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| No | 24% | 148 votes | Total: 625 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesMany customers complain about the "obligation" to tip individuals in the service industry. What they don't realize is that one way or another they will be paying for service. For example, let's just say for the sake of argument that tipping is no longer practiced. Let's say that signs were posted in all restaurants and hotel lobbies that tipping is not allowed. Probably most customers would be elated that they no longer have to calculate 15%-20% in their heads, or depending on what kind of tipper they have been, no longer have to dig for change. The fact is that the job of being a waitress is very hard work. You usually have to run around tables for very long shifts. I have worked 11 hours shifts before, many times without a break of any kind. A meal break was usually defined as grabbing a bread stick between tables. And I hope if your are considering being a waitress or waiter that you have a very strong bladder, because stopping to pee is many times out of the question. I worked in this industry for 4 years with frequent bladder infections for this very reason.
The job description includes much more than greeting guests, taking orders, and delivering food. The unbelievable rudeness of many people can catch even the toughest person off guard. The incredible mess that many people leave behind is also one of the job's "delightful" challenges. By the end of your shift, you are covered in food and grease, exhausted and so sore that it can be difficult to even move. Many restaurants also have side work. One restaurant I worked at had ridiculous amounts of side work. Cleaning light fixtures, polishing brass pots, and scraping gum off from under the seats were as commonplace as cleaning and filling up your work station. Sometimes it took me two hours to do my side work all to the tune of $2.13 per hour.
My point here is that no one in their right mind would do this job for minimum wage. Many people refuse to do this job for any price. I believe that I was a good server and I averaged about $14 an hour on a good day. The frustration that comes with the statement, "This is the best service I have ever received," only to find a 5% tip left on the table is indescribable. But thankfully, the many make up for the few. There are some great experiences that made the job worthwhile. For every rude person, there would be two genuinely nice people. For every lousy tip, there would be two awesome tips.
But back to my point, if it's true that no one would do this job for minimum wage, and if tipping was done away with, then the obvious recourse for the employer would be to pay employees what the job was worth. This in turn would translate higher costs to the customer in the form of higher menu prices, etc. So one way or the other, the customer is going to pay for full service, whether it be in the form of generous tipping, keeping the industry in it's present state or paying higher menu prices.
The present system of things puts the price for service in the control of the customer. The latter puts it in the control of the employer. Some restaurants have instigated no tipping policies and the servers are paid $10-$15 an hour salary. This is an attractive job feature for servers because there is nothing worse than working hard for someone for an hour or more and then have no control of the situation if the customer decides not to pay them at all. I actually had one family of 10 leave the table without tipping at all. I knew I had given good service, so even though it was against restaurant policy; I approached the father in the lobby as they were leaving. I asked him if everything was alright with the service. He said that the service was great. He hesitated and then said, "I didn't tip you because I know that God will provide for you. It's not my obligation." That one was tough to get over.
It is customary in this and many countries to pay for full service. Refusing to pay for full service is tantamount to stealing full service. McDonald's is right down the street for those who cannot afford or do not wish to pay for full service. The $2.13 an hour simply covers the taxes that the servers are required to pay on the tips that were received for the week. Most paydays I would receive a void check, because the entire hourly wage was taken for taxes. So in conclusion, no I don't think that service industry workers should receive minimum wage. I believe they should receive much more.
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Yes
The United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, has a shameful secret. According to a report by the Working Poor Families Project, which is based on U.S. census data; there are nearly 30 million jobs (22%) with wages that place even full-time workers below the poverty level.
Even with the recent increase in the Federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour there are many hardworking individuals struggling to make ends meet. Consider, for example, the cost of living in Washington, which has the nation's highest state mandated minimum wage of $8.55 per hour. A person working 40 hours per week at $8.55 per hour would gross $17,784 per year. But according to www.rentals.com , a 1-bedroom apartment in Everett, Washington, costs about $499 per month. Everett is a small city of about 92,000 people, located twenty-five miles north of Seattle. At $499 per month the rent would consume about 34% of a minimum wage employee's annual gross income; slightly on the high end of the generally recommended percentage of income that should be devoted to housing, but not completely unreasonable. A single person might be able to live relatively comfortably, albeit not lavishly at such a wage.
