4 ms·

>In the US, employees must still be paid minimum wage. Depending on the state, an employer may count tips toward this amount. If an employee reports $0 in tips,

>In the US, employees must still be paid minimum wage. Depending on the state, an employer may count tips toward this amount. If an employee reports $0 in tips, the employer must pay them $7.25/hr. While I would like to believe that what you say is true, I find it hard to be true. You are beyond naive if you really think that because these laws are on the books they’re not being routinely and widely flouted or ignored. If you really find it hard to be true that employers will try to spend less on employees, you’re not capable of participating in this discussion because you lack even basic familiarity with the real world.

jstarfish 9y ago
Yeah, I had a few thousand dollars in unpaid overtime withheld by an employer; the Department of Labor helped me file a complaint, assigned me a representative, ignored all of my phone calls, and I never heard from them again. I tried to get a labor lawyer to intervene but the total losses weren't enough for them to bother litigating. They sent a demand letter and it was ignored. Next option would have been small claims but I didn't have the time or inclination to fight it anymore at that point. I can't imagine a waitress would fare much better. As long as a shady employer keeps their take below $10k, it seems they are untouchable.
- c0wb0yc0d3r 9y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but I don't think that it represents the nation at large. Here is why... According to the most recent census data I could find (2015), there are approx. 27M businesses in the US[1]. Assuming half those businesses are wage thieves, that would mean 13.5M businesses are currently in violation of the the law. The DOL can place a $10k sanction on the business owner for a first infraction[2]. This would then mean that the US gov't stands to make $135B by placing sanctions on these businesses. To catch each business, let's say it costs the DOL $2500/business. After looking into each and every business, they would run a total of $67.5B. Now they have made $67.5B after all expenses have been made. To put that in perspective, the US gov't has put aside $9.7B for the DOL in 2018[3]. As you might figure on your own, $67.5B is nearly 7 (6.9587628865979381443298969072165 if you want to be super accurate) times the DOL's 2018 budget. Now if you mean to tell me that the gov't is going to leave that sort of money on the table, then you and I need to figure out how we benefit from this. You might well be thinking something along the lines of "The gov't is inefficient, etc. There is no way they could reclaim all that." You're right this is definitely a perfect world scenario, but even if they could only claim 1%. That still makes up a 10th of next years DOL budget. For the gov't , these numbers only get better as more businesses commit these crimes. Now we have to look at this from the perspective of a business. Again there is only roughly 27M in the US. To make it fiscally responsible to take the $10k bet of sorts the business must save at least $10k/violation, obviously. For the sake of this argument let's say violations are handed out per person per month. ((404)7.25)+(((3024)-(404))(7.251.5)) = $7250, that is how much you make at minimum wage including overtime... If you worked literally every hour of every day for a month (30 days, technically). So if we assume the business thinks a person is going to report the violation, they are better off just paying minimum wage upfront. Let's reel this in a bit and say you work 40/wk/mo in overtime. ((404)7.25)+((404)(7.25*1.5)) = $2900. So now the business definitely comes out ahead. They would risk $7000 by trying to save, what, $1000? Remember, this is an extreme case, not everyone is going to work 80 hours a week. Even if a business isn't more likely to hire another person to cover your 40 hours of overtime a week, they can only save $580/mo compared to the $10k/violation. I know that there are businesses that will literally do anything under the sun to make a buck, but I find it hard to believe that even half of businesses would go against some of the math above. [1]: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/econ/susb/2015-susb-annual.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/econ/susb/2015-susb-... [2]: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/minwage.htm#Penalites https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/minwage.htm#Penalites [3]: https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/FY2018BIB_0.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/FY2018BIB_0.pdf
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Instead of just making guesses about what the hypothetical payoff would be for a business, why not look at actual data? A report from the Economic Policy Institute[1] found that minimum wage violations affected 17% of workers in the states surveyed (the ten most populous in the US) and averaged $3,300 per worker who was affected. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year-survey-data-show-millions-of-workers-are-paid-less-than-the-minimum-wage-at-significant-cost-to-taxpayers-and-state-economies/ http://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from...

jstarfish 9y ago

Yeah, I had a few thousand dollars in unpaid overtime withheld by an employer; the Department of Labor helped me file a complaint, assigned me a representative, ignored all of my phone calls, and I never heard from them again. I tried to get a labor lawyer to intervene but the total losses weren't enough for them to bother litigating. They sent a demand letter and it was ignored. Next option would have been small claims but I didn't have the time or inclination to fight it anymore at that point. I can't imagine a waitress would fare much better. As long as a shady employer keeps their take below $10k, it seems they are untouchable.

c0wb0yc0d3r 9y ago
I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but I don't think that it represents the nation at large. Here is why... According to the most recent census data I could find (2015), there are approx. 27M businesses in the US[1]. Assuming half those businesses are wage thieves, that would mean 13.5M businesses are currently in violation of the the law. The DOL can place a $10k sanction on the business owner for a first infraction[2]. This would then mean that the US gov't stands to make $135B by placing sanctions on these businesses. To catch each business, let's say it costs the DOL $2500/business. After looking into each and every business, they would run a total of $67.5B. Now they have made $67.5B after all expenses have been made. To put that in perspective, the US gov't has put aside $9.7B for the DOL in 2018[3]. As you might figure on your own, $67.5B is nearly 7 (6.9587628865979381443298969072165 if you want to be super accurate) times the DOL's 2018 budget. Now if you mean to tell me that the gov't is going to leave that sort of money on the table, then you and I need to figure out how we benefit from this. You might well be thinking something along the lines of "The gov't is inefficient, etc. There is no way they could reclaim all that." You're right this is definitely a perfect world scenario, but even if they could only claim 1%. That still makes up a 10th of next years DOL budget. For the gov't , these numbers only get better as more businesses commit these crimes. Now we have to look at this from the perspective of a business. Again there is only roughly 27M in the US. To make it fiscally responsible to take the $10k bet of sorts the business must save at least $10k/violation, obviously. For the sake of this argument let's say violations are handed out per person per month. ((404)7.25)+(((3024)-(404))(7.251.5)) = $7250, that is how much you make at minimum wage including overtime... If you worked literally every hour of every day for a month (30 days, technically). So if we assume the business thinks a person is going to report the violation, they are better off just paying minimum wage upfront. Let's reel this in a bit and say you work 40/wk/mo in overtime. ((404)7.25)+((404)(7.25*1.5)) = $2900. So now the business definitely comes out ahead. They would risk $7000 by trying to save, what, $1000? Remember, this is an extreme case, not everyone is going to work 80 hours a week. Even if a business isn't more likely to hire another person to cover your 40 hours of overtime a week, they can only save $580/mo compared to the $10k/violation. I know that there are businesses that will literally do anything under the sun to make a buck, but I find it hard to believe that even half of businesses would go against some of the math above. [1]: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/econ/susb/2015-susb-annual.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/econ/susb/2015-susb-... [2]: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/minwage.htm#Penalites https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/minwage.htm#Penalites [3]: https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/FY2018BIB_0.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/FY2018BIB_0.pdf
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  Instead of just making guesses about what the hypothetical payoff would be for a business, why not look at actual data? A report from the Economic Policy Institute[1] found that minimum wage violations affected 17% of workers in the states surveyed (the ten most populous in the US) and averaged $3,300 per worker who was affected. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year-survey-data-show-millions-of-workers-are-paid-less-than-the-minimum-wage-at-significant-cost-to-taxpayers-and-state-economies/ http://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from...