A Valentine for Restaurant Workers

[elleng]

There is long-overdue support for raising the minimum wage. But among generally mistreated minimum wage workers there’s a subgroup of those whose wage experience is even more miserable and unfair.

The group is tipped workers, the majority of whom are restaurant servers. There is a minimum wage for tipped workers, called by those who know the “tipped minimum wage.” An informal survey on my part would indicate that many well-educated professionals, even high-ranking city officials, don’t know about this; that’s excusable, since almost no one talks about it. In any case, few who already know about the tipped minimum wage could guess how low it can go. Try. Are you ready?

$2.13.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/opinion/bittman-a-valentine-for-restaurant-workers.html?hp&rref=opinion

[Little_Wing]

1. k&r abso-frickin-lutely

Such an important component of our economy. Waitstaff are the most visible of our mostly invisible web of service workers. My mother raised three daughters on waitress wages. How she did it, I've never figured out. She's gone now, worn down by a life of poverty.

We must continue to fight for a livable minimum wage.

[elleng]

2. Yes

[marble falls]

3. Thanks. You'd be surprised how many people don't believe that. I've worked whole shifts ....

for $2.13hr and then had the owner tell me how much tips to declare so he wouldn't have to pay me $5.00 more and hour. And so I paid taxes on money I was never paid.

I can't tell you how many checks for $0 I have - its a lot.

[elleng]

4. Awful!

We've got to get the repugs to allow the real world to break through.

[trixicopper]

5. "Tip credit" laws are an abomination.

I live in a state that does not have such laws, so tipped employees are paid the same minimum wage as anyone else. We also have one of the highest minimums in the country. I've never had an employer tell me how much to claim in tips. It has always been a set percentage of your sales or the total of your credit card tips which ever is higher. (99.9% of the time it's the visas.)

I do hear you on the $0 paychecks. Been there done that. Many times.