"We need to value women’s work and put our money where our mouths are."

October 4, 2015 10:16 AM

Life as a waitress too often means low pay and sexual harassment — When you live paycheck to paycheck, reporting discrimination or harassment becomes complicated.

Tipped work is one of the fastest growing occupations in the US but one of the lowest paid. The federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13 since 1991. 2/3 of tipped workers impacted by the archaic sub-minimum wage are women, and they earn, on average, only 79% of what their male counterparts earn. The disparities get even worse when we account for racism in the industry; black women servers are paid only 60% of what male servers overall are paid. Altogether, that is a $400,000 loss over a lifetime - enough money to fund ten college degrees.

The low wages compounded by the gender wage gap breeds a system of living paycheck to paycheck, which means women cannot do anything to jeopardize receiving their next one - not even report the discrimination or harassment they are experiencing. Unlike workers in other professions, tipped workers depend on the consumer directly for their wages. A tipped worker's bottomline depends on soliciting and earning good tips from customers, but at what cost?

Del. case over restaurant wages could go national

"Cases like this serve as ways of revealing the absurdity of the restaurant industry's primary business model," said Maria Myotte, a national communications coordinator for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a restaurant workers advocacy organization that is campaigning for a fair, livable wage. "We consider the culture of depending on tips to be an all-around super-flawed dysfunctional model."

[...]

Critics say the system legislates pay inequality and disproportionately harms women and people of color. It invites abuses by employers, including "wage theft" where owners keep a portion of the tips, Myotte said. Restaurant workers should make a fair hourly minimum wage paid for by the employer and receive customers' tips, she said.

[...]

Allegretto said the restaurant industry's assertions that tipped workers make far more than minimum hourly wage is flawed. A 2014 White House report examining the effect of the tipped minimum hourly wage on women found that people who work as servers are almost three times as likely to be in poverty.

"A server working Friday night might make more than the minimum hourly wage. But if you draw the Tuesday afternoon shift, you're back to making minimum wage," Allegretto said. "Somebody wins, and somebody loses."

Myotte said a server's compensation shouldn't depend on "how attractive they are or how flirtatious they are."

Campaign to end tipping and pay waiting staff a living wage gathers pace

"I really don't agree with the tipping system, it does not work. There are all sorts of inherent problems," Amanda Cohen, the chef and owner of Dirt Candy, told The Independent."It means we're outsourcing our human resources policy to my customers. If I have a bad day, or if no-one comes to the restaurant because it's a blizzard but I've asked the staff to come in, then why should they suffer?"

Previously on MetaFilter:
"Part of the job": Sexual harassment in the restaurant industry
Keep the change: a restaurant without tips

posted by tonycpsu (101 comments total)

I would happily pay more for my meal and be done with tipping. And I can tell you from experience that reporting harassment is difficult in any job, so of course it's more difficult in a job where the employee has less power, and where there's way less likely to be an HR Dept. doing training.
posted by theora55 at 10:49 AM on October 4, 2015 [36 favorites]

I dislike the custom of tipping at restaurants and wish that in the US we would find a different way to pay servers. I don't see service being any worse when I travel to places where tipping is not the norm, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:50 AM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Altogether, that is a $400,000 loss over a lifetime - enough money to fund ten college degrees

Well, thanks to ballooning college costs, not for long! Hahaohh, I made myself sad.
posted by sexyrobot at 10:51 AM on October 4, 2015 [31 favorites]

Don't get me wrong, I worked as service staff for a long time, and I'm a generous tipper because I know how bad the job can be, but tipping as an American practice needs to die in a fire. Tips should not be part of any worker's actual compensation. There is no excuse for companies to be able to have slave labor that has to beg for bread as part of a viable business plan. If your business can't figure out how to operate while paying your workers the pitiful excuse for minimum wage in this country, then your business is a bad business and you deserve to fail.

And people say, oh...but restaurants would be so expensive if we let restaurant workers earn a living wage, and I put it to you that it is both a bullshit argument and an obscene amount of priveledge for anyone to suggest that your $16 dollar steak at chilies is more important than a mom being able to buy groceries. If the companies built that 20% into the product price, customers would never even notice.

It is fundamentally unfair that we have a class of businesses who are allowed to avoid paying minimum wages, and thereby avoiding paying matching social security and employer taxes.

It is fundamentally unfair that we have a class of workers that are not being allowed to contribute to their social security fund balance in any significant way, which will harm them later in life.

Minimum wage is a pittance, but $2.13 an hour should be criminal.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:56 AM on October 4, 2015 [170 favorites]

It *is* changing. Not fast enough, I'll, grant you, but:

My wife and I stopped for a meal at Joe's Crab Shack. I was grousing about the fact that the prices seemed higher than I remembered, until I saw this.
posted by pjern at 11:01 AM on October 4, 2015 [18 favorites]

It always seemed obvious to me that tipping is an effective form of legal discrimination. Sure, you can work here if you're black/old/not-traditonally-attractive, but you'll get paid half as much and leave soon since you can't pay your bills.
posted by miyabo at 11:14 AM on October 4, 2015 [51 favorites]

I remember the first meal I ate in a restaurant in Europe. It was in a relatively small Belgian town. Food was good, as was the service. All four of us were American, and we tried to tip.

They refused, and we tried again. They were literally insulted. They explained to us that they paid a living wage to their servers, and the price of the food included the money needed to pay their staff.

That changed my perspective on tipping, and gave me a better understanding of the US system's inherent flaws.

Later, I had been living in Europe for a few months, and had an American friend visit me. We were sitting out on the cafe, sipping our drinks; then we finished our drinks and were talking for quite a long time. My friend wondered aloud where our bill was and groused about our bad service. I explained that it would be considered quite rude for them to give you a bill without asking - it would be like they are trying to give you the bum rush.
posted by el io at 11:17 AM on October 4, 2015 [16 favorites]

I dislike the custom of tipping at restaurants and wish that in the US we would find a different way to pay servers.

Unfortunately there is a discrepancy between theoretical preferences and actual preferences. Many polls show that people dislike tipping intellectually. However in cases in which restaurants have eliminated tipping, customers have expressed dissatisfaction because they have given up power and status over a service provider.
posted by JackFlash at 11:23 AM on October 4, 2015 [23 favorites]

The big thing to remember about tipping is this: tipping allows restaurant owners to profit from tax evasion.

Of course, the owners get to pretend they don't know it is going on, but it's there, and the reasons are quite obvious: by shifting a huge percentage of employees' paychecks to unverifiable tips, they create a big incentive for employees to under-report their earnings. And to be totally clear: this is not the employees' fault. They're stuck in a no-win situation whereby a small number of desperate people who cheat on the reporting help keep that base pay from going up (because effectively, the people under-reporting are making more than they "should" if they were paying their full taxes). It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle.

