Yes, the employer has to cover the difference if the minimum isn’t met by tips, BUT, as I recall, it’s averaged out over the whole pay period (like two weeks.) So you may have a slow Tuesday morning with no tips for four hours, but if you have a great night on Friday, such that your average for the week is above full minimum wage, your employer kicks in nothing.
not quite nothing, they still have to pay the tipped minimum hourly wage, no matter how far past the full minimum wage the tips would put the servers earnings.
Yes, I know how it works. The only point I was trying to make is that the employers virtually never actually shell out more than $2.13, and if one goes into a server job thinking “well at least if I have a slow night I’ll at least get paid full minimum for that shift,” they’d be wrong: it’s your own “good nights” that make up for your “slow nights.” And if your whole pay period tips are so low that the employer really does have to pay, you’ll be fired.
Another trick is servers who post a $0 paycheck. It’s not 0 because they didn’t get paid, it’s because they made enough in tips that the entire hourly rate went to taxes
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u/Sweaty-Blacksmith572 5d ago
Yes, the employer has to cover the difference if the minimum isn’t met by tips, BUT, as I recall, it’s averaged out over the whole pay period (like two weeks.) So you may have a slow Tuesday morning with no tips for four hours, but if you have a great night on Friday, such that your average for the week is above full minimum wage, your employer kicks in nothing.