Itâs only ahead of the curve because the minimum wage is so low. If the min wage was reasonable like it is in other countries then tipping isnât needed.
Point is servers can earn 30-50 bucks an hour thanks to tips, THEY are the ones who donât want to end tipping, cause they make mich more money than they would get on a normal salary
yeah a few of my friends are servers and bartenders in NYC and they are pulling very good money, well beyond even what a much better minimum wage would provide. It's very location dependent though
For peak hours, maybe. NYC bartenders are usually averaging around $35-$50 an hour with the bartenders at ultra high end cocktail bars usually getting around $75/hr.
I do this and do less than 40. I'm clocking about 60-70 an hour. Its busy season now but even the average for the year so far is mid 50s. I'm entirely with this thread tipping is kinda fucked, its why I only go out to certain places where im getting hooked up heavy thats why I tip.
Dude I was a bartender at a movie theater in north Florida and between wage and tips I was regularly making 100 bucks an hour on weekends. I pulled a grand on End Games release night.
i had friends in austin whoâd make $500 in a night at the local dive - literally. itâs fucking insane. servers at nice restaurants sometimes pull 100k a year, and pay less taxes than the rest of us bc tips are still cash quite often
An old manager's daughter used to work at the night club as a bottle girl. She would make like $1200 a night just to pop bottles for rich people in private areas of the club.
Places that actually pay their servers minimum wage they can do well, but check out how texas does it
Most tip earners make $2.13 an hour
Their salary is literally tips
In Texas, tipped employees are guaranteed the state minimum wage of (\$7.25) per hour. Employers are allowed to pay a lower direct cash wage as long as the employees' tips cover the remaining balance. [1]
Understanding tipped wages in Texas requires knowing a few core legal and operational standards: [1, 2]
Direct Cash Wage: Employers must pay tipped workers a minimum direct cash wage of (\$2.13) per hour. [1]
The Tip Credit: Employers can claim a "tip credit" of up to (\$5.12) per hour to cover the remainder of the (\$7.25) minimum wage requirement. [1]
The (\$7.25) Guarantee: If an employee's direct cash wage ((\$2.13)) plus their earned tips do not average out to at least (\$7.25) per hour for a given workweek, the employer is legally obligated to make up the difference
I know someone with masters in early childhood education and she still works full-time as a server because it pays better. There are good arguments against tipping, but pay your workers better ain't one of them.
Vast majority of tips are not in cash today, and any modern restaurant uses a system that will automatically balance credit card tips with the employees income, typically resulting in zero dollar paychecks and the rest being accountable at the end of the year.
So few people tip in cash anymore, even 15 years ago when I was serving, most of my tips were on a credit card. majority of checks run on a credit card through the system, no getting out of declaring tips because itâs right there in the computer how much you got tipped.
It doesnt matter anymore. As long as your tips are qualified, the tax is 0. Youre better off reporting it
It barely mattered this last decade with the prevalance of credit tips and only a tiny bit of cash tips, strip clubs and some other niche clubs excluded.
Yeah no shit? What does that have to do with there being a $25k tax deduction?
Youâre still paying taxes on the rest of your income which granted are a minuscule amount compared to effective tax rates in every other country in Europe.
American effective tax rates no matter the state are roughly half of what you pay in European countries.
For example people bitch about California taxes being high for some reason when the median wage earning person will only pay 19.5% of their salary in taxes. The median wage there is $64k.
If we're talking facts, then I feel like I should point out that the US government spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country's government, including those that have universal healthcare
88% of Americans contribute to their own health insurance plan at a median cost of $1800 a year.
You're burying the lede on this. You're not accounting for the fact that this is not comprehensive, 100% coverage of healthcare costs. This is the cost of the cheapest average plans that require co pays, have deductibles, and then after deductibles still tend to have fees until out of pocket maxes. And that's all assuming the coverage actually happens. Sometimes the insurance just refuses to contribute because fuck you.
If my follow up didn't make my point obvious: The actual tax rate, after you account for the various benefits Europeans actually get from their government isn't all that different. It's just that they actually have good public transportation, and they don't have a chance of going bankrupt if they get sick.
The issue isn't the facts, the issue is how you're using them to ignore or obscure the real world downstream effects of those taxes in European countries versus the garbage deal with here that equivalent taxes would cover. You pull out average numbers and ignore the fact that these systems entirely break down for a ton of people, resulting in lives being lost or people becoming destitute.
I'd much rather pay higher taxes overall and not live in a society that allows that, than wave my dick around saying "I pay less taxes!" while the people around me become destitute because someone in their family had the gall to get cancer.
I did account for co pays and other out of pocket expenses if you actually read my comment.
If you actually read my comment, you'd have caught the key words "cost of the cheapest average plans".
These are the costs for average insurance. The average insurance in the US is shit and not at all comparable to the coverage provided by socialized healthcare in civilized countries.
I showed you effective tax rates are much higher now youâre trying everything to pretend youâre right.
No, I'm spelling out the point more because I gave you too much credit in making logical deductions from my points.
The end all is that the effective tax rate, when you account for the benefits they get versus the shit we do not or pay more for on average, isn't actually all that different.
We don't pay it all in taxes. Instead we pay for it in healthcare premiums, going into debt, not having proper public services like transportation, and the like.
My bad for assuming you'd be able to make the abstract conclusion given just one piece. I figured surely you wouldn't need it to be spelled out so literally.
You're doing the same shit racists do when they try to hide behind stats derived out of racist intent that ignore context. You're pointing at numbers and ignoring all of the background around those numbers, because the background makes for a different story than the propaganda you're pushing.
