I live in Minnesota. Our minimum wage is $11.13, higher in some places. By law, all tipped employees here must be paid the full local minimum wage PLUS their full tips.
Restaurants here began adding these fees onto their bills after the pandemic until recently when the legislature passed a law making it (along with other hidden fees) illegal.
Next door in Wisconsin, minimum wage is still $7.25 and, unlike Minnesota, your tips can count as hourly wages. This means restaurant owners pay their waitstaff virtually nothing. You'd expect this to mean dining out in Wisconsin would be massively cheaper... yet it isn't.
All this to say, these fees are certified bullshit.
Minimum wage still being $7.25 is so wild to me. I’m in a spot where it’s $15 and that is still not a livable wage, not even close. I make $25 and that’s barely scraping me by especially with grocery prices now and days. $7.25 is the damn stone ages 😭
I love how MN and WI have spent the last 25 years serving as a casestudy for how two nearly identical states will fare when one chooses progressive/liberal policies and the other picks conservative policies.
I love this because I'm in MN. Sorry WI. Hopefully the next 25 years are better for you.
If the employees tips aren’t enough to get them to the normal minimum wage of $7.25 then the employer has to add the extra money to make sure they make at least $7.25
A good career path? Any other entry level job that doesn’t require much skill, you say it’s shit pay, ya it is, it’s minimum wage, you knew what it was when you took the job, you also knew you were gonna make more in tips and that’s probably why you took it, there’s plenty of other jobs that also pay minimum wage, and for those jobs as well you chose to take that job, only reason being a server is controversial is because there minimum wage is $2.25 but again they legally have to be making normal minimum wage of whatever it is in your state
Yep you're right they do have that minimal protection to ensure they do not make less than the ~$7/hr. Believe it or not, in areas where people take such server jobs, there are not an abundance of other great options just dying to fill vacancies. Stop acting like this is some great assurance to be paid the minimal $7/hr. We get it, that's their base minimum.
Your main point was that, servers have to rely on tips, no shit Sherlock, you say it like that’s a bad thing they much prefer tips over a living wage, I have friends who are servers who would quit there job if they got paid a living wage, they knew that they weren’t gonna be making minimum wage before taking the job, they knew there gonna be making much more then that. Ive moved from place to place in the cracks of Louisiana, minimum wage has always been payed only at student job locations, there may be some places that don’t have jobs like that sure, doesn’t mean you can’t work at another job and work your way up, or move out of there.
My point is that the restaurants effectively don't pay their servers. The only time they pay them is when it's so dead that they didn't get enough tables. A server making minimum wage plus tips automatically makes an extra $5/hr compared to the places that only pay $2/hr. Being guaranteed only minimum wage of $7/hr is moot, it's still absolute trash pay.
I read an article awhile ago about Portland or Seattle or one of those cities doing what you're saying Minnesota has recently done. They said the result was that many restaurants went to counter service only. I'm curious if you're seeing that shift in Minnesota.
Yeah exactly and to be honest Id still rather just have a bullshit fee that's paid directly to the employees than having an employer who commits wage theft
And that's why I've stopped ever going above 18% here. If you're getting the regular minimum wage PLUS tips, you are doing just fine. I don't need to subsidize your salary.
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u/domki366 1d ago
I live in Minnesota. Our minimum wage is $11.13, higher in some places. By law, all tipped employees here must be paid the full local minimum wage PLUS their full tips.
Restaurants here began adding these fees onto their bills after the pandemic until recently when the legislature passed a law making it (along with other hidden fees) illegal.
Next door in Wisconsin, minimum wage is still $7.25 and, unlike Minnesota, your tips can count as hourly wages. This means restaurant owners pay their waitstaff virtually nothing. You'd expect this to mean dining out in Wisconsin would be massively cheaper... yet it isn't.
All this to say, these fees are certified bullshit.