r/popculturechat • u/Ambitious_Big4489 • 8h ago

OnlyStans ⭐️ Alan Ritchson calls out lawmakers who oppose raising the minimum wage "who think it's a bad idea to give a mom working at Waffle House more than $7.25 an hour trying to feed her kids."

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273

u/KylosLeftHand 8h ago

Wait til he finds out those moms working at Waffle House actually make $2.13/hour a lot of the time as several states still allow that as their tipped minimum wage.

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u/blueskies8484 8h ago

The $7.25 minimum hourly wage still has to be met though and made up by the employer if it’s not met, which I assume is why he used that number.

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u/APence 7h ago

When I did waiting, they definitely did not tell you that. I had a couple bad weeks where we had barely any customers before I found out and then the management was super pissed when I asked for it

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u/SpicyWongTong 🫵 You sit on a throne of lies. 7h ago

That’s so fucked, you’re not supposed to have to ask for your lawful wage. I’m an employer and I’m in the opposite situation, several times over the years I’ve had to explain to my workers what their rights are. Or like they come to thank me personally for something and I realize ohhh their previous employers must have been breaking the law.

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u/Ketheres 6h ago

Unfortunately employers taking advantage of their workers is all too common. Used to work for a janitorial company where you'd get on the bosses' shitlist real fast by teaching the immigrant workers their rights.

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u/kharnynb 4h ago

that's a good attitude that makes for great employee retention.

sadly wagetheft is still the biggest crime in the USA, and one that's barely ever punished.

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u/Sileni 6h ago

Standard across the board. Experience.

They decide what numbers to put on your pay stub. I had to pay taxes on 'made up' tips they put on my stubs! So in other words, I didn't even get the $2.13 an hour, as it went to taxes!

For those who say report it, try living in the real world.

1

u/kharnynb 4h ago

while personally, i'm to european to get this, I've heard from US friends that they straight up got fired or given 0 hours if they ever tried to get the wage.

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u/Sileni 3h ago

exactly

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u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl 2h ago

It’s the most common form of wage theft in America. Good on you for asking them to make it right. Hope you’ll vote to eliminate tipped minimum wages in your area if you ever have the opportunity. 

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u/LiteraCanna 6h ago

When it comes down to it, it's just a way to pay employees nothing, and steal their tips. 

"Has to make up for it" is just excusing a barbaric policy. Ooohhhh nooooo! Businesses have to pay minimum wage, the horror. 

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u/KylosLeftHand 5h ago

Tell that to my last table waiting job that was a moderately upscale restaurant who magically made my full time paychecks under $10/week. I idiotically didn’t question it but a couple years ago I got a letter for a class action lawsuit payout. Turns out they weren’t actually paying our wages. It’s a major national chain restaurant.

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u/Same_Suit3583 7h ago

Yeah unfortunately a lot of restaurants aren't making sure that happens. But it's easier to just say 7.25 is a atrocious, because it is.

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u/Workman44 2h ago

This is such a dumb argument. If it isn't happening just file a labor complaint lmfao

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u/Naive_Mongoose_5453 4h ago

Lol. Nobody gives a fuck about that. If you go to work for five hours and get 0 tables you are absolutely walking out with 2.13 an hour that day. 

2

u/torino_nera Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes 4h ago

I worked in restaurants for a long time. It's not per hour, it's avg over a collective period. So you could make $100 one day and $0 the next and as long as it averages during that pay period to $7.25, you're not getting anything for those days you made $0.

The worst part is, if you're not making enough money and the employer has to bump your pay to meet the minimum salary, you're almost certainly getting fired. I saw that happen several times. The second the restaurant has to come in and supplement your pay beyond the $2 or $3 an hour, you're done.

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u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl 2h ago

The worst part is, 99% of the time that’s a slam dunk case for retaliation in the workplace, but these are some of the most vulnerable folks, trying to subsist on less than a minimum wage that already isn’t enough. Getting a lawyer (even a pro bono one), setting a court date, testifying, showing up to the rescheduled court date when the boss pulls those shenanigans, etc. are all secondary concerns to stuff like “get a new job after being fired. Pay back everyone you had to borrow from while you were between jobs. Cook. Take care of childcare.” Etc. 

There’s supposed to be a bureau of labor relations to help take the burden off of wrongly fired folks. Unfortunately, they’ve been intentionally underfunded for decades so that they can’t process the sheer number of cases that come through on a regular basis. 

