Re:Generation Limbo: Waiting It Out
by 6ren on Thursday September 01, 2011 @08:24AM
(#2949671)
tangent: is $2.17 an hour really typical pay for waiting tables in the states? In Australia, minimum wage is around $15 (I think). No wonder tipping is so important in the US.
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"tipped labor must be paid a minimum of $2.13 per hour, as long as the hourly wage plus tipped income result in a minimum of $7.25 per hour." [1]
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Minimum_wage_...
Guess what happens to those that the employer has to pay to make up the difference?
The same thing that happens to a salesperson that doesn't sell enough to justify their (usually small) salary.
Re:Generation Limbo: Waiting It Out
by anonymoushn on Thursday September 01, 2011 @08:33AM
(#2949701)
Their total compensation must be at least minimum wage to comply with the law. Tipping is very common, so you could probably pay wait staff $0/hr legally.
Yeah, minimum wage for non-tipping jobs is $7.25 where I live, and somewhere around $2 for jobs that rely on tips. Since a 10 - 20% tip is the norm, a server only needs to serve maybe $40 of food every hour to hit that minimum wage. For the sake of reference, most meals are around $6 on the cheap end, and $10 - $15 is common at a nicer-but-affordable place.
So, yeah, it's low, but as long as the server is doing a decent job, people will tip, and at a decent restaurant, they can actually do better than the (honestly pretty low) normal minimum wage.