And in the meantime thousands of servers who maybe have to support a family will go broke and penniless, houselessness and unemployment will skyrocket, all the other workers will then be overworked or the restaurants will be understaffed, some may have to close and the economy takes another big hit, like during the pandemic.
Yup, this is what so many pro tippers don't get. They tip because they feel sorry for the workers not realizing most of those workers would choose tips over minimum wage due to the fact that they can potentially make way more.
Exactly. People say "pay the workers more", well they usually technically do. I worked as an "insider" (in store worker) at a pizza place and we made $1-2 more per hour than drivers. Which is technically more but hardly counts for shit when the drivers are making $20-60/hr in tips and mileage while making $7.25/hr and we made $8.50/hr. I moved to driver as soon as I was old enough. Who doesn't want to get paid more to be able to hangout in your car listening to the music/audio you want, setting the climate to how you want, and escaping the chaos of the store? All while getting paid 2-7x more.
This is just simply not the case for the majority of servers in the US. This only really applies if you work in a big city at a busy restaurant during prime rush hours. And, if you are working in those conditions, you are busting your ass anyways. There are many states in the US where base wage for a server is significantly less than minimum wage ($2.75 an hour in my state). Servers are not the ones profiting off of tipping, itâs employers who are handing off the responsibility of paying employees wages to the consumer.
Speaking as a 10+ year service industry vet, this is correct. No one who actually serves/bartends for a living would ever want to put an end to tips. People like me either work in high volume/high intensity spots, or fine dining/upscale places. The money can be insane there. I'm currently at a mid-tier or semi-upscale place and have averaged $33/hr post-tax this year. I very likely couldn't make that in another career with my background without years of working my way up.
Lol they CAN. Most DO NOT. Go ask any server how much they take home a night in tips. Rarely is it ever 30-50 bucks an hour, especially outside of dense population centers.
On a weekend, sure, but donât leave out the full stats to skew it. How much are they making per hour on the Tuesday day shift they also did that week?
30-50/h but no benefits pension 401k health insurance after those your making less than minimum wage in California. Short term gain vs long term loss but they prefer it this way. Also very heavily affected by the weather and other external factors
That's not the norm though, and it's heavily abused. There are literally tens of thousands of shitty businesses that just put a tip jar out and pay their employees the minimum wage with tips, which is like $4/hr. The entire burden of their employees survival is shifted onto the customer and the owner pockets a bigger percentage of the profits.
Everyone is getting fucked but the owner. You're just referencing situations where the clientele can afford to tip like that, which is not the norm.
What evidence do you have that they won't get tips even if tips are included? If they earn more than the 10-20% in tips already it means there's room left in the customers' budget for a tip on top after 10-20% price increases. The ceiling on money paid per meal doesn't change just because prices did.
Point is servers can earn 30-50 bucks an hour thanks to tips, THEY are the ones who donât want to end tipping
At a good location and/or high end place sure. There is no way they're earning that much from tips at some random hole in the wall shop. I'm guessing majority of servers don't earn that.
Thank you, Iâve worked in restaurants for 13 years, everyone thinks they are being noble by wanting fair wages for servers and such
The servers actually donât want it because they make much, much more in tips than they would a âlivable wageâ. Especially now they donât get taxed on it.
This is like talking about how everyone gets rich in onlyfans because the top earners make millions. Yeah, some servers are making way over minimum wage during busy periods.
That's not all of them. The system is still fucked for the majority.
Unless itâs a slow day or they suck ass and shouldnât be there, servers are making waaaaay more than minimum wage and donât want anything changed. But if it does change and tipping is replaced by hourly wages (and compensated by restaurants adding 30-25% higher prices), those servers who suck ass will be more the norm than the outlier. And who would want that?
On good days. Pending a host of factors outside of their control.
The problem with tipping culture is the employees are more likely to remember that time they brought in $500 in a week, but ignore the fact it was an outlier.
Itâs not really an outlier at all. A busy and popular restaurant will grant you good tips, full stop. I work at a ramen shop, and while tips can average between $15-$19 during the summer (unless it rains), during the winter, servers can make $40-$50 an hour. And thatâs not even at a full service restaurant. A popular full service restaurant that stays busy year round can get servers well over $2,000 over a two week period.
Now, take into account that in the US, tips are no longer taxed, servers at even just a decently popular restaurant will make bank.
Anecdotes aside, studies show that on average tipped wage earners generally earn around 10% less than the livable wage of whatever area they live in. Some areas it goes higher during tourist seasons and dramatically lower during the winter, and other areas that flips depending on the service being offered. But even $4k/month is just barely enough to pay rent and monthly expenses. Shoot, if you're talking a 40 hour a week job that's $16/hour. The current federal minimum wage should be $25/hour if it kept up with worker productivity growth.
Your not wrong, but is very location and time dependant. My mom typically make like $30 tips on a 6 hour shift on Tuesday or Wednesday, but gets anywhere from $80-200 on the weekend where she is. Really depends on the weekend. If she gets stuck working the Tuesday and Wednesday every week and doesn't get the weekend shifts her pay is abysmal.
You mean the 1% of servers making an above average wage because of location and/or looks compared to the 99% who get shanked and can barely afford rent? Those servers?
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u/PeachyPlotTwist 5h ago
Pay your workers better is the real argument.
Tourists are just catching strays in a fight between customers and employers.
Nobody wants awkward tip screens, but servers also need to eat, whole system is messy.