Chances are pretty high if you’ve at all been around most social spheres online you will have, at some point over the past at least decade or so, seen someone, somewhere, talking about being a server and that they only make $2.13 an hour so you need to tip, and tip big, or they can’t pay bills because they only make $2.13 an hour.
I’m going to get this out of the way first off, and then, as succinctly as I can, show explicitly why I feel the way I do.
The claim that these people “only make $2.13 an hour” is absolute bullshit and, in effect, an outright lie. The posts are written in a way to exploit your emotions, implying that the subject is, somehow, paid less than the federal minimum wage which is, at the time of writing, an admittedly paltry $7.25 per hour. Yes, the claim is that people are making less than minimum wage and that’s okay because they are a “tipped wages” employee.
Now, there’s a lot of subtle nuance to this, but let me explain, broadly, how the established tipped wage laws are, which will explain clearly why the above is bullshit. This text is directly from the United States Department Of Labor website:
A tipped employee engages in an occupation in which he or she customarily and regularly receives more than $30 per month in tips. An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage. If the employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Many states, however, require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees.
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips
The above text, or a variation thereof, is also posted somewhere in a common employee area at every law-abiding place of employment in the United States. Seriously, look in your break room, I’ll be a poster is there that has the minimum wage in big letters along with text on tipped epmployees, child work hours, and so on.
For some reason people seem to find the text confusing, so, I’ll explain it in very simple terms.
You work a job. That job lets you accept tips. Those tips are likely to break $30 in a month — a trivial amount for, let’s say, any food service job. The employer may, if they choose, claim a credit against that tipped income, and thus instead of having to directly pay at the state or federal minimum wage, they can only pay $2.13 of the minimum wage, with the rest being made up for in that tipped earnings.
If, and this is a very key if, the combined tips plus $2.13 do not equal the minimum federal or state wage (as per a relevant link on the above page) then the employer must make up the difference up to whatever the minimum wage in that jurisdiction is, thus ensuring that minimum wage laws are adhered to, and the employee makes, at an absolutely minim, the $7.25 that the federal minimum wage, at the time of me writing this, is.
So that’s the main part already dead in the water. It is a lie for anyone earning a tipped wage to say they “only” make $2.13 an hour. It’s simply a lie.
The real funny thing, that they won’t talk about in these posts, is that, in the event they get paid more in tips than necessary to meet that minimum wage obligation, they still get that amount over as well. So, in the event they have, let’s say, a really nice pay period, the tips are good, and they come out making, oh, the equivalent of $20 an hour? That’s what they get. They never bring that up, because the posts are explicitly designed to make you feel bad for the poor server, and not consider the opposite side of the coin:
Quite simply, a tipped wage job is a minimum wage job with the (very likely) chance to earn more. Sometimes pretty killer amounts, honestly. That’s why they post the sob story, to get you to tip more to boost their income.
Now, at this point I should say, and I stress that I people absolutely should be paid fairly for their work. This happens because the law basically allows employers to be cheapskates when it comes to employees who earn tips, and it’s some bullshit. The cost of living in the United States is completely fucked, you won’t hear me saying it isn’t, and minimum wage is beyond a joke, and has been since I was a child. Lying to people to try to make them think they get paid only a couple of bucks an hour if you don’t tip, however, is wrong. I’m not saying tipping shouldn’t be a thing — in fact, I feel it’s not the governments business and is a private matter between two individuals: not job related but person related, and that a server or similar job should, again, be paid fairly, as we all should be. I do believe, however, playing on emotions and trying to guilt trip people into handing over more money is dishonest: hence why I call this entire thing the “tipped wages myth.”
I end with this: in some cases I’ve seen people post a close-up image of a pay stub that shows the 2.13 an hour credit value, but nothing else. I’ve asked them to show the entire document, censoring personal information, but letting us see all the values.
They. Never. Do. It.
Ever.
I’ve had them scream about doxing themselves (even though I say they censor the information that would constitute such), or saying that they have nothing to prove (when they literally do in trying to claim they only actually make $2.13 an hour.) and nothing gets anywhere.
If you were only making $2.13 an hour, then for a 40 hour work week your gross pay that week would be about $85 dollars. If you were to get no tips, but still work 40, as per the labor laws as they are written above (again, follow the links and check it yourself) then you would earn $290 or so a week.
Big difference, which they don’t want you to see. Again, that’s if they were to not make any tips, which we know good and damn well they would and do, and easily could make $20 or $30 an hour in some, if not many cases, thus making their actual gross income quite a bit more than the two values above.
That is why they won’t show a complete pay stub. Because it would show the actual earnings they do make, which would cause people to lose all sympathy for them.
Again, I’m not saying not to tip. I’m just saying, it’s wrong to lie to people to try to get them to effectively pay you more when, by all accounts, you likely make above minimum wage every pay period easily.
If I’m wrong, then prove it. Show me a valid, unmolested pay slip which actually shows all the numbers and shows one only actually earning $2.13 an hour. After that I’ll show you the website of an attorney that will help you sue your employer for violating federal wage laws.
I don’t think it will ever come to that though because, beyond shady under-the-counter jobs and other already illegal shit, it isn’t happening. No one is bringing home only $85 a week for working 40 hours. No one. Not without laws being violated somewhere, in any case. I guarantee that.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/compliance-assistance/handy-reference-guide-flsa#3