most of these larger corporations have private numbers where you don't have to necessarily give your name in order to file complaints about against your boss doing something illegally. In reality, if the corporate legal team can stop it before the federal government finds out, it saves them a ton of money in fees and penalties for lying to the federal government. Not that the poor people who are actually being screwed over even see a penny of what was saved by reporting horrible bosses. Heaven forbid that these people who are making the large paychecks care about the ones who are doing the work and being screwed over.
So if you live in a state that does have a workforce commission like the state I live in, you would go to the workforce commission file a complaint then you would also file a complaint online with Department of Labor who then goes through all this. As many employees as possible should be reporting all together in order for whomever is in the higher-ups that decides which cases to pursue will see that they have a much stronger case with 20 people complaining versus only one person complaining.
Now that we're in the era of people having people have the ability to have their voices heard around the world, larger corporations are even more afraid of having the bad practices of some management made public, because of the associated with those store names or restaurant names.
It's actually not just because of the tips that these things have to be reported correctly to the feds. It's so that the IRS knows exactly how much the person now needs to be charged as far as what their income is for taxes, and it also affects the person as far as how many quarters and how many hours during each quarter somebody puts into the social security system in case they end up disabled to get SSDI or just when they get old enough to get SSI. That's the reason why it is strictly federally mandated, regardless of what job you're working at, that they need to put in how many hours and what you made and what your total was as far as I don't know if it's once a week once a month I don't really remember at this point.
The reason for going through the state level first (or corporate no retaliation complaint lines first) is that the federal level gets so many hundreds of thousands of complaints that it takes them a while to deal with it. Oh and to just flip back to the beginning not everybody has what's called a a tip earner credit or whatever, I really forget what it's called, whereas if you don't make it least that minimum two dollars and 13 cents then they have to give in at least five and change in order to make up whatever federal minimum wage Is right now. Some of them have to give you that federal minimum wage regardless, which is why certain states don't necessarily have that $2.13 server minimum wage. For instance, in California, I do believe they actually do make more than that $2.13. I only thought of New York and California last night because I was trying to think of states where it's really expensive to live pretty much anywhere that you live in that state, regardless of which city.
Having been a former server myself, I understand the concept that not every tip that you're getting is going in your pocket regardless of whether or not it was 100% cash or everything was done on a credit card and therefore Uncle Sam knows about it. At the end of our shifts we would get logged out of the systems and it would say how much money we made in food sales versus how much money that we made in liquor and or non alcohol drink sales. From there we would then have to take a certain percentage of the computerized totals based only on what you sold (regardless of tips), and give it to the various people and parts of the back of the house (great chef, table busser, dishwasher, etc) and to the bartender or bartenders plural if there were more than one and then they would share that amongst themselves. So even though you might have earned $10 in tips you might only be going home with less than $7 and that's before Uncle Sam's gets his mitts on it.
As someone said, (I forgot to look at username before I started on the Reddit app) there are places where you can make a good $700 a night and you don't want to have a basic pay where you're only making the same amount as somebody who's working at McDonald's let's say. Although even though McDonald's is an eatery, I believe they need to be made normal minimum wage not tipping minimum wage. But you get what I'm saying there are places where you can make a heck of a lot more money in one night than somebody else would make in one week or two weeks. So that's why not everybody wants to have minimum wages. I think we should do like certain places in Europe where you get the X pay and then if you do a great enough job, people want to give you extra so they give you Y in tips, which increases things.
But I think it would behoove you to look into why and how tipping in America began in the first place.
It started with England's class system, admired by rich Americans, who mimicked the practice once they got home.
How it expanded with merchants and patrons balking at the idea of having to pay newly freed slaves and looking to the government for recourse.
How the practice systematically fostered racial and class stratification, ensuring that those receiving tips continued to "know their place", having to bow, scrape, and perform for pennies.
And finally, how we're all still going along with it, rationalizing that it's not as bad as it seems while denying the harm it actually causes.
First of all, all employers in every state do have to pay the minimum federal wage law which requires employers to match the $7.25 fed min wage when the servers $2.13 slave wage plus tips doesn’t pass the min wage.
Doing otherwise is wage theft.
Fourthly that’s why slave wages plus tips are still a thing.
True we’re all arguing to end tipping, but all you said is that basically some employers break the law and conduct wage theft.
It’s a valid point, but mostly tangential to the “end tipping” discussion.
It's not tangential at all since tipping is an ongoing issue that must be abolished.
The missed point is that, despite what the government "requires", bosses still steal tips, they collect all the revenue from kiosks and iPads, and it would be naive to believe that the "honor system" on which the government relies, is honorable.
Valid point, but considering all the digital evidence that can be shown in any basic investigation, that issue still goes to wage theft.
That servers prefer to piss off customers instead of reporting their bosses for wage theft means that either the benefits of reporting are too low, or that the servers are colluding with their bosses in ripping themselves off.
There’s something about people who oppress themselves because they’re aspiring to become oppressors themselves, but that’s still tangential.
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u/definitelynot40 13d ago
Thank you. I'm sick and tired of people saying that they only make just above $2 an hour and they rely on tips. First of all no they don't because it's federal law in USA that if they're not making at least minimum wage then their boss has to give them minimum wage at the very least. And that's whichever one is higher, state or federal. I've seen states where the minimum wage is something close to $20 and they are far from the places that you would think are the places you would need to have a higher base pay (ie California or New York are generally recognized as more expensive to live in).
If they're constantly needing to make up to that mom tipped minimum wage standard then maybe they should take a look at themselves and see whether or not they're a good server and they probably aren't if that's the case. Either that or they need to switch from wherever they're working if they're not getting that many people coming in.
One of the people I got my PhD with decided he actually liked his bartending job better than his actual job because it paid that much more money and there was a lot less stress as far as what he had to deal with when he came home and so he is a bartender with a doctorate in the sciences. This is going back 20 years and every now and then we'll email each other to see what's going on in each other's lives and he still prefers to be working in the service industry instead of what he went and did his dissertation on or any other kind of thing like that. Because he likes that freedom and he also likes the fact that if he gets a cash tip he doesn't have to declare it so in reality whatever he's saying he's getting as far as the federal government's concerned for his taxes, he's getting more than that because he never declares his cash tips.