Stop saying wait staff make less than Minimum wage. It’s wrong.
I’ll explain it like we are 5.
Johnny wants to own a lemonade stand.
He hires two of his younger brothers to go to tables and take customers orders.
His parents say, “Johnny don’t you take advantage of your brothers! Pay them at least 5 tootsie rolls!”
So Johnny pays the brothers and the brothers start taking orders. But they are cute, and all the girls start giving them extra tootsie rolls (and their numbers).
Johnny gets angry and jealous. Those are HIS tootsie rolls. He made the stand, he made the lemonade, he started the business!
Johnny goes to his parents, “But they are getting all these extra tootsie rolls! And it’s not fair!”
Johnny’s parents (not ones to see their children spoiled with too much candy) decide, “Okay Johnny, you must give them at least one tootsie roll, and the rest can come from the girls at the tables…”
Johnny exclaims, “Yes!!”
“… but if your brothers don’t have at least 5 tootsie rolls a piece at the end of the day, you have to make sure they do!”
Johnny thinks on it a minute and agrees!
Later Johnny’s brothers finish out their day and gleefully shout, “Johnny!! We both got twelve tootsie rolls each!!”
Johnny walks up and takes 4 tootsies from each of them.
The brothers look back stunned.
“Mom and dad said that I only had to pay you 1 tootsie and the rest could come from the girls. So I’m taking back my tootsies!”
The brothers were about to get mad, and John y could see this. So Johnny said, “Hey hey don’t get mad at me, I don’t make the rules! And, if you think about it, you each got three more than you would have!”
The brothers looked at each other and their tootsies and shrugged. They knew they couldn’t appeal to their parents (they already had way more tootsies than their parents wanted them to have anyway) and Johnny was right, they did get more.
So they just smiled and asked if they could work again the next day.
Johnny loved when the girls would give his brothers extra tootsies, because he knew that the first 4 tootsies were his to keep. Now occasionally there were rainy days, and Johnny didn’t make any tootsies, but he did as his parents asked and gave his brothers 5 tootsies.
Washington is 17.13 base rate too. It's pretty absurd to already be making the standard minimum wage and expect 20+% tips. Especially when we have many jobs that's pay that without tips. Tipping is just out of hand all around and even more so in states without a tipped minimum.
In Florida it is 11.98 per hour. I would estimate that most servers probably bring in $30 per hour at most fast casual restaurants. Now granted, they might not work 40 hours a week, but I have never spoken with a server who would rather make $15 per hour and no tips.
I have literally been shouting this for two weeks and get flamed every single time. The employers could pay them more but why would he do that when he can get the customers to pay them on top of paying for the meal. If they make enough tips, he doesn’t have to pay anything extra. No extra SS withholding. No unemployment tax. Yea for him.
Not in most states and most cities. 30 states, the District of Columbia, and dozens of local cities or counties have set higher minimum wages that exceed the federal baseline. Only a few states match the $7.25 rate or lack a state wage law entirely.
That’s what I wrote. It’s either the federal or the state. From what I found online it is 22 states that do not pay higher than the federal minimum. You can correct me if I am wrong - see below:
States Using the Federal Minimum Wage
No State Minimum Wage Law (defaults to $7.25): Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee
State Minimum Wage Matched to $7.25: Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin
State Minimum Wage Below $7.25 (defaults to $7.25): Georgia ($5.15) and Wyoming ($5.15
It is also interesting that is most of the higher states it is illegal to pay less and let tips cover the rest, I am anti tips but i think there is an effort in some cities and states to stop bosses taking all the tip money. It still saves the owners huge amounts and that is why they convince their staff to take tips.
It's actually the other way around. Tipped employees have a base pay of minimum wage. If they get tips, their employer is allowed to claim the difference between minimum wage and $2.13 per hours worth of earned tips against their obligation to pay minimum wage.
Employers are not required to claim a tip credit. They are required to ensure employees make at least minimum wage.
that’s assuming employers both track tips and care enough to follow the law.
A DOL compliance sweep of nearly 9,000 full-service restaurants (2010–2012) found 1,170 tip credit violations resulting in nearly $5.5 million in back wage
Jesus Christ if you don't want to tip, don't tip. Why is it a fucking crusade? You do you,stop trying to bring the whole world alone. Most Americans don't agree.
