Well, yeah. But if we took a poll right now of 1000 randomly sampled waitstaff nationally and asked them if they wanted their minimum wage to increase to the federal minimum of $7.25 and removal of the tipped wage and tip credit and elimination of tipping as a standard component of compensation, I cant imagine the results would be remotely similar to your poll. What I can imagine is that those who want an increase in the minimum wage are wanting it with the expectation everything else will stay the same - including those fat 20% tips on top of their hourly wage.
Oh yeah without a doubt. In fact I think one of the articles cited a 97% poll saying people want to keep tipping structure.
Exactly. Without outside influence I submit that the vast majority of watistaff would want & expect exactly that. I disagree with the notion that most waitstaff would expect that the business would suffer or they’d lose their job or that their tips would go away or any other kind of logic that would cause waitstaff to independently oppose a min. wage hike.
Well, a rise in the minimum wage is not going to include a mandate that tips remain standard. So the divide really has nothing to do with whether people want a higher wage or not, it’s about what they think the consequences of a higher wage will be. Are you going to continue dropping an extra $20 for a tip, when you know the server is now making as much as the hundreds of other (non-tipped) minimum wage workers you interact with throughout your day?
This is the setup for one of those classic situations where everyone pursues the gumdrops and lollipops “solution” to an issue, then after seeing the unintended consequences start crying “how were we supposed to know!”.
And its my opinion that most waitstaff aren’t going to conclude that getting a min. wage increase is going to hurt them directly or indirectly.
I live in the NW. We’ve raised min wage over and over. See the link above citing the % tip rates by state. Increased min wage has not caused low tip rates.
Has it changed anything else? Any idea if restaurant revenues are down because prices went up and now people eat out less? Then again, your economy has been doing really well, so that could be counteracting against the higher prices. Did the prices even go up, or did restaurant employment go down instead? Or did they both stay the same (meaning that the profit margins at restaurants were larger than owners lead us to believe?
I’m not making any assumptions about those questions, or asking you to go out and do a bunch of research that I could just as easily do myself (but am too lazy to do at the moment). I’m just pointing out that only pointing to tips staying consistent doesn’t really tell us much. It’s definitely possible that tips and the amount people spend at restaurants have stayed consistent (or even gone up) regardless of the local economy. There are all kinds of reasons people still want to tip the same amount even though the people they are tipping made more. It could be that people don’t even connect their chosen tip percentage to the compensation of the waiter serving them (or any other multitude of reasons).
From the customer perspective, I think everyone is looking for a justification to bump it down a few % without social pressure, but it’s uncool to admit it.
The Vegas strip is probably a good example of the disconnect between wages and tips. Many of the servers in the big hotel restaurants are unionized, and get a hourly wage in excess of the federal minimum, yet they still get substantial tips. I don’t know how well known that is.
And when did this all start to happen? Because habits do take time to break. Especially when it’s just a local change, and people continue to tip simply because they haven’t heard “officially” that it’s no longer necessary, and they don’t want to inadvertantly lead the pack down that path. Move it to a national platform, and norms will change a lot quicker with the perception of much broader acceptance of a new standard.
Especially if the politicians campaigning for it make a big show of how all these poor waitstaff now have a “living wage”, in which case it’ll be clear from that (and your higher restaurant prices) that you can stop tipping altogether guilt-free.
Theres been 2-3 studies about Seattle after their minimum wage increase. They looked at the impacts to the industry and employment wages, etc. Results seemed mixed. There may have been agendas and bias in the reports, hard to know for sure. But if results weren’t what one side wanted they’d pick the report apart. Plus the economy is doing quite well in Seattle so its probably hard to see an impact. OTOH, if a strong economy leads to little noticable impact from a min. wage hike then thats a result in itself. All in all I think the impact has not been substantial to the businesses.
Undoubtedly prices went up. I don’t think anyone doubted that would/did happen.
