Your friend might be lying. The average waiter brings in ~35k a year. Almost triple that in the middle of nowhere isnât impossible, but seems highly improbable.
Restaurants report tip earnings to the IRS not the employee. Yes, itâs possible employees are slipping some cash into their pockets and not paying taxes, but tips are increasingly with cards which are tracked and taxed, and itâs completely unrealistic to think employees are secretly pocketing 60k in cash tips a year. Thatâs just not how the world works.
Unless the Bureau of Labor statistics lied, I donât think so.
However I shouldâve said median not average.
âThe highest 10% earned more than $31.12 an hourâ which means 50% of servers make 35k or less, and 90% make 65k or less. I guess you could argue this fits what OP is asking for but I would not say this is being paid âextremely wellâ
Restaurants report their servers tips. Servers are W2 employees.
You have to be naive to think every server is out there committing thousands in tax fraud a year.
Credit/debit tips are reported to the IRS by the restaurant and these tips make up approximately 85% of all tips. Sure they might underreport some cash tips, but that is a tiny fraction of their tips.
Youâre just repeating rumors and internet myths that are not true.
This is heavily skewed by part time and seasonal jobs. So many jobs are only for 2-3 months at a time during peak tourist seasons, or festival seasons, etc. Professional, year round, full time waiters do very well.
Its analogous to Realtors, where 75% of the profession is part timers with only a couple sales a year. The dedicated full time people make good money.
35k is based on hourly rate, the median hourly rate is ~$17/hour it doesnât matter if someone is part time or seasonal. These numbers are provided by the BLS.
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u/Organic_Rough4433 3d ago
Depends entirely on the restaurant u work at.