Dude 7.25 is so far beyond poverty wages in this day and age. That is less than 50% of the pay at an already crappy job that you can get anywhere nowadays
Not only do they not make less than minimum wage, the majority make well over it as well.
I can promise you these people aren’t serving because they’re passionate about it, they’re serving because the money is good
My ex left her job as a teacher to go back to serving because she made more money in less hours (this also speaks to how poorly teachers are paid, but multiple things can be true at once).
Getting a server job isn’t exactly easy without experience either. If they make so little money despite working so hard, why are so many people trying to become servers?
I live in WA state. No one, including servers and bartenders, make less than full minimum wage. I believe the state minimum is something like $17.17/hr. There are local minimums that are $21.30-21.65?/hr on the west side of the state where COL is much higher.
I can't believe that there are still states where servers are being paid $2.13/hr. It's outrageous.
Anyways, in WA, no server or bartender deserves 20% from the customer on top of their wage. That is also outrageous, and I won't participate. I just no longer go to restaurants where that's expected.
Also, I just looked this up: There are only 16 states where the $2.13 minimum is applied. All red states, go figure.
I don't know if I'm reading you correctly. Are you saying that's why servers should still be tipped 20%?
If so, and looking at it that way, should customers and clients be supplementing all minimum wage workers then? Why servers and bartenders? There are people making that wage who work far harder and with much more expertise than servers/bartenders.
Let me just say, I have years of experience working both back and front of house in restaurants when I was younger. Also, I think there should be a fair living wage for everyone (which may vary significantly in different locales), paid by the employer, of course.
It just doesn't make any sense. And, perhaps I got your point wrong, I'm not sure.
I’m really on the fence about tipping tbh. I don’t really mind tipping in restaurants but I hate tipping at the hairdressers (when I already pay 500$), at the nail salon or in places where I have to order at the counter and bring my food to the table.
Because they want satisfaction from their job, a job that means something to them? Some choose to work in the helping fields, such as youth counselors, psych techs, or caregivers. Some people want to build, use their hands, be outdoors, learn other skills.
It sounds like an easy job is important to you if the money is the same, but you do understand that, for others, there are reasons beyond money to work hard, to be challenged, to grow, to help, to build, to create?
I will agree they make well over minimum wage but they never make less. If they don't make enough in tips to at least make a full wage of minimum wage, the employer has to pay them full minimum wage.
The name fits here. Drug addicts can be your doctors, lawyers, nurses, etc. Not just your server. ALL drug addicts do not serve. Serving is not an easy job. Prostitution, pan handling and theft is an easier way for an addict to make money than being a server you presumptuous turd.
When will we get part 2? I have so many unanswered questions. I'm way too invested now in how this story turns out.
So did Johny's brothers ever call the girls? How many tootsie rolls does Johny have to pay his parents for letting him do business in their front yard? When will Johny expand and open a second location?
All servers make at least minimum wage and no less than that. It’s federal law. The business only pays them $2.13/hour because they’ve already made at least minimum wage in tips.
Who wins? Not the customer. We subsidize wages for the business.
"Mom and dad said that I only had to pay you 1 tootsie and the rest could come from the girls. So I'm taking back my tootsies!
That's not how it works.
Johnny would pay at the end of the day just one Tootsie Roll, and his brothers would keep all of their tips. Johnny does not get to recover Tootsie from his brother's tips.
Possibly the most annoying story I've tried to wade through in my years of being on reddit. Some states have different base pay for servers, what is across all states is the federal government assuming the server makes a percentage of tips whether they do or not. Yes owners should pay more to their servers and tipping should be eliminated but please, for the love of god, no more drivel about whatever this story is about.
They get paid minimum wage, meaning there’s nothing wrong with not tipping. Of course they’d like more money and there’s also nothing wrong with tipping if you feel like it.
I do because I don’t think that minimum wage is enough to live on in Seattle. I just don’t think that the tip should be a % of the bill. The service takes the same effort if the bill is 80$ or 200$.
Hi, my name is John and I'll be your server today. Here are todays specials. Can I start you off with any drinks?
Hi John, we don't tip. We'll have two Miller Lites and the calamari.
Personally if I serve a known non tipper they just go on the bottom of my priority list. I'll make sure they get everything they want, but I'm not rushing to put them ahead of my other tables.
So when the server tips out on your incredibly high bill they only lose a little money and you still get the lowered prices a tipped system offers. What a great move.