The only people making out on this are the owners, because even though not every employee under-reports, a big enough percentage do that it keeps the wages down (because tips are so "good"), and keeps their payments of payroll taxes down.

I'd love it if this would change. (In the meantime, I'm a very good tipper, because yeah, it's a shitty position to be in)
posted by tocts at 11:28 AM on October 4, 2015 [25 favorites]

If McDonald's can manage to pay its workers the regular minimum wage, so can every other restaurant that deserves to be in business.
posted by wierdo at 11:34 AM on October 4, 2015 [13 favorites]

However in cases in which restaurants have eliminated tipping, customers have expressed dissatisfaction because they have given up power and status over a service provider.

They never had it. Not exactly. Talk to a server sometime about big tippers that are also big assholes. The servers treat them like the assholes that they are. They don't get preferred service. Nice people that treat their servers like human beings get the best service. Now, all things equal, people that tip better may get better service, but all things are rarely equal.
posted by el io at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

It is fundamentally unfair that we have a class of businesses who are allowed to avoid paying minimum wages, and thereby avoiding paying matching social security and employer taxes.

Maybe restaurants should be taxed by shifts or employees and not wages. That would give them less incentive to resist change.

On the other hand, it's one more example of how cheap good and services are worth any amount of oppression if it saves a buck.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2015

Later, I had been living in Europe for a few months, and had an American friend visit me. We were sitting out on the cafe, sipping our drinks; then we finished our drinks and were talking for quite a long time. My friend wondered aloud where our bill was and groused about our bad service. I explained that it would be considered quite rude for them to give you a bill without asking - it would be like they are trying to give you the bum rush.

This is very very true in Quebec. As an American, I am unused to the European style of service where they don't give you the bill for a very long time because usually the people at the table linger and chat over coffee, etc. My husband--who lived in QC for twenty years--said you can tell who is Anglophone by the anxious impatient looks they start to give servers when they've finished their meal. We've been conditioned in North America to eat, finish, then go. We don't really have it in us to linger very long because we think we are being rude. I never adjusted to the leisurely amiable way of eating out when I lived there. It sounds nice, though.
posted by Kitteh at 11:42 AM on October 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

I have a friend who just started working at a no-tips place (and they make a big thing about it), and she really doesn't like it - she's making less than she did at her tipped gig. It would be great to pay more for your meals and not tip, but I definitely want to see a strategy for making sure that workers make the same rate they do with tips. For instance, with tips, someone might average an already not that great $10/hour, but at the without tips place, the hourly wage is $8.25. If we are committed to paying more and not tipping, we need to get real about tipped wages and how they work. Also, tipped wages allow some low income people to make money under the table instead of paying taxes on it - that needs to be taken into account.

When everyone is all "abolish tips", I am afraid that restaurant owners will use change in regulation in a way that actually screws over vulnerable workers. If we can prevent that, sure, but otherwise I would hate to take away tips.
posted by Frowner at 11:52 AM on October 4, 2015 [17 favorites]

One of the Reddit communities I read for entertainment value is /r/TalesFromYourServer, where, unsurprisingly, the American tipping system is frequently debated. My impression from those discussions, and from the handful of servers I've talked to about it, is that most U.S. servers would rather keep tipping simply because, overall, they make more than they likely would otherwise. Which, ironically, is part of why I'd rather get rid of it. My impression is that the compensation gap between front of the house and back of the house jobs has widened significantly over the last 20 years as the standard tip amount has increased from 10-15% to 20-25. I feel worst for the kitchen staff who typically work in much less pleasant conditions for substantially less pay, and often contribute as much to the customer's experience as the servers do.
posted by gsteff at 11:54 AM on October 4, 2015 [18 favorites]

I feel worst for the kitchen staff who typically work in much less pleasant conditions for substantially less pay, and often contribute as much to the customer's experience as the servers do.

We contribute most of the experience by, you know, making the actual product that people are there for.

Which is not to invalidate what servers do, it's more like... FFS, we always get the shit end of the stick. The only real benefit is that in the kitchen we have the potential to make quite a lot of money, and we have much more upward career movement.

I have no problem with tipping--I think it's a fine thing to be able to say to anyone in service positions "hey you went above and beyond, here is extra cash." The problem is when tipping is a substitute for a living wage. And for a lot of people, they'll drop $100 on dinner and be fine with adding $20 as a tip--but they will balk at the dinner costing $120 to start with.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:04 PM on October 4, 2015 [23 favorites]

And this still holds taking the back of the house into consideration. What I'd expect no-tips owners to do is to set a wage for everyone that - perhaps - is a marginal improvement on back of the house wages but well below what people made with tips, because that's what it seems like is happening at the place I'm familiar with. Basically, because the public will be all "ooooh, $8.50 an hour is MUCH more than $2.30, you are so generous!" they won't realize that for front of the house staff it's a significant pay cut, and the no one wins except the restaurant owner, who tacks $1 onto every item.
posted by Frowner at 12:04 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Research by economist Matt Parret has verified that more attractive waitstaff get bigger tips on average.

Interestingly "Parrett found no significant difference in the amount male customers tipped attractive vs. unattractive waitresses, but found that female customers tip attractive female servers approximately 3.01 percentage points more on a percentage tip basis".
posted by w0mbat at 12:14 PM on October 4, 2015 [10 favorites]

that is fucking weird and unexpected. Interesting.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:17 PM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Frowner, extrapolating from one friend's experience seems fraught with peril. We don't know precisely what will happen if the tipped minimum wage is abolished, but its existence is simply indefensible when the whole purpose of the minimum wage is to put a floor on what is acceptable to pay for an hour's worth of work. It only exists because the restaurant industry lobbied for it, who defend it tooth-and-nail because they know it keeps their labor costs down. The fact that some individuals may not do as well under a more equitable system is unfortunate, but these laws should be focused on increased equity for the majority rather than increased opportunity for the minority.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:17 PM on October 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

For comparison, here's Ontario's minimum wage requirements. There's less than $2 difference between server and non-server.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:21 PM on October 4, 2015

For comparison, here's Ontario's minimum wage requirements. There's less than $2 difference between server and non-server.

And tipping in Ontario is similar levels to that of tipping in the US (ie: Not European tipping customs).
posted by el io at 12:23 PM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I bussed, then waited, tables in high school and throughout college twenty years ago and some places tipped out to the kitchen, bussers, and hosts and some didn't. It depended on the owner/manager and how commited they were to "rockin" the place. Some of the most brilliant people I've met worked the kitchen, a lot of readers. And I'd ask about the differences between the front and back of the house. Yeah, the money is better, but you earn it with all the guff you put up with was a common response. Waiting and acting greatly intersect, and does the performance of it appeal to fewer people than the control and routine one has in the back?