But, what if that minimum wage earner is a single mother, with two school aged sons? A one bedroom apartment would not be feasible and the most affordable two bedroom apartment at $650 per month would eat up 43% of her annual gross income. Add to that the cost of groceries and clothing required to sustain growing boys, transportation, utilities and medical care (since most minimum wage jobs will probably not include health insurance benefits) and it becomes fairly obvious that the ability to live much above subsistence level is nearly impossible.
Now suppose that same single mom is actually a waitress whose employer is required to pay only $2.13 per hour, the federal minimum wage for service workers earning tips which has remained unchanged since 1991. She would have to make at least $52 in tips during every 8 hour shift just to attain a gross income equivalent to the $8.55 minimum wage. I've never worked in a service position, but I would guess that $52 per day in tips is easily doable. An experienced server, working an 8-hour dinner shift in a busy, upscale restaurant in downtown Seattle, could probably easily make much more.
But in the faltering economy, with consumers eating at home more often in order to reduce expenses and skipping appetizers, alcohol and dessert on those occasions when they do dine out, I would suspect that many service workers are seeing sparser crowds, reduced hours and smaller tips as a result.
Suppose our hypothetical employee works at a small scale diner and is reassigned to the breakfast rush where customers' bills and the resulting tips are much smaller? $52 a day on during a 3 hour breakfast shift might well represent a significant challenge.
The other problem with allowing employers to pay service workers a lower hourly wage on the assumption that they will be able to make up the difference in tips is that it seems to go against the nature of what a tip is intended to represent. A "tip" or "gratuity" is defined as a "bonus or gift of money, over and beyond payment due." Tips should represent that extra pat on the back; an incentive for a job well done. Despite the sometimes not so subtle social pressure on customers, leaving a gratuity should always be the customer's choice and not a requirement or even an expectation.
For those more fiscally conservative individuals who argue that a higher minimum wage will be detrimental to small businesses I think the following quote, used by Amy Chasanov in her 2004 Economic Policy Institute briefing paper in support of an increase in the federal minimum wage is most appropriate:
No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of a decent living.
- Franklin Roosevelt (urging passage of minimum wage legislation)
Human capital is an important resource to any service business. If a business owner can't afford to pay a reasonable cost for that resource, how can we justify allowing that business to continue? We don't accept products manufactured with faulty equipment or unsafe raw materials simply because requiring higher quality standards might cut into the business owner's profits.
There is a lot of angry rhetoric about "ending the Socialist policies" being proposed by the Obama Administration and the need to "get tough" and require the poor to "stop complaining and develop a stronger work ethic." The "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" mentality is alive and well.
But I often wonder, have the people spouting these rather simplistic platitudes about what poor people ought to do ever been poor, I mean really poor, themselves? I look at the sophisticated video games that my teen-aged son enjoys with realistic graphics and scenarios depicting everything from professional boxing to military battles to space travel and I wonder, "What if game designers could put together some realistic 'poverty simulation games' for all of the Rush Limbaugh devotees to play?"
Maybe a dose of being dealt multiple handicaps like an inferior education, a minimum wage job with no health benefits, frequent illness brought on by the stress of living in a high crime neighborhood and a lack of access to quality nutrition and preventative health care in a virtual world would encourage the "haves" who seem to be motivated mainly by the desire to keep their taxes low, to stop bashing the "have-nots." Or better yet, maybe we should take the time to job shadow a minimum wage worker in real life or read a book like "Nickle and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich to get a better develop a little more empathy for the less fortunate around us.
References:
Chasanov, Amy. "No Longer Getting By: An Increase in the Minimum Wage is Long Overdue," Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper #151, May 11, 2004.
Smith, Aaron. "Minimum Wage Hike: More Money or Fewer Jobs," CNN Money, July 27, 2009.
"U.S. Working Poor on the Rise," CBS News, October 14, 2008. http://www.cbsnews.c om/stories/2008/10/1 4/national/main45225 99.shtml?source=RSSa ttr=HOME_4522599
http://www.workingpo orfamilies.org/pdfs/ NatReport08.pdf
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