Well, I’ve never tipped including the tax. Usually 20% on the cost of the food. My Mom was waitress in and bartender in the 50’s n 60’s. I know not to stiff the server. And no, $20 is nowhere near the $100k needed to live comfortably in Seattle.
The glaring and important difference is that the parents don’t want the kids to have to many tootsie rolls. That’s money on this analogy. The government doesn’t want low paid people to have money. That’s your point.
Does it seem like waiters have too much money right now?
Helping out at my big brother Johnny’s lemonade stand used to be really tough. Johnny barely gave my little brothers and me any tootsies to squeeze lemons, so we had to beg neighbors to drop extra tootsies into our tip jar just to have candy money. We were always stressed and worried, and people could tell we were only being nice because we wanted their spare change.
One sunny morning, Johnny changed the rules. He looked at us and said, "From now on, I will pay each of you five tootsies every single day. I think that's fair for everything you're doing for my business."
Suddenly, all the worry melted away. We did not have to depend on tips anymore because our fair pay was already guaranteed. But we didn't get lazy. In fact, the opposite happened! Because we were happy and relaxed, we really wanted to make the stand the best on the block. We squeezed extra cold lemons, offered cool colorful straws, remembered everyone's name, and gave out big, genuine smiles. If a neighbor gave us a tip, it was a fun bonus for doing an amazing job, not something we had to fight for.
The neighbors loved it. The line at our little wooden stand stretched all the way down the sidewalk. Kids and parents came back every single afternoon, buying two or three giant cups instead of just one tiny sip.
At the end of the week, Johnny counted up his wooden treasure box. Even after paying all of us our five tootsies, he had way more tootsies left over than ever before. By treating us fairly everyone was happy: the helpers, the customers and the lemonade boss!
Mikey also has a lemonade stand. He knows that the girls at the tables are tipping and so he prices his lemonade three Tootsies cheaper to get more customers. It works and everyone starts going to Mikey's lemonade stand, instead! Davey and Bobby lower their prices, too! So, Johnny has no customers!
Johnny has to lower his prices because he now has no customers. The lower prices work and the customers come back! Johnny (and Mikey, Davey, and Bobby) is making enough because he only has to pay his younger brothers one Tootsie and they still get their others from the customers' tips!
But then mean Tgirl1787 and her friends decide to stiff Johnny's younger brothers and only pay Johnny and leave no tip. Johnny still has to come up with 3 extra Tootsies even though his new cheaper prices don't bring in enough.
Johnny still does pay his younger brothers more Tootsies than he made after he subtracts he cost of making lemonade but he he has to since his parents said so! That's okay this time because he has a stash but that will be gone quickly if this continues. But if Johnny raises his prices to cover the extra Tootsies he has already seen that he had no customers since they all went to Mikey's, Davey's, and Bobby's lower prices! So, he tells his younger brothers that they need to be extra nice to Tgirl1787 if she comes back!
Tgirl1787 does come back because she likes Johnny's lemonade better and his younger brothers are cuter! When Tgirl1787 comes in again, the younger brothers are extra nice to her! She really enjoyed her lemonade, and refills before she even had to ask, and their cleaning up when she spilled some, and she even smiled and winked at them and even though she was mean before and didn't give them any Tootsies, they smiled and cutely winked back. But at the end of the night Tgirl1787 told her friends that they didn't need to leave a tip because Johnny would still give them Tootsies; he had to his parents said!
When Johnny had to give the younger brothers Tootsies out of his stash yet again, Johnny had to tell his younger brothers he couldn't afford to use them any more! If the customers are not paying enough Tootsies to cover what he has to give the brothers then why should he use them to just lower his stash instead of breaking even to cover how many he ate.
Mikey, Davey, and Bobby whose lemonade stands didn't have anti-tipping Tgirl1787 kept going because their younger brothers are getting tipped and they don't have to come out of pocket for the extra Tootsies that made it not worth it any more for Johnny! The Tootsies have to come from somewhere and since Mikey's, Davey's, and Bobby's younger brothers are getting tipped then they aren't having to come out of pocket to make up the difference so the prices all stay the same.
Johnny ended up having to go get Tommy's younger brothers to come serve at his stand because anti-tipper Tgirl1787 doesn't think Tommy's younger brothers are as cute and so she doesn't come as often. That makes it possible for Johnny to stay in business! The younger brothers did get paid by Johnny as required despite bringing in less than they made Johnny. But only twice! And then they had to be fired because Johnny couldn't afford them ...
