Voters in Arizona and Massachusetts are set to decide whether employers should be able to continue to pay tipped workers such as servers and bartenders a lower minimum wage than non-tipped workers.

Mel Nichols, a 37-year-old bartender in Phoenix, Arizona, takes home anywhere from $30 to $50 an hour with tips included. But the uncertainty of how much she’s going to make on a daily basis is a constant source of stress.

“For every good day, there’s three bad days,” said Nichols, who has been in the service industry since she was a teenager. “You have no security when it comes to knowing how much you’re going to make.”

The amount tipped workers make varies by state. Fourteen states pay the federal minimum, or just above $2 an hour for tipped workers and $7 an hour for non-tipped workers.

  • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
    815·
    1 month ago

    Wait do people really not know that servers and bartenders already make below minimum wage before tip? In NY and I think most states have it set up so the specially set minimum wage for tipped service workers + the minimum % you must claim from tips comes out to the state wide minimum wage amount. Everything they make in tips after that is cash in hand no taxes, period.

    The fact this is even up for debate shows the people debating to raise it have no idea what they’re talking about.

    If you suck at you job and keep getting scheduled on swing shifts that see no patrons so no tips, your employer must match the necessary amount to get you to minimum wage. Only ever saw that happen a few times for really really part time servers. But in one or two 4-6 hour dinner rushes at average sized establishment, it was more rare for the servers to NOT take home more than what the cooks made in a 40hr week. 8-12hrs of largely untaxed tips = more than 40hrs @ 12/hr or at least that was the case 7-10 years ago.

    Lesson 2, never go salary working for a restaurant. It turns you into legal slave labor. You will be at that restaurant more than you aren’t for the same fuckin paycheck amount week in and week out. I never went salary but have a record of 91hr work week when the place I was at opened a new location. Made bank hourly but if I were salary I’d be the same amount paycheck for 90hrs of work.

    That’s what we should be looking to improve regulations on. Exploiting faux salary promotions for exploration of labor laws lol

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      15·
      1 month ago

      I stopped reading after your first paragraph because there is so much wrong.

      Minimum wage is federal law. If, as a tipped worker, at the end of a pay period, your base wage plus tips doesn’t make minimum wage, your employer must make up the difference. (I don’t know if states with higher minimum wages carry over this requirement, or if the employer only has to make up to the federal minimum wage.)

      You are supposed to report all tips as income. Yes, most people will under-report cash tips, but that is tax fraud. (Again, this may vary for state taxes, but I’m not aware of any that say tips past minimum wage are tax-free.)

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      4·
      1 month ago

      A living wage fixes all those problems. It not only fills in the hole where those “rare” servers don’t bring in enough to even cover minimum wages, but gives the worker in any job the power to choose to work or not. The employer has to make the job more attractive to bring them in. Anyone who says that’s going to be hard for the employer…that’s exactly what they want to you say.