It's a little unnerving to address cultural habits in terms of legislation-- fewer choices for how businesses conduct themselves, how incentivization is structured, benefits from degrees of freedom, but I see the value of identifying exploitation.

I think most people know restaurant rushes and the unpredictablity of any patron's "generosity" (because I believe it's more so a matter of status) makes for a random variable that can pay off sometimes, but not always. I waited tables because the money might be much better than an average and I know I wasn't alone in this. I'd like to ask Hayek about it.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 12:27 PM on October 4, 2015

Recently on cruise ship...meals had built in tip. No choice to be made. That said, why bitch about tip jobs when low pay is in so many other fields? Why not a livable wage or decent minimum no matter what the kind of work done, or where it is done?
posted by Postroad at 12:43 PM on October 4, 2015

We contribute most of the experience by, you know, making the actual product that people are there for.

I think that's a misunderstanding of what people go to restaurants for. They go not only for food, but for the service. The relative importance of the two will vary from customer to customer, but "being served and having things taken care of" is definitely a considerable part of what many people are there for.
posted by Wolfdog at 12:44 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

That said, why bitch about tip jobs when low pay is in so many other fields? Why not a livable wage or decent minimum no matter what the kind of work done, or where it is done?

Because math. $2.13 < $7.25
posted by tonycpsu at 12:48 PM on October 4, 2015 [16 favorites]

Like, when a boat capsizes, you save the people who are drowning without life jackets first, then you give blankets to the people in lifeboats who are a bit chilly.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:51 PM on October 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

I don't think the math is nearly that simple and the skills and opportunity created in a restaurant aren't static. A crappy shift (in which the base pay was nearly all I'd earn) was where I learned the skills and wait my turn for the stressful (more money) ones.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 12:54 PM on October 4, 2015

Well, people are working on both those things Postroad. There is a significant movement in this country to get the minimum wage bumped up to something reasonable, and at the same time other allied people are working to close the loophole that says workers in some fields don't even get the benefit of the existing minimum wage. I think that a lot of folks would ideally like to see a $15/hr minimum wage for all workers, tipped or not, with tips then becoming optional instead of de facto compulsory. I know that would be my preference. (Actually $15/hr is already a bit low in my book, but it'd be a huge improvement.)
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:55 PM on October 4, 2015

I've misunderstood tonycpsu's point...
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:00 PM on October 4, 2015

A crappy shift (in which the base pay was nearly all I'd earn) was where I learned the skills and wait my turn for the stressful (more money) ones.

With truly optional tipping--that is, with servers actually earning a livable wage--every shift would be the same w/r/t money, unless you go above and beyond the call of duty.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:04 PM on October 4, 2015

Beyond a call of duty? That's a military idiom. I'd say skillset, and be willing to explore a difference and believe it's more than semantics. Positing everyone deserves a livable wage is a given, but producing a number is challenging. I know you can derive it from economic indices, and believe capital holders have had a free reign that is ruinous, but...well, I agree with what another said about making tipping optional.

I mentioned Hayek before, and the popular, memitic quote is about treating people equally versus making them equal, and that's what goes through my mind as I recall all the restaurants I worked in and their many differences and expressed what I did.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:19 PM on October 4, 2015

We contribute most of the experience by, you know, making the actual product that people are there for.

Disagree. This makes me think you've never worked FOH. Don't mean to be curt, but I actually have to leave for dinner shift in 2 minutes, so I can't explain more atm.

Anyway, something to consider in terms of the gender wage gap that the article brings up is that FOH is almost always overwhelmingly female, and BOH is almost always overwhelmingly male. Although management for FOH, like for BOH, tends to skew more male.

Also, ime the vast majority of the sexual harassment is coming from BOH, not the guests.

Gross pay for waitstaff in my market (urban USA), ime, tends to be around $20-25/hour (with tips, I mean. Base pay is the good old $2.13/hour). A good night can get you $35/hour pretty easily, a bad day can get you $15. That's GROSS, however. Tip out will usually take about 15% of those tips, and you have to declare at least credit card tips (which are the vast majority nowadays), so ultimately, you're probably only taking home about 60-65% of what you're making gross.

For more context: pretty much everyone I've ever worked with FOH in this market has a college degree and is a full-fledged adult (age 25 or up). Restaurant work has become very professionalized in the past five or ten years. I first noticed that trend toward professionalization when I was working out in California, but now it seems that the East Coast is catching up. I don't know the reasons behind that (a cultural change? an effect of the recession?) but working in food service/hospitality is different now than it was even when I was waiting tables back in college.
posted by rue72 at 1:26 PM on October 4, 2015 [11 favorites]

However in cases in which restaurants have eliminated tipping, customers have expressed dissatisfaction because they have given up power and status over a service provider.

*snerk* Back in my youth before capering off to Europe, I waited tables in Texas. Hubs is currently in the restaurant field here in Rome. I can tell you that tipping culture or no, restaurant patrons will always lord it over the wait staff, especially in this day and age of Yelp and TripAdvisor and others of that ilk.
posted by romakimmy at 1:29 PM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

They didn't have a degree in waiting tables. Yeah, it's the recession, and the only thing that could change about the skills and performance of it is how sad it is something I considered more than an average pay when I was a student is something people are raising families and paying higher rents with.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:31 PM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's a little unnerving to address cultural habits in terms of legislation

The ability to pay tipped staff less is itself legislation, so don't think we're not already doing it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:39 PM on October 4, 2015 [19 favorites]

And recession is too relative a term, schemed and gamed. Stagnation is what the US economy has experienced and those at the bottom are hardest hit and the only exception has brought even the quintile range into question.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:41 PM on October 4, 2015

I agree Pope Guilty...so to step back...what I find unnerving is a law that would forbid tipping, and that's not what's being largely advocated.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 1:42 PM on October 4, 2015

> That said, why bitch about tip jobs when low pay is in so many other fields? Why not a livable wage or decent minimum no matter what the kind of work done, or where it is done?

We can fight for both, and lots of people are.

There's a restaurant near us that opened recently that includes tax and tip in its prices, so when you order your meal you know exactly how much it's going to be at the end. It's a little weird at first, this kind of psychological shift, but pretty damn easy to get used to.
posted by rtha at 1:44 PM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

Positing everyone deserves a livable wage is a given, but producing a number is challenging.

