The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, unless you are a waitress. Then the federal minimum wage is $2.13 an hour, an amount unchanged since 1991. Supposedly, if your tips are too small to reach the $7.25 amount, the restaurant owner is required to raise your pay to that level, but try negotiating that without a union to back you up.
I never liked the whole system of tips. It puts the waiter or waitress in the position of supplicant. It lacks dignity. It is demeaning. Why not pay people a wage they can live on, without depending on diners who may decide not to tip at all.
I also don’t get the whole percentage thing. You eat in an inexpensive restaurant where the bill for lunch comes to $8.00--say Central Lunch in Weissport. 20% of $8.00 is $1.60. Now let’s say you eat in a restaurant where the bill comes to $60. (I can’t name one, but I’m sure there are some around.) The tip comes to $12.00. How is that fair?
Seven states, by the way, require waiters and waitresses to be paid the regular minimum wage. Pennsylvania is not one of them.
I do not know what it is about PA. Its not a political thing, as each party has had majority control at one time or another nothing was done.
ReplyDeleteI hate to disagree with one of my most faithful readers, but I don't think either party was in full control of the Executive branch and both houses of the legislature in Penna. in the last 10 years. I could be wrong, but I am too lazy to look it up.
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