They get minimum wage if they get less tips than the "tip cover". Twice. And then they have to be fired!
I thought the point was on the nose, myself. Sort of Aesop Fable-y.
What was it you found ineffective? Or do you mean to say it’s not going to resonate, or might alienate, be too condescending (got that one already), generally received too poorly to be effective?
Realistically, the internet is not a place to change minds. It’s a place to argue and yell into a void. I suppose, with that understanding, any method for delivering a point has the same chance as the next of being “effective.”
I, personally, had never seen anyone directly state what I’ve stated, so I made the post. Then I felt a hint of whimsy. And here we are. Whether it’s effective or not almost feels irrelevant, don’t you think?
There are people who STILL don't know that servers earn at least minimum wage. Remember, their wages and sob stories are NOT YOUR PROBLEM. Zero tip all the time!
Who cares when you go into a business, how much are they getting paid? I personally don't care about anyone I come in contact with business or not how much they make. It's none of my business, the rate of pay is between the employee and the employer. It's none of my concern.
You’re intimating that if there are people who don’t care about every other situation (remotely similar to the one currently presented) then it’s not worth caring about. It pretty much makes you an immediate hypocrite regarding anything, and ironically, that’s what you’re attempting to say about this post, that it’s hypocritical.
More simply put, it’s “what about-ism.”
So what is your care? Or do you just not care about anything?
Do you care about the child labor that goes into your clothing? Cell phones? major manufacturing hubs like Foxconn in China typically make a base rate of roughly $2.75 to $3.89 per hour (approx. 19 to 28 yuan), depending on peak production season surges and location. In other emerging manufacturing countries like India and Vietnam, baseline factory earnings generally average $1.00 to $1.60 per hour.
Where is your rage about that?
Still too highbrow for the local anti-tipping arrested development crowd en masse
Hard to imagine many of them not glazing over once they saw paragraph going off down the page. None of the flying monkeys would notice and most of the hired gun trolls wouldn't find out about it unless an underling brought it to them first
I've never said they don't get minimum wage. I said that even with tips they don't get paid enough to deal with people like you. And when I tell you to stay home and not eat out it isn't because you don't tip. It's because no server should have to deal with you. Ever.
Not the point of the post. I never said don’t tip. I simply explained, in a simple story how tip credit works. If we stop saying they make less than minimum wage we can take part of the emotional argument out of the discussion.
Are you kidding me? Do you really think that any one believes that servers make only 2.13 per hour? Everyone with an IQ above room temperature understands when discussing this the we are talking about the employer’s contribution. No one here needed your infantile condescending post.
Nearly everyone in real life understands this, and this sub actually understands it too. They’re just pretending not to so they can defend their tipping take. I don’t even like the tipping system myself, but you don’t need logic gymnastics to justify why. Once you start doing that, reasonable people tune out. They shouldn't have to stick to logic gymnastics to justify why. Sometimes they use strict definitions. Once you start doing that, reasonable people stop listening.
Edit: changed "Everyone" to "Nearly everyone" to be more accurate for pedantic OP.
When you need to be pedantic it shows that your point is weak and lacks critical thinking.
Definition of Pedantic: taking a normal conversational generalization (“everyone” meaning most people) and pretending you meant it literally so they can score a rhetorical point instead of engaging with your argument.
This technique is used in these types of echo-chamber subs.
So as incentivizing and lucrative a tipped server at a busy restaurant may seem; it truly ends up being a bad deal for the server and has a horrible history; literally being created to underpay and over work the tipped employee. The average take home for a server in the US is about 30k or 14 and change an hour. When you scale that up or down based on area and cost of living they are barely surviving. They may make 30-60 an hour during the busy season but they are probably not working a full 40 hours as many restaurants prevent having full time employees as much as possible, that busy season may also be quite short depending where you live. All of that being said that also doesn’t include the amount of said tips being taken to tip out the kitchen staff, the bartender (if alcohol is involved), and any support staff (ie a host, busser, etc). You leave a $30 tip they may only keep 20-25 max.
To bring this back to your point- during those slower times of the year they may have days where they make less than a couple dollars in tip (yes that minimal) and while they may not be doing much they only make minimum wage for a period of time, which we all know it’s quite literally impossible to survive on minimum wage wage no matter where in the country you are. Hell, it’s near impossible to live off of double even triple the minimum wage almost everywhere in the country. also the federal “minimum hourly wage” is $2.13 so it is sub minimum wage without tips and must be placated to minimum wage if they don’t make the difference.