The only real challenge is taking into account that the amount of a living wage in say Kingston is going to be very different from the same number in Toronto. Living wages need to take into account some sort of locality, and while working 160hrs/month @ $11/hr is going to be pretty okay in Peterborough, and nigh-impossible in Toronto without some combination of crappy roommates, crappy commute, or crappy home. I have no idea what a solution to that problem looks like that is reasonable, though.

Disagree. This makes me think you've never worked FOH.

I have. But maybe that's a derail, and I'm sorry for starting it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:46 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

"We contribute most of the experience by, you know, making the actual product that people are there for."

I think that's a misunderstanding of what people go to restaurants for. They go not only for food, but for the service. The relative importance of the two will vary from customer to customer, but "being served and having things taken care of" is definitely a considerable part of what many people are there for.
posted by Wolfdog

Having things taken care of? Like not cooking your own food or having to wash the pots afterwards, maybe? BOH is as shitty as FOH for some staff (KP/Potwash) and the days/hours are shit whatever area of catering you are in - working eves, weekends, bank holidays.

I am always surprised that this less-than-min-wage practice is legal in the USA.

Also, in the UK and Europe, people still tip.
posted by marienbad at 1:47 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wanted to add: that math is for someone working full time for minimum wage, when my guess is most people working the minimum are part-time, and it's still not enough to live on in many places.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:50 PM on October 4, 2015

Also, tipped wages allow some low income people to make money under the table instead of paying taxes on it - that needs to be taken into account.

You hear this a lot but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

1. If someone is low income, they pay no income taxes, tips declared or not. They will pay social security taxes, but ...
2. If tips are not declared, you get no social security credits. The lower your social security credits, the lower your retirement benefit.
3. Social security credits are worth more for low income people. If low income, you get a benefit matching 90% of your pre-retirement income. Higher income people get only 32% or 15%. So declaring tips to increase social security credits is highly beneficial for low income people.
4. Your employer must match your social security taxes dollar for dollar. If you don't declare your tip income, your employer gets a tax break as well. This is why they have no inclination to encourage you to report tips -- and why employers encourage this myth.
posted by JackFlash at 1:59 PM on October 4, 2015 [21 favorites]

I explained that it would be considered quite rude for them to give you a bill without asking - it would be like they are trying to give you the bum rush.

Isn't it like that in the US too though? At least when I go out to eat in NY, people seem to lounge around having drinks for long after they're done, and I've never once gotten the bill without having to ask for it first.

I'd love to see tipping be done away with in the US. But the restaurants that lead the charge will have to be very adamant that you don't leave tips. Because even though the prices will be higher to reflect the higher staff wages, Americans will still tip. Americans LOVE tipping. They LOVE the idea that they can slip somebody an extra $20 and get a free drink or preferential service or be remembered the next time they come in.

It's also pretty bizarre that tipping is so big in American culture given how taboo it is to discuss money in basically any other context. The entire practice is utterly gauche.
posted by pravit at 1:59 PM on October 4, 2015

Living wages need to take into account some sort of locality, and while working 160hrs/month @ $11/hr .

As you pointed out in your next comment, very few minimum wage workers can get 40 hours a week -- so much so that increasingly "full-time" (for stats purposes, for example) is defined as 30+ hours.

As for the FOH vs BOH: it's hella hard work, not all of us are men - and when I did it, I got $7/hour, not $20, and never received tips. The only jobs I've ever had that paid $20 or more per hour have required a masters degree (not officially, but the skills needed were masters level).
posted by jb at 2:08 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

They don't discuss it. They just do it. And though what you describe about seeking preferential treatment is true, it's not the primary motivation in my experience, but it is fun to call out cultures.

I said before, fundamentally, I think it's about status and maybe that's gauche too. But the money I learned to earn, subjective as it is, I correlate to an expertise. Working from memory without error, anticipating requests, and putting people at ease took a long while to perfect and its effect was reward.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 2:11 PM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

With truly optional tipping--that is, with servers actually earning a livable wage--every shift would be the same w/r/t money, unless you go above and beyond the call of duty.

It doesn't seem necessary. I don't see why busy shifts couldn't be paid at a higher hourly. (This might be a bad idea, but I don't think it's illegal.)

you have to declare at least credit card tips

I often pay credit card and leave a cash tip, but you get super ugly looks when they see you enter zero on the card reader. I'm not actually sure if this has much of a point.
posted by jeather at 2:12 PM on October 4, 2015

And regarding why people go to restaurants:

sometimes, it really is just for the food, and a safe warm place to eat it in. Or maybe it's for a kind of food I can't have at home. Rarely is it for the service. If I could get similar food with no tipping by going up and collecting it myself from the cooks, I would happily do so.
posted by jb at 2:13 PM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

There are just so many things wrong with the restaurant industry. Tax evasion, money laundering, human trafficking and exploitation of undocumented workers, hygiene issues with disgruntled workers.

It doesn't stimulate my appetite.

It will be very interesting to see how the $15 minimum wage passed in some cities will affect the business.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:15 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't see why busy shifts couldn't be paid at a higher hourly.

Shift differential. Lots of other industries have it.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 2:16 PM on October 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Eliminating tipping would work best as a federal thing. At the very least, restaurant staff should make minimum wage. If all restaurants, everywhere, suddenly had to pay minimum wage to wait staff, no one could complain about unfair advantages with competitors.

If the companies built that 20% into the product price, customers would never even notice.

I agree, but I think even 20% is probably too high a number.
posted by zardoz at 2:32 PM on October 4, 2015

According to some website I googled....Labor Costs

According to the Restaurant Report website, labor costs in the food and beverage industry account for 22 to 40 percent of total sales. In other words, for every $1 in sales, a restaurant spends up to 40 cents in labor costs. Coupled with food costs, some industry trade groups places these costs at 50 to 75 percent of sales.


So let's say that it is 40% labor costs total. Then for every dollar rang up 40 cents is going to labor. Not everyone at a restaurant is FOH so lets say half of that goes to servers as wages...20 cents. To give every server a 300% raise ($2.5/hour to $7.50/hour) would cost 60 cents per dollar no?
posted by ian1977 at 2:56 PM on October 4, 2015

Of course, that is assuming that waitstaff take up half of the labor costs, which they probably do not.
posted by ian1977 at 2:58 PM on October 4, 2015

When everyone is all "abolish tips", I am afraid that restaurant owners will use change in regulation in a way that actually screws over vulnerable workers. If we can prevent that, sure, but otherwise I would hate to take away tips.

I don't think you're positing that restaurant owners don't use the current regulations -- or flat-out ignore them, as in this very case -- to screw over vulnerable workers, but it sure sounds like it.
posted by Etrigan at 2:59 PM on October 4, 2015

but you get super ugly looks when they see you enter zero on the card reader.

