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If you increased the price of the food to include the average tip and distributed that increased price among your workers you've just provided that same incenti

by Vraxx 10y ago

If you increased the price of the food to include the average tip and distributed that increased price among your workers you've just provided that same incentive (a wage decidedly above "fair") to your servers and the experience remains constant for your customers. Now if the servers decide that means they can slack because the "tips" are guaranteed, they can find another place to work for those kinds of wages. Especially with feedback systems being easier to implement through recent mobile technology, the problems are not intractable.

Alupis 10y ago
I kind of agree, but high wages does not imply good service. Also, in California, servers must be paid the state's minimum wage - this is not the case everywhere in the country. Many states have an alternate minimum wage for the service industry. If food prices were increased to compensate every wait staff say, $30k a year, food prices in these areas wouldn't be going up only $5-$10... in those cases, food prices may double or triple in order to support this significant wage increase. This will undoubtedly cause a reduction in patronage, which ultimately means fewer staffers on payroll. This brings up an interesting thought experiment, and is very relevant to the minimum wage issue in general: Is it better to have fewer people employed at a higher wage, or more people employed at a lesser wage? On one hand, a percentage of the workforce will enjoy a more comfortable living - on the other hand more people will be left with no living at all.
- Vraxx 10y ago
  I don't get why raising the wages implies that food will go up more than the average amount of tipping (~10-20%). Currently, if it's legal for their wages to be lower granted that they are supplemented by tips, if we raised the price of food at establishments with waitstaff by the average tip amount, the amount of money that the customer pays for food would be exactly the same (on average) as it currently is. Now if that money was diverted directly the the waitstaff (as it currently is) then we would have higher wages being paid to the waitstaff. I recognize that some restaurants might raise prices by more than the average tip amount in order to increase profits, but that seems to be a separate concept from the one that I proposed. My proposition in no way requires that any restaurant raise the current cost that the customer pays (net money outflow from an average customer). As for high wages not implying good service, I agree, and it's also a core axiom of why I believe tipping is inefficient, outdated, and cumbersome. But if we operate on the assumption that a good server gives good service in order to earn higher wages through tipping, I think we can also assume that a good server will give good service in order to continue to make his wage and not be fired as a result of treating customers poorly out of laziness.

by Vraxx 10y ago

Alupis 10y ago

I kind of agree, but high wages does not imply good service. Also, in California, servers must be paid the state's minimum wage - this is not the case everywhere in the country. Many states have an alternate minimum wage for the service industry. If food prices were increased to compensate every wait staff say, $30k a year, food prices in these areas wouldn't be going up only $5-$10... in those cases, food prices may double or triple in order to support this significant wage increase. This will undoubtedly cause a reduction in patronage, which ultimately means fewer staffers on payroll. This brings up an interesting thought experiment, and is very relevant to the minimum wage issue in general: Is it better to have fewer people employed at a higher wage, or more people employed at a lesser wage? On one hand, a percentage of the workforce will enjoy a more comfortable living - on the other hand more people will be left with no living at all.

Vraxx 10y ago
I don't get why raising the wages implies that food will go up more than the average amount of tipping (~10-20%). Currently, if it's legal for their wages to be lower granted that they are supplemented by tips, if we raised the price of food at establishments with waitstaff by the average tip amount, the amount of money that the customer pays for food would be exactly the same (on average) as it currently is. Now if that money was diverted directly the the waitstaff (as it currently is) then we would have higher wages being paid to the waitstaff. I recognize that some restaurants might raise prices by more than the average tip amount in order to increase profits, but that seems to be a separate concept from the one that I proposed. My proposition in no way requires that any restaurant raise the current cost that the customer pays (net money outflow from an average customer). As for high wages not implying good service, I agree, and it's also a core axiom of why I believe tipping is inefficient, outdated, and cumbersome. But if we operate on the assumption that a good server gives good service in order to earn higher wages through tipping, I think we can also assume that a good server will give good service in order to continue to make his wage and not be fired as a result of treating customers poorly out of laziness.