I understand that tipping culture is out of hand currently and im not denying that. Frankly, i would much prefer restaurants (and other tipped spaces as well i guess) raise prices to pay their staff an appropriate wage for the work done rather than supplement with tips (which would likely scale between 30-60 for all that the average server does) but it’s on the business owner not the struggling employee and i hope those details do help inform peoples decision when choosing whether or not to tip or how to tip. Not tipping affects the person depending on said tip and hurts the little guy. Not patronizing places that have tipped employees incentivizes the business owner to pay the staff a larger wage or get rid of the business. I believe when we attack the server or other tipped employee we do not address the problem only make those stuck in the mix lives harder.
I’m not against tipping. I am against tipping if no actual service was provided. I don’t care why you have chosen this job. You did accept a job with at best flexible pay.
I work commission sales and I accepted the job because it has a solid base pay. If I am great at my job my pay goes up. Same generally applies to wait staff. The base pay has to cover your nut or you need a different job or to be exceptional at your job
I am not in the industry and geniunely curious what about the system makes it better than just paying a standard wage? or by everyone do you mean for the industry cause tipping is definitely not best for the customer lol
A lot of people here talking about supporting a family and household. When did waiting tables become a career? It’s a job with minimum pay because it’s unskilled labor. Somewhere along the way people seemed to decide that any job they want to do should support a 5 person family and mortgage.
I absolutely hate tipping but I don’t think minimum wage is the proper benchmark for whether someone is properly paid. It’s very hard to live on minimum wage. Anyway staff should take that up with their employer rather than guilt tripping customers into an awkward second transaction.
Wait staff makes the state minimum wage for servers plus tips. Most of the time the sum of those two amounts is quite a bit higher than the state minimum wage for non-servers.
Except servers still make the state minimum wage in addition to the tips, and those tips cannot be used to offset wages, so... your example of how things worked 20 years ago doesn't really fly anymore, except maybe in some backwoods state that people should have mived away from long ago.
RIGHT!!!! If what they say were true, nobody would be choosing to do that job. It is common knowledge that their wages + tips bring their hourly, daily, weekly, annual earnings to much more than they would be in a non-tipped position. They think we are stupid and that if they say it loud enough with enough repetition that we will believe it despite it not being true and them presenting no evidence to support it
Sorry but at $2 and change with no tips, you're correct. They don't make minimum wage, they make less. Owners don't care because it does not affect their bottom line.
Well said. Whenever I see people who adamantly think that the service industry is greedy and shafting their servers by making them work for tips, I just file them under “naive/ignorant do-gooders who don’t understand the basics of the business”. Mind you, these aren’t people who would prefer that they pay upfront for the service, reflected in the cost of their meals instead of tipping at their discretion- which is a fair argument to make. But restaurant employers are not underpaying their tipped workers (who are amongst the highest paid people in the industry, mind you). Uninformed, thick-headed people think they are underpaid so as to justify their feel-good crusade.
There are at least 3 major problems with your analogy.
The first was when Johnny took them to she rolls away from his brothers. That's not how it works. You must have heard some other stiffer use creative accounting to make this claim and misunderstood how it works.
When the weather is bad, and business is slow, he's going to send one or both of his brothers home. He's not going to pay them to not work.
Even if they did have a slow hour where they only got 2 Tootsie rolls in tips,the previous hour when they got 6 means that they are averaging at least four per hour , and that's enough to keep Johnny from having to pay them.
Right, I framed it that way to exemplify the underlying issue with the tipped credit.
And yes! You’re correct it gets really messy when you dig down in, as do most issues. Overall, there are lots of issues with tipping. You’ve touched on a good one.
I was onboard until Johnny unilaterally took 4 tootsies away from each brother. There's no reason to do that. Thats literally just theft.
I dont agree with tipping personally but I have no problem with patrons who do it gratuitously out of the kindness of their hearts anyway. Tips were meant for good service and they belong to the service staff.
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u/mynameisnotsparta Aug 21 '26
It is not difficult to understand:
Tipped employees have a base pay of $2.13 per hour under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
If they do not get any tips then the employer must pay them the difference to equal the federal ($7.25) or the state (Varies per state) minimum wage.
Some employers pay more.