This is why I write "cash" on the tip line if I'm paying by card but leaving a cash tip.
posted by metaquarry at 3:16 PM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

I always place the tip on the credit card. That is the only way to make sure that the server gets credits for their retirement benefits.

Employers like to pretend that they are doing employees a favor by encouraging under the table payments. But they aren't. They are screwing their employees out of retirement benefits in order to save themselves from paying federally mandated matching benefits for social security.
posted by JackFlash at 3:33 PM on October 4, 2015 [13 favorites]

...retirement benefits...

I assume you're talking about Social Security? Do young people think that social security will be a thing when they are old? I certainly didn't when I was young.
posted by el io at 3:44 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've been out of the US too long, because the in the years I have been away the tipping culture seems to have gotten entirely out of control. 25% is the new normal for tips because inflation. (Which doesn't make any sense at all, since tips reflect food prices, inflation should be baked into the menu, not the tip percentage). Tip jars *everywhere*. Articles online about how much you should tip your plumber (?!). I actively dislike going to hotels in the US because it seems everyone you meet expects a tip. There are tips in Europe (anywhere from rounding up to 10%) but it has a voluntary feel to it where I don't feel someone expects me to directly pay the salary for the staff.

I remember my years as a waitress in Philly (IHOP, no less) and indeed I remember that as the article notes, sexual harassment was so common I considered it part of the job. Sounds as though things haven't improved. Wages are one thing, but how can we take the sexism out of the system?
posted by frumiousb at 3:50 PM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

That is the only way to make sure that the server gets credits for their retirement benefits.

Retirement benefits 40 years from now are sometimes (often) less important than being able to pay rent in the current month. Owners/managers can and do withhold credit card tips. Cash in hand is cash in hand and nothing can beat that, aside from an actual living wage.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:08 PM on October 4, 2015 [10 favorites]

also i found that BOH harassment was a lot less intense, presumably because of the knives in my hands.
posted by poffin boffin at 4:09 PM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

Front-of-house vs. back-of-house reminds me of my organization, which is about 50% salespeople, 50% engineers (not counting management). The salespeople get commission and can either do really well or really poorly earnings-wise depending on performance. Whereas an engineering role is more stable earnings-wise (salary plus performance bonus).

Both our engineers and a restaurant's BOH staff have quality checks their products pass through. Their work is fairly predictable. When they slip up, the mistake can be caught before it makes it out to a customer.

Whereas FOH and salespeople need to be "on" all the time. They have to be ready to field any customer request at any time. They have both the ability to influence how much a customer buys, and the ability to destroy a customer's experience or perception of the product with a momentary slip-up.

Therefore, I think it makes sense for both salespeople and FOH staff to have their compensation tied to customer experience in a way that incentivizes quality of experience and amount purchased (i.e. a commission or tip that is a % of the amount sold).

How this plays out in terms of social justice is a different question. I wouldn't mind paying a mandatory 10% tip built into all restaurant bills, with the option to add more for quality service. Another approach is to look at how to create more opportunities for people to get onto other career paths so that they have options outside of the low-paid service industry.
posted by mantecol at 4:22 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

If low income, you get a benefit matching 90% of your pre-retirement income.

Note here that "low income" is defined by lifetime inflation-adjusted earnings. As of 2015, if you've had more than $347,000 of lifetime inflation-adjusted earnings your further SS contributions lose almost 2/3 of their value.

$347,000 sounds like a lot, but it's about what you'd have gotten if you'd worked 1900 hours per year for minimum wage for the past 20 years.

Once you hit that threshold, a dollar of Social Security taxes translates to 32 inflation-adjusted cents starting at age 67, until you have about $2.1 million of lifetime earnings, at which point additional dollars are worth ten inflation-adjusted cents per month.

So, if your server appears to already have more than $350k of lifetime earnings, or you reasonably think that he or she will before hitting age 67, it's probably more economically beneficial to give cash.
posted by Hatashran at 4:28 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's as simple as raising wages and eliminating tips though - remember that stink when the Seattle minimum wage went to 15$ an hour and people created " why I'm not tipping" cards?
posted by corb at 4:30 PM on October 4, 2015

I don't think you're positing that restaurant owners don't use the current regulations -- or flat-out ignore them, as in this very case -- to screw over vulnerable workers, but it sure sounds like it.

Well, you're correct that I wasn't - look, I have no problem at all with doing away with tipping, or with paying more for meals. What I worry about is a badly crafted "reform" that ends up with front of the house staff making less per hour - more than the $2.30 allowed now, but less than they currently make with tips. I worry that, for instance, restaurant workers would go from making $2.30 plus tips to making just above the minimum wage, and IME of tipping, that is usually less than $2.30 plus tips.

My point isn't that restaurant owners don't screw workers over right now; my point is that restaurant owners presumably don't have the incentive to raise the hourly wage to "equivalent to $2.30 plus tips" when they can "raise" it to "just above minimum" and then, presumably, boast about how they don't take tips.

Again, I am not opposed to getting rid of tipping. I am worried that American work culture will take a bad situation and make it worse under the guise of improving it, which is what I seem to see happening in a lot of places.
posted by Frowner at 4:58 PM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

Because math. $2.13 < $7.25

The minimum wage for servers is the same as it is for everyone. If tips and the 2.13 base don't get to 7.25, the employer has to make up the difference.

Whether and how that works in practice is something I don't know, but the legal minimum wage is still the same.
posted by jpe at 5:05 PM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

I only waited tables for 6 nights over a period of three weeks, and even I know( and experienced!) not getting minimum wage. Which of course is just another part of the problem.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 5:13 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Meal on the CCard; cash on table for the tip. Makes eating out more affordable somehow. /badmath.
posted by buzzman at 5:54 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Retirement benefits 40 years from now are sometimes (often) less important than being able to pay rent in the current month. Owners/managers can and do withhold credit card tips.

Additionally, cash lets the employee choose to report some or all of their cash tips so that they do get the social security credits. With the tip on the credit card, that choice is taken away from them.

I don't think it's as simple as raising wages and eliminating tips though - remember that stink when the Seattle minimum wage went to 15$ an hour and people created " why I'm not tipping" cards?

Wait, what does the fact that a couple of jerkoffs left nastygrams have to do with anything? If the minimum wage is $15/hr, people are for the most part getting a guarantee of a better wage, regardless of what anyone chooses to leave for a tip. Why should we care that some people have a sad about it?
posted by tonycpsu at 6:10 PM on October 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

So, if your server appears to already have more than $350k of lifetime earnings, or you reasonably think that he or she will before hitting age 67, it's probably more economically beneficial to give cash.

