In the US bosses factor in tips when determining the wage of the waiter/waitress. They get paid next to nothing from the restaurant and are relying heavily on tips for their incomes.

The last I knew servers in the U.S. made $2.13 and hour which is well below minimum wage. If a server Made "normal" wages and did not get tips your meal would cost 3 times what it does now in order for the restaurant to make a profit. A meal at an average sit down restaurant cost roughly $13 per person. ad 20% to that (a total of $15.90). Now imagine the average meal costing $30 per person... That is a huge difference. Get the point?

In Australia, we'll pay that price or more for a meal and tips are just not customary. I am yet to understand how a person can live on less than minimum wage, and depend on tips to survive. You'd have to be doing a pretty damn good job. People are so damn picky these days!

2.13?! That's horrible :s

@124 They don't make below minimum wage. I wish people would educate themselves on the tip credit. The tip credit allows employers to pay as little as $2.13/hour to tipped employees, but only if the tips make up the $5.12/hour difference. The employer must pay enough to satisfy minimum wage when the tips and wages are factored together.

And some waitrons know that if they aren't making enough in tips, they'll get fired (because the employer doesn't want to have to pay them any more than their base hourly rate; and they justify it as "if you were good enough, you wouldn't need more from me, you'd be getting it in tips"). As a result, the waitrons lie about their tips, reporting that they got enough to satisfy the minimum wage. I knew SEVERAL waitrons that did that. They weren't necessarily bad waitrons, every restaurant has slow nights. They always reported exactly the amount of tips that got them to minimum wage, even when they made less (and then they hoped they'd be "over" often enough to make up for the nights they were under -- justifying their under-reporting on good nights as making up for their over-reporting on bad nights). The point being: the law DOES require the employer to supplement the tips, up to a value that matches minimum wage. That doesn't mean the employer does so in practice. They might fire waitrons who need that supplement, and that can cause waitrons to over-report their tips on bad nights. Thus making the principle that you're ranting about completely moot.

This is an enforcement issue. The gov should be cracking down on that.

@183 Given how many people I encounter in a day who don't know how the tip credit works, I would argue that it is more of an education issue. People are not keeping themselves informed about their rights. The Minimum Wage poster that is required to be posted in a conspicuous place states how the tip credit works. I surmise that people just aren't reporting the issues because they don't know that they are are entitled to minimum wage if they don't make the tips.

@180 I am not ranting for the sake of ranting. My goal is to inform people about the protections available to them. The Department of Labor takes wage violations seriously. If people are informed about their rights, then they can start reporting the problem and get a resolution. Employers should not be allowed to get away with taking advantage of their employees. Also, even in the "at-will employment" States, it is illegal to retaliate against any protected action, including filing a report with the Department of Labor about unfair wages.

@191 in #178 you said "They don't make below minimum wage." That's a practical statement of what is or isn't actually happening. And what is or isn't actually happening is: waitrons often DO make less than minimum wage, if their tips are low enough, and they're afraid to report it, (for good reasons) because they'll be fired if their tips aren't good enough. That's the practical reality, and it completely contradicts your opening statement in #178. "They don't make below" is quite different from "the laws says they shouldn't make below". The former is practical reality, the latter is theoretical. The latter is "how it should be", and the former is "how it really is". Is it about enforcement? is it about education? is it about economics? is it about unethical employers? is it about unethical/unsympathetic/skin-flint customers? is it about poor service? As a response to #178, it doesn't really matter which of those is the root cause -- what matters is: waitrons often don't take home a paycheck that would match (or exceed) what they would get at minimum wage. That means "they DO make less than minimum wage." No matter how you slice it, your opening sentence from #178 is _wrong_. It's great that you want to educate people on what SHOULD BE happening, and what the laws says about the situation ... but if you start out with a statement that ignores the day to day reality, you're not going to have an effective message.