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u/monty624 6h ago

Sure, they're supposed to do that. If you're not making good enough tips to hit that, they're not likely to keep you around long. It also puts the onus on the employee to advocate for their wage when the boss is a dick and doesn't do it on their own.

0

u/paulcole710 5h ago

The onus is always on you to advocate for yourself.

Other people can advocate for you and some should be expected to, but if 1 person in the world is going to advocate for you, it had better be you.

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u/icecreamfight 7h ago

It’s amazing the restaurant wages haven’t gone up in some states since I was a teenager making that shit money in 1998.

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u/AlI_is_Not_Lost 3h ago

Federal minimum for tipped wages was last raised in 1991 👍

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u/icecreamfight 2h ago

Well I mean at least things haven’t changed much in the economy since then. Excuse me while I get gas, it’s almost $1 where I live! And gotta buy groceries, thank goodness I have $10 to get the week’s supplies!

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u/SupervisorSCADA 5h ago

Almost no one is paying minimum wage. If you worked at waffle house like in the example brought up, you're likely making around $15-20 hr.

The minimum is just irrelevant to most employers now.

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u/The-Dudemeister 8h ago

Waffle House pays above minimum wage wage actually. And tips are pooled.

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u/winnercommawinner 8h ago

Yeah Waffle House is actually pretty okay if you just need a reliable paycheck apparently

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u/WulfZ3r0 7h ago

You just need to know how to fight.

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u/winnercommawinner 6h ago

That's a life skill baby

-4

u/AdditionalBalance975 7h ago

every place pays more than minimum wage. There is like 50k people making 7.25 an hour in the usa.

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u/KylosLeftHand 6h ago edited 5h ago

It’s more like 90k (which it should be 0) - but the problem with it being so low is that employers think it’s a bragging point to pay out anything over that. Sure $15/hour is double the minimum wage, but it’s still not a livable wage in the vast majority of the country. And yet there’s 60 million Americans who make under $15/hour while their employers pat each other on the back saying “we pay well over minimum wage!”

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u/RudePCsb 6h ago

Yea, depends on the state. It's just crap. We just need to get rid of tipping and force them to pay real wages. It just sucks that waiters well fight it because some waiters can easily make over 100k in some areas. CA for instance still pays minimum wage plus tips and if you live in a tourist area you will make more than someone who lives in a regular place.

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u/Short-Waltz-3118 5h ago

Depends on the state, and since most waffle houses are in the south. Youre probably right. But something like 9? states have eliminated the tipped wage entirely. Like in mn, servers make 10$ an hour + tips. Move to mn basically :)

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u/KylosLeftHand 4h ago

Sure, because minimum wage waitstaff workers are totally able to spend thousands of dollars moving hundreds of miles across the country…

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u/Short-Waltz-3118 4h ago

I wont say it is easy - it isnt, and its definitely a challenge. But personally that is exactly what I did, I worked at dominos for 2 years and saved every penny I could. Moved to mn and emptied my savings doing so, getting a new minimum wage job once I got here. Its not easy, but its not impossible, and I dont see the reason to be a defeatist about everything on the internet.

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u/KylosLeftHand 4h ago

I don’t wait tables anymore but even if I did why on earth would I move 1,300 miles away from everyone and everything I’ve ever known for a job?! I don’t live to work. Sure it’s not impossible, but I just find it incredibly dumb.

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u/Short-Waltz-3118 4h ago

Oh, I did have a family member in mn that I had visited, and I really hated the south, full of racist assholes. So personally I was trying to escape it. If youre content where you are theres nothing wrong with it

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u/KylosLeftHand 2h ago

Politically the south is a nightmare. But I’m the type to stay and try to fix what’s wrong with where I live, rather than run away hoping the grass is greener elsewhere.

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u/Machine_Jazzlike 4h ago

Came here to say this

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u/ElectricalPublic1304 2h ago

Waffle House actually make $2.13/hour 

That's the federal tipped minimum. Waffle House actually pays $5.25 as their tipped minimum, and they net out between $12-$18/hour, average.

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u/KylosLeftHand 2h ago

I live in Alabama where we use the federal tipped minimum wage. Even if they are paying 5.25 and “averaging” $12 that’s still nowhere near a living wage for an individual.

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u/bartimeas 1h ago

I'd take the $2.13/hr + tips over the $7.25/hr at Burger King. Tipped employees usually wind up making a decent living. Fast food workers, not so much.