This is absolute nonsense but typical of the fear-mongering dispensed by conservatives who want to destroy Social Security. " a dollar of Social Security taxes translates to 32 inflation-adjusted cents" is so wrong its hard to know where to start. First, it's a dollar of earnings, not a dollar of social security taxes, and second your tax rate is only 6.2% of that dollar, third you divide your income by 35 years, and fourth you get that benefit for the rest of your life -- 20 or 30 years. So "a dollar of taxes translate to 32 cents of benefits" is deliberately misleading.

The Social Security actuaries each year do a study indicating the rate of return for beneficiaries. There are lots of variations -- low income, high income, married, single, male, female, etc. but in every case the rate of return was positive. For the low income earner, the rate of return is 4% to 5%.

And that is assuming the matching 6.2% paid in by your employer. If you don't claim your retirement benefits, your employer doesn't hand you that 6.2%. He puts it in his own pocket, which means you would need to earn 8% to 10% to make up for your missing retirement benefits.

So you are doing your server no favors by encouraging them to forego Social Security. They are just getting screwed out of their retirement. But it sure makes the employer happy not to have to pay taxes.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/NOTES/ran5/index.html
posted by JackFlash at 6:18 PM on October 4, 2015 [9 favorites]

remember that stink when the Seattle minimum wage went to 15$ an hour and people created " why I'm not tipping" cards?

Note that Seattle minimum wage is currently $11. It won't be $15 for a few more years here.
posted by CrystalDave at 6:19 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Additionally, cash lets the employee choose to report some or all of their cash tips so that they do get the social security credits.

Well, we can ask some experienced servers how practical that choice is. In order to file cash tips, the server has to fill out each day IRS Form 4070A, and record the amount of cash tips, credit card tips, the names and amounts shared with support staff.

Then you hand this form to your employer which requires him or her to chip in more matching payroll taxes out of pocket, not just for you but for all the support staff you named in your report. How happy will they be to get this form? Maybe you create friction with the support staff you named. Maybe they find a different employee who is a little more with "the program".

I think the "choice" is a little more theoretical than practical. We should aim to make sure all employees get the benefits to which they are entitled. Optional is not really an option.
posted by JackFlash at 6:40 PM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah, to be clear, I am 100% okay with people making hilariously low amounts of money per hour for mentally and physically taxing work choosing to evade taxes and take care of themselves however they need to.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:31 PM on October 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

My people was not "people are sad and create weird cards," but rather, "servers don't really seem to like giving up tips even when minimum wages increase, and are really pissed when people stop tipping after a wage increase."
posted by corb at 7:44 PM on October 4, 2015

"servers don't really seem to like giving up tips even when minimum wages increase, and are really pissed when people stop tipping after a wage increase."

Except it doesn't show that. People leaving cards (e.g.) tells us about the opinions of the people leaving cards, not about the people receiving them.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:47 PM on October 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

According to the Department of Labor website, I live in one of seven states that do not have separate minimum wage for tipped labor--yay, Minnesota (and, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Alaska, and the territory of Guam)! Tipped workers here earn the same minimum wage as everyone else. Our law is not at all popular with restaurant owners with some notable (and awesome) exceptions, but, as far as I can tell, the restaurant business in Minnesota is still thriving. The main difference seems to be that even tipped workers in less trafficked establishments are still earning a decent wage and can spend that in other businesses.
posted by smrtsch at 7:58 PM on October 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

My apologies, I was attempting to reference the outrage that occurred in response and not the cards themselves.
posted by corb at 8:14 PM on October 4, 2015

Well, you said "I don't think it's as simple as raising wages and eliminating tips", and you're right, because it's actually simpler -- we just raise the wage. Nobody is prohibited by statute from continuing to tip their bartenders and waitstaff. Athough the average tip will of course go down some, people will still continue to tip when they feel it's justified, instead of being basically forced to tip all the time.

I also highly doubt that there's a large proportion of servers who are outraged about getting more money before any tips are added. People are loss-averse, and I'm sure there are a handful of people doing very well with their tips who see it as a threat, but once these measures fully kick in, we'll start seeing that tipping will still be a thing, just not a mandatory thing that allows employers to exploit their workers.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:30 PM on October 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

"Yeah, to be clear, I am 100% okay with people making hilariously low amounts of money per hour for mentally and physically taxing work choosing to evade taxes and take care of themselves however they need to."

You need to be very cautious about what you are advocating. It would make Ayn Rand proud and Rush Limbaugh happy. You cannot build a socially liberal society if there is widespread contempt and fraud in taxation. What you end up with is more like Greece, where people cheat because everyone else cheats, not like Sweden where everyone pays high taxes because everyone likes the social benefits that derive from them.

Low income people already pay little or no income tax. What they pay are social security and medicare taxes that accrue to their benefit. People should proudly pay and proudly claim and fight for their earned benefits. Social security is one of the best benefits a low income employee can get. A job without benefits is a crap job.

When low income employees do not claim their social security benefits, they only harm themselves. Their bosses rejoice because they don't have to pay their matching taxes, saving themselves tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

What you are advocating creates contempt for Social Security, which is exactly what Republicans would like you to do.
posted by JackFlash at 10:08 PM on October 4, 2015 [13 favorites]

I think it's interesting that everyone is focusing on the whole minimum wage/pittance + tips thing as if it isn't inextricably intertwined with the sexual harassment that goes along with being a woman in a service industry. To me, living in Australia where we pay waitstaff a living wage and can also tip if particularly pleased or motivated to do so, it seems clear that that is really only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the entitlement, objectification and harassment of women in service industries.

I do understand that if you are paid a decent wage, have some savings and more options in terms of finding another job that it is easier to exercise options and find another job, demand basic levels of not being sexually harassed at work, etc. But until service industries stop building their industry around the sexual objectification of women, it's going to continue no matter how much women are paid. The story told in TFA makes it clear that objectification from the customers is only part of the problem - the rest is from management and other male servers; from management requiring their female staff to dress "date-ready", to shrug off reports of harassment and inappropriate behaviour.

It seems to me that putting it right back on the woman to leave once she is harassed, assuming that the harassment is an immovable object that can never be changed, is a way of ignoring both the culture in which we live and the complicity between business and sexual exploitation. I realise that this is an impossible ideal, but it makes me so angry to have this being talked about in solely economic terms when it is not a solely economic issue. I am not a waitress and am paid considerably more than a waitress but because I still work in a service industry, I still cop it. Money is not the only answer here.
posted by Athanassiel at 10:36 PM on October 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

There's a lot of talk about increasing the wages paid to servers. I don't know what the right answer is, but it's worth considering the less obvious indirect effects of that policy change.

