Since ours in the US is generally a percentage of the bill, people in expensive restaurants can make more. Do they work harder? Do they have fewer tables so less checks are tipping? 20% tips on 5 hundred dollar tables is $100 every 60-90 minutes, but shifts are usually only a few hours. So maybe $3-400 for a 4-5 hour dinner shift? In a diner you’d are probably half that per table but for more tables and faster turnover. What’s a good wage?
AFAIK here in Europe it’s minimum wage or slightly above, possibly much higher for high end restaurants. But it is a job like any other, they work fix hours and receive a fix wage, if they need to stay late they get overtime. In Brazil it’s a job that gets paid minimum wage but there is an expected 10% tip that is almost always put on the bill by the time you get it.
Here in Europe it’s not customary to tip, the expectation is that people earn enough to live well regardless of the job, and if a waiter is not earning enough we should change the minimum wage and not rely on people willingly paying extra. Imagine if you applied the same logic to any other job, no one would be willing to depend on tips from random people to pay their wages, but company owners would be very happy if they can convince people that it’s better for them to not get paid.
If they were paid minimum wage in the US, they would get $8-20, depending on location. With the current system they’re paid $2/hr but take home $20-50/hr per responses here. Also taxing is different on wage vs tips.
Sounds like you need to increase your minimum wage then as it seems you’re implying it’s not a livable wage.
Moving the responsibility to pay employees from the company owner to random people tips is a bad idea. It only works because you peer pressure people into tipping, but people who don’t feel pressured to do so will stop tipping and others might look and ask themselves why should I?. You don’t tip doctors, programmers, artists, drivers, or any other professional, why are servers different? If the tipping system is so great why is it not used on any other profession? Would you be willing to work your profession for tips?
I’m just saying that servers don’t want to change the system because they make so much more with tips. If they make less than minimum wage then the restaurant is required to make up the difference.
Sounds like they should earn a fixed rate of more than minimum wage then. Crazy idea huh?
I dunno, but I’m pretty sure no one is going to pay a server $40/hr.
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