Honestly I doubt most people are thinking about it or trying to do the math. Old habits die hard and people tip what they tip. Also it seems a lot of people struggle to do the math in the first place and are unlikely to complicate it. They probably stick to doubling the sales tax.
Of course this is just my assumption and opinion.
OR & WA have been increasing min. wage for ~10 years.
The rate was $7.95 in 2008 in OR and is now $11.25 in Portland metro. ~40% increase in 10 years
We’ll be at $14.75 in 2022. Another 30% in just 4 years.
WA was $8 in 2008 and is now 11.50 and will hit $13.50 in 2020
Seattle is at $15 for large employers and $14 for small. That phased in over the past 3-4 years.
Also keep in mind that all along waitstaff get 100% of the minimum.
So way back in 2008 a waiter in rural WA was getting $8 an hour and in ID they got $2 an hour.
Yet thip rates aren’t / don’t differ greatly between states then nor now.
I really don’t think that every one is going to wake up and decide to cut the tip rates because min wage is up an other 50 cents or 75 cents etc.
If there was a significant increase like another $5 or 10 or something then people might start to question tipping. But with the gradual increases I haven’t seen it at all.
You’re right that 10 years should show some sort of effect, if there were going to be any. But you’re also just increasing the minimum, not making a fundamental change to the compensation structure. Have you guys never allowed a tip allowance, or when/how was that eliminated?
I also agree that being done over time has the effect of a frog that doesn’t leave water that is slowly brought to a boil. Especially when the national standard has remained constant.
If something is changed on a national scale, it’ll be interesting to see how it actually plays out. I don’t think I’d be willing to bet money on either result.
AFAIK we’ve never had tip credits in OR, WA or CA. I don’t see any mention of it ever existing. But I don’t know when exactly the state minimums originated or if they might have changed such a detail several decades ago.
I’d figure if someones spending $500 at dinner then they’re usually not going to be fretting the tip.
Yeah maybe it doesn’t make sense to buy a $500 bottle of wine and leave a $100 tip but it also really makes no sense to buy a $500 bottle of wine period…
I live in WA state and have noticed a few mid/lower chain restaurants increase their price and decrease their food size offerings (think Mc Donalds, Red Robin, etc) . I’m not tipping less than my typical 14% when I eat out due to the wage increase here, but I have certainly made a conscious effort not to eat at those restaurants (or any restaurants) as often. Cost of living has gone up in general around here disproportionate in even accounting for minimum wage increase (housing/food/etc). If you are making minimum wage, great for you to see a 10% annual increase. Most medium occupations are glad to see 3%, thus the discrepancy.
I won’t presume whether the chicken comes before the egg, but I know it has an effect on the business bottom line and many small businesses that hire minimum wage staff have to be feeling it. I know of several that closed after the minimum wage increase because they could no longer be competitive and afford to hire their staff.
On the topic of tipping, I agree social norms take longer to change but prices and quality/quantity of items are more noticeable because costs have gone up.
I know in Seattle some places are placing a fixed (usually 20%) charge on your bill that covers tip. Usually they have a blurb about this in their menu, saying it covers staff salaries, compensation and such.
Nice workaround. And I would just treat it like a restaurant in Europe - usually no additional tip on top of the 20%. Maybe a few bucks (say on a three figure check) if the service was exceptionally good.
Not sure the waitstaff is benefiting from this. Before, I’m sure there was a not insignificant number where some portion of cash tips got stuffed into their pockets and they accidentally forgot to report it…
Are they doing away with tipping entirely? Or just putting a mandatory tip on the bill? Or just putting a mandatory surcharge on the bill that the business uses to cover wages ? Or does it vary?
I’ve seen a couple restaurants put a surcharge on the bill to cover “cost of living wage increase” or some such which basically means they’re putting a line item on the bill to tell us they’re passing along the increased cost of labor. I hate it when they do that.
Depends. Some place put a 2-3% mandatory wage surcharge and some place add 18-20% but still keep the “tip” line. Now I learned to read the bill more carefully before adding tips.