If you increase wages to servers, you don't simply increase the cost of meals. The restaurant is competing with other options that require fewer employees per meal like fast food, and options that require no employees per meal like people making their own meals. The bar is competing with other social entertainment like dancing classes and all night dances and young drinkers "pre-gaming". So there may not be much flexibility on the pricing side.

Instead, what will probably happen is that restaurants and bars will reduce their hours. Fewer restaurants open Monday through Wednesday. More bars opening at 9pm or later. Now with fewer shifts available, the most "successful" (best looking or most flirtatious?) servers hoover up shifts from everyone else.

So the most successful servers make more money. The least successful ones lose their shifts. This is the typical economic principle whereby in dividing the pie more equally, you also make the pie smaller.

Although, higher server wages may be a good idea in some places, this is the sort of issue that demands careful economic analysis rather than emotional appeals by non-economists.
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 1:52 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't think it's as simple as raising wages and eliminating tips though - remember that stink when the Seattle minimum wage went to 15$ an hour and people created " why I'm not tipping" cards?

As near as I can tell, the "stink" was one bartender got one "Why I Don't Tip In Seattle" (image link) card, and then posted it on social media, where it went viral. A lot of the reaction to the card was that the guy who left it was a patronizing asshole. There is a Facebook group with the same name (here), which as of 10/5/15 9:44 am EST (right now) has 89 likes and maybe a couple of hundred comments - many of the comments are not favorable.

This doesn't look to me like some massive popular protest, it looks like the work of one crank who couldn't even drum up 100 people to follow him on Facebook, and the stink was a bunch of people thought he was a jerk, and said so publicly.

You can't take one minor incident as evidence for a widely held popular opinion.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:53 AM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

If you increase wages to servers, you don't simply increase the cost of meals. The restaurant is competing with other options that require fewer employees per meal like fast food, and options that require no employees per meal like people making their own meals. The bar is competing with other social entertainment like dancing classes and all night dances and young drinkers "pre-gaming". So there may not be much flexibility on the pricing side.

First of all, everyone on the side of increasing the minimum wage for tipped employees acknowledges that some of that money will come from reduced tipping. If the restaurant lobby's claims of high levels of tipped compensation in Seattle are true, then there is plenty of room to increase the minimum wage beyond $15/hr and still not change the overall cost of a meal including tips, which means that while the prices on the menu will go up some, the overall cost-competitiveness of full service dining need not change.

So the most successful servers make more money. The least successful ones lose their shifts. This is the typical economic principle whereby in dividing the pie more equally, you also make the pie smaller.

This allegedly "typical" economic principle, put forth in the 1970s, is by no means universally accepted, and almost certainly doesn't apply at the scale we're talking about. Here: (1, 2, 3) are just three papers that come to very different conclusions on the relationship between equality and economic growth among nations, but it's not even clear to me that Okun's equality-efficiency tradeoff principle applies here when we're talking about a (relatively) small portion of the economy of a single nation. I'm not an economist mysef, so I will leave that analysis to others, but you can't toss out a theory that is the subject of much debate as if it's some Iron Law of economics that can be applied to economic questions large and small.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:52 AM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

pretty much everyone I've ever worked with FOH in this market has a college degree

Can someone explain this to me? Is a college degree actually required to wait tables in 2015? No judgement at all, just trying to understand the situation.
posted by miyabo at 8:11 AM on October 5, 2015

Is a college degree actually required to wait tables in 2015?

No, but there are a lot of people with degrees who can't find jobs more applicable to their education.
posted by Etrigan at 8:16 AM on October 5, 2015

"This is the typical economic principle whereby in dividing the pie more equally, you also make the pie smaller," I tell my friends as I cut myself an enormous slice of pie
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:19 AM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

But if you are, say, a cook in the back of the restaurant, and you want to wait tables, but you don't have a college degree, is that going to be a significant problem?
posted by miyabo at 9:31 AM on October 5, 2015

But if you are, say, a cook in the back of the restaurant, and you want to wait tables, but you don't have a college degree, is that going to be a significant problem?

Not if you've proven yourself to be reliable, and knowledgeable about the FOH vs. BOH work. The upswing in waitstaff who have college degrees isn't because restaurants are demanding it, it's because a lot of people who have college degrees are looking for jobs.
posted by Etrigan at 9:50 AM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Instead, what will probably happen is that restaurants and bars will reduce their hours. Fewer restaurants open Monday through Wednesday. More bars opening at 9pm or later. Now with fewer shifts available, the most "successful" (best looking or most flirtatious?) servers hoover up shifts from everyone else.

Or actually not. Here in Ontario the wage for liquor servers (bartenders; I am not sure if that covers servers in restaurants as well) is very slightly under the provincial minimum wage, and we have none of the problems you're describing. Nor, indeed, does literally everywhere else in the world that pays servers a livable wage.

And yes you can move from BOH to FOH--in fact, the knowledge of timing in the kitchen will help you immensely. That said, movement within restaurants is more likely to be the other way around, servers coming over to the Dark Side.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:05 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

In Quebec the minimum wage for tipped employees is 9.05 and for non-tipped is 10.55 (with the usual rule that you need to make up the 1.50 if tips don't reach it), and I've never noticed a dearth of restaurants anywhere I've been compared to similar cities in the US.
posted by jeather at 11:08 AM on October 5, 2015

First of all, everyone on the side of increasing the minimum wage for tipped employees acknowledges that some of that money will come from reduced tipping.

I don't believe that people's tipping habits are going to change that much. Unless you make tipping illegal, people will give what they're used to giving.

So the most successful servers make more money. The least successful ones lose their shifts. This is the typical economic principle whereby in dividing the pie more equally, you also make the pie smaller.

This allegedly "typical" economic principle, put forth in the 1970s, is by no means universally accepted,

Lol. This is in every introductory economics textbook. You can see, for example, Mankiw's most recent book. Modern economics is a science; its theories are supported by evidence. The theory that trying to split the pie more evenly is opposed to the size of the pie is well-understood and accepted and I have no idea how your references are relevant at all or Rustic Etrustcan's naive sarcasm. Denying modern economics is like non-scientists denying climate change. Sarcastic denial only comes across as cool stupidity.

Yes, other places have different minimum wages, but economists think on the margin, and on the margin, changes to wages will definitely affect job supply. The question is whether it's worth reducing job supply for the sake of equality. That's what needs to be measured: the tradeoff between number of hours lost for the fairness of higher base wages.
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 2:36 PM on October 5, 2015

I don't believe that people's tipping habits are going to change that much. Unless you make tipping illegal, people will give what they're used to giving.

The fuck? You claim to understand economics but can't understand that people will tip less once the cultural pressure to compensate waitstaff for their low base pay is no longer present, and the prices on the menu are higher precisely because of the restaurant taking on the responsibility of paying a living wage directly?

