As a former service worker, I'd argue that cutting employee hours was exactly the goal.

Typically, in a restaurant in Philly or places with similarly lower-than-minimum service wages (which still has the $2.75 or whatever minimum for service workers), you'll be scheduled excessively for hours when the restaurant definitely isn't going to have any business. For example, coming in at 330/4 to start prep for the dinner shift.

When labor costs basically nothing, there's no reason not to overschedule them.

This reduced the amount of time I could spend outside of work learning to program (for example... since it's what I did hah) or others could spend improving their skills for basically no money. It's a huge detriment to the employees. You'd stand around cleaning for some nitpicky manager making 0/hour effectively, doing untipped cleaning and prep work. Your paychecks will be $0 if you get even a modest amount of tips for the night (it's all taxed).

Now restaurants will be more particular about how they schedule employees, and the untipped work actually costs money to have done (if a janitor would have to be paid minimum+ to do it, why should a server do it for $2.75/hr)?

In my 6+ years in the restaurant industry I’ve never had a manager or owner who didn’t care about over staffing. They were always focused on reducing hours and making sure the opener/closers had enough tables to make it worth it.

I worked in some of the largest (non fast food) groups to single owner restaurants.

I thought the law was hour by hour. So if you get no tips for an hour, you are owed minimum wage for that hour. Actually getting employers to pay up is a whole other battle, but in that case what is needed is enforcement of existing laws.

Over what time period is the min wage averaged out? The entire day or is it split per hour?

Look at it this way. If tips + $2.13 an hour < minimum wage for the hours you worked then your pay check will have whatever amount will get you to minimum wage. I believe it’s per pay period. If you’re in a 2$ an hour state and getting money in your paycheck it’s time to find a new restaurant.

So if I get a $1000 tip five minutes into the shift it applies for the next two weeks?

IIRC, whatever the pay period is. I would need to ask an old manager if the week or pay period matters. Could be per week.

It’s so rare in the $2 an hour states. I worked at Chili’s during the worst parts of the recession and never made a paycheck. Once the economy picked up I went to greener pastures.

The slant of that website is, uhhhhh, impressive, but let's set that aside and go to the primary source[1]. First, it's a self-reported survey, not a study. Tellingly, it doesn't list any absolute numbers, just "yes/no" reporting. For example, 77% of businesses reduced hours hours per-employee, but it doesn't say by how much. That doesn't seem at odds with the study being discussed in this thread. That is, hours may be reduced, but overall wages and employment remain up relative to other industries. Actually that's another interesting thing about the survey you link. It cites a 6% to 1% drop in growth rate, but doesn't compare that to other industries, as the study in this thread does. The survey also says that food costs went up (an expected result from the wage increase), but they didn't ask what the impact on revenue was.

The survey you cite seems low quality anecdata compared to actual industry numbers shown in the study being discussed.

As to your first point, no, "the minimum wage hike" did not occur in late 2018. The final increase ($13.50 to $15.00) did indeed take place near the end of this study period, but the overall increase from 2013 to 2018 (from $7.25 in 2013 to $13.50 by late 2018 to $15.00 by end of 2018) reflects a more than doubling of the minimum wage over the study period, so I think it is still a valid reflection of the impact of such a dramatic increase.

[1] https://thenycalliance.org/assets/documents/informationitems...

The minimum wage went from $7.25 in 2013 to $13.50 last year, finally increasing to $15 last year as well. It didn't all jump last year, so the data of 2013-2018 still appears valid.

http://www.centernyc.org/new-york-citys-15-minimum-wage

actual report:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690...

At least talking about restaurants with tipped employees, the $15/hr includes a $5/hr tip wage! If a server makes enough in tips, the min wage the restaurant pays is only $10/hr. See appendix figure 1, page 22 of the pdf.

There is too much investment on the left of $15 minimum wage being the "right thing to do", that miss information pieces like this Market Watch article are all too common. In reality $15 will be disastrous for small business. A better solution is UBI, which also has the added benefit of starting to recognize work that currently is valued at $0 such as stay at home moms taking care of their babies/toddlers.