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Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

workingwa.org

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Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#481

Post by tomjakubowski »

javagram wrote: post #190
deepsun wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many many places do that. I worked in PizzaHut in NJ, and they pay you less than minimum wage initially. Then you report your earnings, and if your tips + salary / hoursworked So you have incentive to report 0.0 tips. But then our manager at PizzaHut let go everyone who reported 0.0 tips (when asked why, he said they called customers to confirm we did receive tips). And that's not only PizzaHut, that's everyone doing…

Many states have what’s known as a tipped minimum wage which is different from the minimum wage. The tipped minimum is usually something like $2 vs the $7 minimum wage (these numbers are probably off now that so many places have raised the minimum wage to $10 or $12). Since in this instacart case they ended up paying out $.80 an hour it’s below even tipped minimum wage standards, although I assume there’s some dodge…

WA doesn't have a separate tipped minimum wage, which makes the violation even more flagrant.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#482

Post by fwip »

Pfhreak wrote: post #360
halr9000 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even going to send an angry tweet. I'm going to keep ordering. If a driver takes the job, at the price Instacart wants to pay, it's on the driver, of course. And this works until it doesn't! Once people quit driving for IC, THIS is the market price signal which will cause the system to reconfigure. If IC can't get drivers, they must pay more! I have zero illusions that enough people understand the free market…

As a consumer, are you surprised that your tip is being used this way? I'd operate under the assumption that someone was being paid some sort of fair compensation, and my tip was an addition to whatever comp they earned. Also, it's not clear to me, are the drivers told their comp for the job before accepting? Did this person know they would earn $0.80/hr?

The person was actually paid $10.80 - $10 of which was tip, and $0.80 was from Instacart.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#484

Post by lukev »

dmurray wrote: post #166
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switch to cash tipping. Tipping through CC or some other mechanism means at least one other party is involved and takes a cut. Cash tipping ensures the money at least is seen by the service staff.

Statistically speaking, the main party missing out on its cut when you tip in cash is the IRS. Not really an ethical concern for most of us, but for those who do feel bad about this, you could just overpay your taxes every year by say 10% of what you estimate you tipped in cash.

It is the obligation of the tipped employee to report their tips as income and pay taxes on them. True, it's difficult to audit so sometimes they don't, but that's hardly my problem.

The notion that you should overpay your own taxes to solve this is just bewildering.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#485

Post by throwawaymath »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #364
halr9000 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even going to send an angry tweet. I'm going to keep ordering. If a driver takes the job, at the price Instacart wants to pay, it's on the driver, of course. And this works until it doesn't! Once people quit driving for IC, THIS is the market price signal which will cause the system to reconfigure. If IC can't get drivers, they must pay more! I have zero illusions that enough people understand the free market…

Instacart is defrauding their customers, who believe the tips are going to the driver, not straight into Instacart's pocket. Customer awareness is the free market solution to this, if that's the hammer you want to use to fix everything. Maybe grade school should focus on reading comprehension.

> Maybe grade school should focus on reading comprehension.

You had a strong comment without the implied insult. Don't compromise your point to be mean to someone.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#487

Post by jdavis703 »

dmurray wrote: post #166
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switch to cash tipping. Tipping through CC or some other mechanism means at least one other party is involved and takes a cut. Cash tipping ensures the money at least is seen by the service staff.

Statistically speaking, the main party missing out on its cut when you tip in cash is the IRS. Not really an ethical concern for most of us, but for those who do feel bad about this, you could just overpay your taxes every year by say 10% of what you estimate you tipped in cash.

The worker is supposed to report all cash tips. Since most of these workers probably pay little to no taxes, it really doesn’t harm the treasury, even if they fail to report.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#488

Post by lancesells »

paxy wrote: post #417
B-Con wrote: post #32

> That's right: the customer's tip doesn't get added to the worker's check — it just gets deducted from what Instacart pays. In other words, up-front tips go to Instacart, not to the worker. My understanding is that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow for employers to whithold tips.[0] Gratuity/tip is a legally recognized concept. You can't just throw the word in your app and do what you want with the money i…

Isn't this exactly what restaurants all over the country do? Tips count as wages, and then the employer pays on top of that to make up the difference.

How many restaurants have $1.9B in funding and are valued at ~$8B? There's also an obfuscation on payment to workers that doesn't happen in a restaurant.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#489

Post by kaslai »

dmurray wrote: post #166
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switch to cash tipping. Tipping through CC or some other mechanism means at least one other party is involved and takes a cut. Cash tipping ensures the money at least is seen by the service staff.

Statistically speaking, the main party missing out on its cut when you tip in cash is the IRS. Not really an ethical concern for most of us, but for those who do feel bad about this, you could just overpay your taxes every year by say 10% of what you estimate you tipped in cash.

Recipients of cash tips must report the income to the IRS for taxation purposes. The fact that many people choose to refuse to disclose their cash tip earnings doesn't mean that I should bulk up my taxes to make up for their fraud.

Re: Instacart paying 80 cents an hour because worker received a large tip

#490

Post by gammateam »

_qwfv wrote: post #372
gammateam wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how even knowing the company is stealing from their employees isn't enough to get you to drop using their service why should it be? ahh whaaat? mashes downvote button since you are still reading, what is the exact thought process here, can you articulate this? So the service works and still provides a convenience for you, but is this action being masqueraded as the most effective way to get the company to change a…

I downvoted this comment because it's got not one, but two complaints about being downvoted. Also, because it seems to be very low empathy ("Why shouldn't we reward thieves if they're effective thieves on your behalf?")

So ignoring 90% of the post and the entire point of it, got it

The perspective of “rewarding thieves” is a perspective I asked for

Yet you wouldnt have even commented except for the meta downvoting mention. I dont even think you realize that the “first” downvoting complaint was part of the original post and wasnt a complaint, it was because people are predictable and maybe they would continue reading and contribute to the thread

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