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Great servers at high end restaurants are making 100K a year because of tips. Why would they want to make $20 an hour?
/s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, as necessary as that is, it’s not a magic solution. People are quitting the restaurant industry in France too, despite having none of the tip silliness. It’s just that people are realizing that there are easier minimum wage jobs than working in a kitchen
Sure but this goes beyond restaurants in my opinion. Look at these states that had mass migration of people during the pandemic. You will find the (big) sky-rocketing cost of living where those who are moving in on a whim are also not seeking jobs in the state. However all these businesses need employees to handle the new increase in customers. The employers aren’t raising their wages either, which is also not attrac…
They are. It takes time but they are. I work in a business that is having a hard time hiring entry level healthcare workers because Walmart and Amazon warehoueses is now paying $15-20/hr when it was only $12 pre-covid. Walmart and Amazon would only raise wages if they truly had a labor supply issue, which they do, we all do.
The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.
The customers can suck, yes, but more often than not your boss has the same sociopathic qualities of that mythical asshole geninus founder except you're not working at a startup, you have no equity, you're being paid bare bones, and the boss is not a fucking genius.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the government paying people to sit at home - something NPR forgot to mention in their article.
It's hilarious that this perfectly rational and fact based remark is downvoted. This place has gone full blue anon.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the government paying people to sit at home - something NPR forgot to mention in their article.
If a survival stipend competes successfully against a low-paying, high-stress, and absolutely miserable job conditions then the problem isn't the stipend, is it?
The simplest model of utility (linear in money) basically says "people will take these jobs if they pay $X more than unemployment." With unemployment in the US paying $300/week more than it used to, jobs now need to pay about that much more than before to stay competitive -- about $7.50 an hour. So for a $15/hr job, the employer needs to pay $22.50 now.
A perhaps more realistic utility model has diminishing returns to money. The classic example is log($). Put simply, "people will work a job if it pays X times what unemployment does."
In that model, the $15/hr job at 40 hours/week pays $600 before tax. Say unemployment used to pay $300/week, so the job paid 2x unemployment, and now with the extra $300 of supplemental employment benefits it pays $600, so the job has to bump its pay up to $1200/wk or $30/hr to stay competitive.
That's a modeled kinda space of policy consequences -- wages go up 50% or 100% or there will be employment shortfalls even before thinking about childcare shortages, reduced immigration etc. That situation can be spun as "benefits too high" or "pay too low" to score political points or drive policy, but these effects are clearly explanatory either way.
Great servers at high end restaurants are making 100K a year because of tips. Why would they want to make $20 an hour?
The person in the article though is in the back of the house. Those workers almost uniformly make minimum wage across the country.
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Legendary-Zuni-Cafe...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, as necessary as that is, it’s not a magic solution. People are quitting the restaurant industry in France too, despite having none of the tip silliness. It’s just that people are realizing that there are easier minimum wage jobs than working in a kitchen
Perhaps the industry is not sustainable then.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
or automate 99% of the business and free these poor souls from a mundane existence. Also, I think we should support them w/ safety net (see basically andrew yang's platform). I don't see anyone screaming about ditch digging jobs or dishwashers saying we should "save those jobs!" . Backhoes and automatic dishwashers have freed people from meaningless work. We should do the same for everything we can. There's a stereot…
> Also, I think we should support them w/ safety net (see basically andrew yang's platform). Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option. It sounds like a lovely future, but I don't the automation exists yet to replace all the jobs.
You work to be able to afford nicer clothes, more vidya games, fine whisky, more-comfortable retirement when you do stop working, vacations, better school for your kids, a nicer house with a view, and so on.
The carrot remains the same, the stick is just somewhat smaller.
Great servers at high end restaurants are making 100K a year because of tips. Why would they want to make $20 an hour?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
or automate 99% of the business and free these poor souls from a mundane existence. Also, I think we should support them w/ safety net (see basically andrew yang's platform). I don't see anyone screaming about ditch digging jobs or dishwashers saying we should "save those jobs!" . Backhoes and automatic dishwashers have freed people from meaningless work. We should do the same for everything we can. There's a stereot…
> Also, I think we should support them w/ safety net (see basically andrew yang's platform). Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option. It sounds like a lovely future, but I don't the automation exists yet to replace all the jobs.
Let's say you got $20k/yr[0] for free. Do you think you could live comfortably on that? Would you be willing to work to improve your comfort level?
[0] full time US minimum wage with no time off is about $15k/yr