The theory that trying to split the pie more evenly is opposed to the size of the pie is well-understood and accepted

I gave you three cites showing otherwise with empirical data. From actual countries! On planet Earth! You responded with platitudes and head-patting. Did you even read the abstracts, or does your blind faith in Greg fucking Mankiw as a neutral arbiter of what the consensus opinion of modern economists is preclude you from even considering evidence that calls Okun's models into question?

Denying modern economics is like non-scientists denying climate change. Sarcastic denial only comes across as cool stupidity.

Wanna-be economist. heal thyself.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:43 PM on October 5, 2015

That's what needs to be measured: the tradeoff between number of hours lost for the fairness of higher base wages.

You're making the assumption that hours will be lost. That assumption is almost certainly erroneous, because there's no shortage of restaurants here and we pay servers a living wage.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:45 PM on October 5, 2015

I mean, Greg Mankiw actually wrote a paper entitled Defending the One Percent (rebuttals here, here, and here) -- why would we trust him to weigh in with impartiality on the issue of redistributive policy?
posted by tonycpsu at 2:58 PM on October 5, 2015

The question is whether it's worth reducing job supply for the sake of equality.

And we have empirical data for exactly that trade off. The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 2007. The minimum wage went up 40% and minimum wage jobs decreased by 6%. This is a spectacularly good result. Who wouldn't trade 6% less work for a 40% hourly wage increase. That works out to a 32% increase in economic welfare for minimum wage workers.
posted by JackFlash at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

And we have empirical data for exactly that trade off. The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 2007. The minimum wage went up 40% and minimum wage jobs decreased by 6%. This is a spectacularly good result. Who wouldn't trade 6% less work for a 40% hourly wage increase. That works out to a 32% increase in economic welfare for minimum wage workers.

Exactly. And that is exactly the kind of experiment that should be done with server wages. Increases the wages by a 10% and verify that the job loss is worth it. Repeat until you find a happy medium.

I'm not arguing against higher wages. I'm arguing for a maximum of wages and equity. The problem with Amber Piatt's article is that she makes no mention of this tradeoff. A good article discusses the expected rebuttals. A good article would display a modicum of economic literacy. She does none of that. And that makes it pretty useless commentary in my opinion.

Your cited empirical data, Jack Flash, is exactly the kind of empirical data you want for this issue. You want to raise wages and measure the loss of jobs until the lost jobs outweigh the value of raising wages further.


You're making the assumption that hours will be lost. That assumption is almost certainly erroneous, because there's no shortage of restaurants here and we pay servers a living wage.

You have no idea what you're talking about. See the above study!


I mean, Greg Mankiw actually wrote a paper entitled Defending the One Percent (rebuttals here, here, and here) -- why would we trust him to weigh in with impartiality on the issue of redistributive policy?


He's not impartial on redistributive policy. He discusses a variety of issues and substantiates them with evidence. He is a professor of economics at Harvard. You are who exactly?
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 7:54 PM on October 5, 2015

But if you are, say, a cook in the back of the restaurant, and you want to wait tables, but you don't have a college degree, is that going to be a significant problem?


of course, it depends on the restaurant, but from what I've seen it's more of a problem if you speak English as a second language, or speak with a working class accent/manner. Or if you are missing teeth, or have visible tattoos, or are overweight, or basically don't fit into a specific model of seemingly educated, relatively attractive, and middle class.
posted by jb at 8:37 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I work in a restaurant in a place that has a livable wage for servers. I know exactly what I am talking about, thanks.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:39 PM on October 5, 2015

You are who exactly?

I am a member of MetaFilter who gave you three cites that undermine the notion that increased equality necessarily decreases efficiency under all circumstances. You are a member of MetaFilter who apparently can't be arsed to skim them, preferring instead to hide behind credentialism and condescension about economic literacy.

But, hey, maybe you don't like those cites for reasons you've declined to specify, in which case, maybe you'll find these words from one of Mankiw's Harvard colleagues more compelling:

At another level rereading Okun’s book reminds one of how much the economy has changed since the 1970s or even since the 1990s and as a consequence how much a sensible progressive policy agenda today is different than the one that was appropriate in the 1970s or 1990s. In my forward to the reprinting of Equality and Efficiency I describe the major changes in the economy, and speculate about what Art would be recommending if he were with us today. Rather than reprising that discussion here, let me conclude by noting how in areas relating to equity and efficiency my thinking has changed in response to a changing economy over the last 40 years. This is not I believe because my values have changed but is rather because of changes in the economy and our understanding of it.

That's Larry Summers, who was chosen to write the foreword to Okun's Equality and Efficiency, pointing out that a lot has changed in 40+ years, and that there is not necessarily a zero-sum tension between equality and efficiency when income inequality is so high. The book that formed the theory you're hiding behind now includes a foreword that paints a much more complicated picture about the relationship between equality and efficiency than you (or apparently Mankiw) are willing to concede.

You're more than welcome to go with your priors and listen to Mankiw instead of Summers, but please lose the condescension about this as if it's a settled issue just because you might have been taught about it in Econ 101 without learning about the nuances and contrary data that have been discovered since the 1970s.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:04 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I work in a restaurant in a place that has a livable wage for servers. I know exactly what I am talking about, thanks.


Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with economic policy. And this is exactly the problem with this article. It's written by someone with no economics background. I think it's unfortunate that we've made so much room for these kinds of voices.

You're more than welcome to go with your priors and listen to Mankiw instead of Summers…

First of all, Mankiw's text was not written in the 70s. It's only a few years old. Even he accepts that there are market failures for which government intervention makes sense: externalities and market power. In this example, it could be that the restaurants are using their market power to exploit servers either by lobbying for low wages, or by colluding to lower wages. I don't think it's absolutely necessary that we can't increase efficiency while also increasing equity, but it's definitely not the usually case.

My main point if you read my original comment again is that this article by Amber Piatt really comes across as economically ignorant. If she wants to invoke an economic theory that supports her policy, then should do that — but no talk of economics really weakens her point — as it should.
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 10:06 PM on October 5, 2015

Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with economic policy.

Neither does reality, apparently. Let me try again:

- The minimum wage for liquor servers here is within $2 of the minimum for everyone else
- There is a shortage of neither restaurants nor bars nor servers at either

These are facts. Your assumption that this would somehow be different if servers were paid a livable wage is to ignore the actual reality of things as they are right now in many places that are not the USA.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:17 PM on October 5, 2015

Mod note: A few comments deleted. esprit de l'escalier and fffm etc, this has gone into a spiral here with just a handful of people arguing around and around, insults being exchanged and no minds being changed. Please drop it now.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:43 PM on October 5, 2015