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Earlier quoted context omitted.
An employer only needs to pay more if tips don’t make up minimum wage over the pay period. So that 2x 30 mins every shift spent cleaning is paid at $2.13 an hour
I don't understand, what's the pay period? One day? Doesn't it mean that they're paid at least the minimum wage per day?
As a European, I can safely say that tipping in American restaurants is one of the most unusual things I remember about America. The amount of tips is huge and they are demanded of you everywhere
In Switzerland a lot of the restaurants that have moved to tablets for payment, and the payment screen pops up a "suggested tip" window with a few options. They might be a bit lower than the standard American tips but it's still there and it never was before.
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As a European, I can safely say that tipping in American restaurants is one of the most unusual things I remember about America. The amount of tips is huge and they are demanded of you everywhere
While we used to have "rounding up" tipping here as well (closest 5 or 10, depending on where you lived), it's sadly becoming norm to ask for percentage based tipping in europe as well, especially in the more touristy places. This is what I don't get about tipping percentage based. It makes no sense to me. The serving effort is exactly the same between a 10$ salad and a 100$ steak. Take plate, bring plate, place plat…
Of course it makes sense and I think you understand it even if (very reasonably!) you don't like it: it's a rough but effective effort at a progressive taxation/extractive pricing scheme. They're trying to extract the maximum amount of money from each customer for each individual transaction [0], orthogonal to effort or value. They aren't a government of course though and don't have full visibility of anyone's exact income or personal psychology. But as a simple proxy somebody buying a $200 bottle of wine is more likely to either have a lot more money or (just as good here) simply be in a mood/occasion to splash out and due to how humans tend to judge relative expenditures they're a lot easier to convince a $30 tip is acceptable if it's 15% of the price instead of 150% the price. Even if they aren't rich and/or are typically value-oriented, on a "special occasion" it's probably going to be easier to squeeze them harder while not framing it as getting squeezed. Once people commit to paying higher numbers that frames the rest of their economic decision making for the transaction.
And clearly it does work for a lot of places, at least in the short term, same as other exploitive human economic hacks (like the predatory rise of microtransactions in video games). It lets the businesses (including not just owners/managers in this case but many employees as well) make a lot more money.
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0: Ie, treating it as a non-iterated game theory situation, which probably is rational for a lot of restaurants and particularly tourist ones where odds may be that they will only ever see any given customer once (or perhaps single digits, close enough) in a lifetime. In an iterated game, where a large/critical percentage of business depends on local repeat customers, it can make more sense long term to build loyalty by not feeling exploitive and have lower-per-transaction profits that are steady over years/decades. And I have seen that play out to some extent. Some places may also split the difference, such as by offering special local discount scheme sort of things, or having very different pricing/offerings certain days of the week when statistically very few tourists are there vs locals.
1) I want all restaurant workers to just get a fair proper wage... 2) So that tipping is no longer subsidizing the restaurant owners. 3) Also, FFS, when demand is inelastic, the only way to lower prices is MORE SUPPLY (where it's needed). Build the housing, do not stop, just keep going until after we all die.
Really bad practice. Prices should be flat without any expected extra payments and workers should be paid fair wages.
I hate tipping. The last think I want to do after eating is math. And don’t get me started on the inefficient payment ritual we have to endure: flag down the waiter for the check, wait for the check, wait for them to take your cc, wait for them to ring it up and bring it back, then do some math. Unnecessary. That said, minimum wage is minimum wage. If an employee doesn’t make that up in tips, the law is that the rest…
The math is not the problem. The problem is that it's a unspecified amount, therefore it's up to you to decide on the spot how much to pay the person in front of you. This creates a social pressure towards paying more, and the results are obvious: the expected tip keeps rising- and in fact it's already reached completely absurd levels.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand, what's the pay period? One day? Doesn't it mean that they're paid at least the minimum wage per day?
Usually 2 weeks.
As a European, I can safely say that tipping in American restaurants is one of the most unusual things I remember about America. The amount of tips is huge and they are demanded of you everywhere
As a European have you noticed a recent increase in tipping in Europe as well? In Switzerland a lot of the restaurants that have moved to tablets for payment, and the payment screen pops up a "suggested tip" window with a few options. They might be a bit lower than the standard American tips but it's still there and it never was before.