8 ms·

No service working in the United States is making less than minimum wage unless their employer is breaking the law regardless of whether you tip.

alistairSH 6y ago
True. The wages laws that govern service staff is generally written as a conditional, where the employee earns the greater of: 1. Standard minimum wage 2. Some value less than minimum wage + tips If the employee doesn't break minimum wage by adding their wage+tips, the employer has to make them whole. And then likely cut their hours and force them to look for other work.
- minikites 6y ago
  >the employer has to make them whole No they don't, because what are you going to do about it? Hire a lawyer on your minimum wage salary (assuming you even know you're getting cheated)?
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Every employee in the United States can file complaints with their state labor board and the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
    - minikites 6y ago
      If this is both true and effective, why is wage theft still extremely prevalent?
      - kube-system 6y ago
        Because people who are in a position to be earning those kinds of wages heavily correlate with other situational factors (social, educational, legal, etc.) which may prevent them from reporting the violations. And, the employers who tend to engage in wage theft are generally small businesses, which there are a ton of.
minikites 6y ago
Would it shock you to find out that many, many employers break the law? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Wage_theft_versus_other_property_crimes.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Wage_the... https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-theft-protect/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-th... To everyone: please tip. It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  > It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee. Your sources do not support this claim.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Here, let me quote from the article I linked: >Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft. "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      I followed some of the links and could not find a primary source for the data. (Links were either broken, redirected to the same page, or lead to other secondary sources.) So please link that if you've got it. > "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees. No. It doesn't. It means that, in their entire lifetime as employees of any number of employers, two-thirds of employees, at least once, experienced wage theft in some form. That's a much different statement and says nothing at all about whether those employees were robbed of overtime, asked to work for free, or their employers claimed tip credits for tips the employees didn't receive.
      - minikites 6y ago

alistairSH 6y ago

True. The wages laws that govern service staff is generally written as a conditional, where the employee earns the greater of: 1. Standard minimum wage 2. Some value less than minimum wage + tips If the employee doesn't break minimum wage by adding their wage+tips, the employer has to make them whole. And then likely cut their hours and force them to look for other work.

minikites 6y ago
>the employer has to make them whole No they don't, because what are you going to do about it? Hire a lawyer on your minimum wage salary (assuming you even know you're getting cheated)?
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Every employee in the United States can file complaints with their state labor board and the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
  - minikites 6y ago
    If this is both true and effective, why is wage theft still extremely prevalent?
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Because people who are in a position to be earning those kinds of wages heavily correlate with other situational factors (social, educational, legal, etc.) which may prevent them from reporting the violations. And, the employers who tend to engage in wage theft are generally small businesses, which there are a ton of.

minikites 6y ago

Would it shock you to find out that many, many employers break the law? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Wage_theft_versus_other_property_crimes.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Wage_the... https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-theft-protect/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-th... To everyone: please tip. It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee.

cgriswald 6y ago
> It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee. Your sources do not support this claim.
- minikites 6y ago
  Here, let me quote from the article I linked: >Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft. "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    I followed some of the links and could not find a primary source for the data. (Links were either broken, redirected to the same page, or lead to other secondary sources.) So please link that if you've got it. > "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees. No. It doesn't. It means that, in their entire lifetime as employees of any number of employers, two-thirds of employees, at least once, experienced wage theft in some form. That's a much different statement and says nothing at all about whether those employees were robbed of overtime, asked to work for free, or their employers claimed tip credits for tips the employees didn't receive.
    - minikites 6y ago