Minimum wage laws create a PERMANENT unemployed class of citizens.

Minimum wage laws create a “barrier to entry” in economic terms.

Minimum wage laws reduce the pool of experienced labor, driving up wages for those who are already above minimum wage.

Plant your two lips right here.

To “waiter” & “political mom:” The topic has been the STATE minimum wage. Your issues are with the federal regulation. (I don’t take my Dodge Dakota to a Toyota dealer for service …)Quoting the US Dept. of Labor: “National or multi-state restaurant chains are subject to FEDERAL minimum wage laws.” In the federal regulations various minimum wage exceptions apply under specific circumstances to disabled workers, full-time students, youth under age 20 in their first 90 days of employment, TIPPED EMPLOYEES, and student-learners.

Tipped employees are those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips. The employer may consider tips as part of wages, but the employer must pay at least $2.13 an hour in direct wages. The Fair Labor Standards Act allows restaurants and other employers to use tips and to make up the difference between the subminimum wage for “tipped employees” and everyone else’s $5.15 hourly minimum wage. (The federal rates noted here, increased this past week to 2.18 & &5.85)

The US Dept of Labor refers to this process as the “Tip offset.” This process is described on the their website as “ the amount of money by which an employer, in meeting the legal minimum wage standard, may reduce a tipped employee’s wage in consideration of the receipt of tips. The Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 requires a fixed dollar tip offset. A minimum cash amount of $2.18 per hour should be paid to tipped employees. If tips actually received are not sufficient, when added to $2.18, to total the federal minimum wage, the employer must also pay the additional difference to the tipped employee.”

Waiter, as for the federal issues you decry, you do make some very valid arguments. And then some that are not so valid. You are right on target that this process amounts to a federal (public) subsidy of the restaurant industry.(ok, that’s our opinion…) And that subsidy amounts to nearly 15% of the industries gross product. I wholly agree with you that tipping is archaic. It also tempts avoidance of the law. (How many honestly report their tips knowing that taxes will then be taken out?)

The Feds were not at all in pursuit of “compassion” in setting up this procedure. They were seeking a way to hold restraunts (employers) and tipped employees accountable for more accurately reporting their true income. And thus paying their fair share of income taxes.

As for your comment, “No welfare program ever started – ended.” I have to differ. You are perhaps simply uninformed. I site as a clear example the federal “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.” This act is also known as “Welfare Reform Act,” substantially changed and ELIMINATED many long established welfare programs and practices. And it was a bipartisan act promoted by a Democratic president and enacted by a Republican legislature.

And Vernon, to answer your question: the source of the number 19,000 is the Kansas Department of Labor. And again it refers to only those working under the KANSAS minimum wage rules. It does not include the “tipped employees” subject to federal regulation.

Gary Bachman (who for a couple of days anyway, has way too much time on his hands!)

She got a part time waiting job at an upscale restaurant and made on occasion $200.00 a shift.

This was back in the 1980s too.

There were lots of jobs that didn’t pay on average anywhere near what my sister made as a wait person – Gas Station attendants, convenience store clerks, fast food, some cooks, janitors, etc etc. etc. All of those non-waiting jobs were paid by the hour and received no tips at all.

Posted by: Vernon | July 26, 2007 at 09:14 AM

I didn’t say I was going to get a job making 12 an hour. I said another person told me WHERE I could get the job. Please read.Did I tell you WHERE Vernon?

I would rather NOT have to rely on tips for my job. (BTW, for those less observant readers, I am not in this for a profession.)

It is unfair and archaic. It was by design manufactured by business of old, to allow for slave labor.

Some of the others do not get good tips, but provide the same level of service I do. Some females get bigger tips. On weekends, the drunks sometimes leave outrageous tips, but many don’t tip at all.

Pay me a fair wage for my services. Let the business report it as personnel expenses, allow me to qualify for everything any of you who put me down for my present job get – in YOUR full time job.

The government started this mess by trying to be “compassionate”. Now they have the responsiblity to bring my government controlled wages up to inflation changes over twenty some years (like that will happen).

You must agree it is unrealistic of me to believe that the government will STOP the price controls. unlike Carter impossed during the gas war, that will never happen. No welfare program ever started – ended. They just increase those eligible for them, and in my case GIVE ME A FAIR GOVERNMENT WAGE INCREASE!!

Americans have become too spoiled and won’t work for less than $10-$15 an hour, even the new kids coming out of high school and college.

It’s too easy to stay home or live off of welfare.

You either worked for what they paid or you didn’t work at all. Or did he miss that history lesson in College?

If you think it’ll be good to go where there is no minimum wage, I suggest China or Mexico to give you an idea.

Waiter is gonna get a job planting Tulips for $12 an hour! That’s $24,000 per year!

Those jobs are available, to those who are willing to work.

Our public education is working after all, at least to train tulip planters.

Would you tell us where you work? I imagine that the Federal Minimum Wage actually covers you.

What is our public education system doing? Producing nuts.

I see ads all the time for $8/hour at fastfood restraunts.

Makes you wonder why so many would work for less than that.

I question the numbers, what’s the source for the 19,000 making less than min wage?

Probably counting illegal immigrants.

Besides, I do get more on a good night in tips, which the present wage system encourages me not to report. The trouble is, I get a lot of college workers, employees, professors, and woman who are not big tippers. I don’t know what it is about these types of people.

Very good point anonymous. There is a lot more to ‘cost’ than direct materials.

It usually makes things worse, not better.

By the way, the “$1.50 for a penny’s worth of iced tea” leaves out a lot of the story, don’t you think?

If that’s true, I wonder how a restaurant chain like Applebee’s has a profit margin of 4.7%.

Ive honestly never had a minimum wage job, so i have no clue.