Posted on 08/23/2014 7:08:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.
There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often lower than the official minimum wage, because they are primarily compensated by gratuities), which has emboldened people who seem to disdain the performance-based nature of the service industry. According to Fox News:
One advocate, Saru Jayaraman, co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, has been quoted in multiple media outlets as supporting a push to get rid of tips altogether. She was quoted in the Seattle Times describing tips as “institutionalized sexism,” and told the University of California, Berkeley’s alumni magazine that “Ultimately, this system of tipping needs to go.”
Ugh, Berkeley… Saru, of course, feels that tips are inherently unfair because America is full of a bunch of sexist cheapskates who undervalue minority workers. Or something. Although, to be fair, she does say that her comments were taken out of context. She clarified that tips would be completely eliminated only in a “utopian” world.
Right… Because who in their right mind would embrace the idea of earning more for doing a better job? I mean, isn’t it so unfair for patrons of a business to reward their waiter (or waitress) based on the service they received? (Yes… Both of those sentences were, in fact, sarcasm.) Apparently, in a “utopian” world, restaurants would compensate their servers the same way that Chicago teacher unions compensate their rank and file: Without regard to performance, or competency.
I mean, heck, tipping is the unbridled definition of “fair” in the real world… But, since when do liberals pay attention to the real world? Saru’s solution, according to the piece in Fox News, is to replace the entire tipping system with a simple “livable wage” for servers. See, this way waitresses won’t be subjected to the inherent sexism of a hungry American public. (I mean, sure: They also won’t be rewarded handsomely for doing a great job – but maybe we can just give all employees a trophy. Right?)
So now – if the labor movement gets their way and replaces tips with flat wages – the person that was making $500 in tips on a Friday night (not un-heard of in most corners of the service world), will suddenly be making a mere “livable” wage. Oh, and the employer will have to shell out more to keep this newly-impoverished member of their wait staff employed. So, yeah, hooray for liberalism: Bankrupting businesses, and impoverishing otherwise competent low-skill laborers.
And, again, what was wrong with the tipping system? Aside from its somewhat arbitrary nature (Seinfeld covered this issue pretty extensively), it appears to be fairly effective. The opportunity to make more money has proven to be a pretty motivational influence in people’s desire to work hard. In fact, unlike labor-sponsored tenure plans and scheduled pay increases, tipping provides workers with a limitless ability to improve their take-home pay through nothing other than hard work.
Oh… Wait. Now I get it. Hard work is supposed to be frowned upon by modern society. Apparently, everyone is entitled only to the wage that a bunch of academic, intellectually vacant, government bureaucrats have determined is “fair”. Because, as it turns out, preserving a relationship between reward and effort is simply unjust in a progressive utopia.
Trophies for everyone! (Just don’t tip the trophy maker.)
The left has always been an alliance of convenience between mostly good-hearted folks who are absolutely clueless about economics and charlatans who know better and cynically play the good-hearted economic-naifs to gain power. (Well, with a few cynical economically naive charlatans thrown into the mix.)
$11 plus gas. Shoes that should cost $60 going for $180. A grilled cheese worth $4 going for $12 and so on.
The minimum wage is one thing, but based on the liberals copying the failures of socialist Europe, look for 300% increased prices.
Excellent point
Repeal the minimum wage. Let the employer and employee decide and how they will be paid(wage, tip) and how much they will be paid.
Its called freedom. Government control freaks butt out.
Does it never occur to leftists that their attempts to make low skill jobs pay enough to support middle class families both contribute to unemployment and to trafficking, by making it cost-prohibitive to hire people legally at low wages?
I could never figure out what makes the labor of your counter help at the local McDonald's worth more than that of your wait staff at the local Denny's. It used to be that 10% was considered an average tip. Now they tell you it should be 15%. And what's the connection to the price of your meal? The jerk who orders the $4 special and the coffee with unlimited refills can take up a booth for four hours and leave more mess to clean-up than the family of 4 who spends $30 and is seated and gone in 40 minutes.
In Japan (and most of Asia) tipping is not the custom and the level of service is far better than anything here.
Tipping is voluntary, why should it have to "go"? If you don't want to tip, don't tip. Let's not forbid a voluntary behavior.
As for "niggardly" wages, there's a cure for that too. If an employee is dissatisfied with his wages, he's free to take his skills elsewhere. If you don't like how an employer pays his employees, you likewise are free to take your business elsewhere.
In many places waitresses only get paid $2.60 per hour and they cannot always depend on tips. Many people leave without leaving a tip. On the other hand the counter help gets minimum wage, and why should I tip the counter help? It’s their job to take my order, take my money and hand my order to me
Economics teaches that supply and demand are often in equilibrium. Therefore, raising the price of something means that less of it is demanded. In the case of labor, it means fewer jobs.
But, in modern day socialist America, prices aren’t always what they seem. There’s a floor on wages different from the minimum wage—it’s the equivalent welfare wage. I’ve seen studies that say that in some states, the total of welfare benefits comes close to $15 /hour. It’s also true that if you are on welfare, as soon as you start to work, you face an extraordinarily high marginal tax, because you lose cash benefits, and in-kind benefits like Medicare and food stamps.
So, the practical minimum wage to get someone who is on welfare to choose work instead (neglecting reasons of pride and self responsibility) is quite high, and higher than the stated minimum wage.
My solution: Forget about the minimum wage. It’s a training wage for kids and people who wish to enter the workforce. It’s not an alternative to welfare.
Oh, yeah, the second part of my solution is to cut welfare substantially. Eliminate EBT cards. Make it a bit unpleasant, like having to eat government cheese and spam. There’s sustenance, but not much pleasure. I’m sick of seeing people in line in at the supermarket pay for carts filled with luxury foods with their EBT cards. Shouldn’t happen.
/rant off
And what might be your conclusion regarding Japanese waiters and waitresses working harder?
Employers in Japan try to get their workers to NOT WORK on Saturdays — to no avail because of the work ethic and culture.
Do you think you could transplant that work ethic here? Tell me how.
$11 plus gas. Shoes that should cost $60 going for $180. A grilled cheese worth $4 going for $12 and so on.
No. Here, they just cheap out stuff. $60 shoes, that should cost $20. The Incredible Shrinking Tuna Can.
It’s much worse in Europe. I think it is where politicians are heading.
You would start by making work respectable and mooching off your fellow human beings disreputable, the way it used to be in this country before LBJ and the great society came along.
from the productive according to their ability, to the lazy according to their wants...
“A grilled cheese worth $4 going for $12 and so on.”
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No, a grilled cheese sandwich that used to sell for twenty cents and now goes for four dollars will be selling for twelve and more. There is no actual limit to inflation. One gallon of pure gasoline without alcohol costs me four dollars now. There was a time in my memory when four dollars or less would fill the gas tank on a car. It is entirely possible for prices to triple in one day. There was a time in this country when anyone who wanted a meal and had no money could literally walk the road for a little while and pick up enough glass bottles to turn in for deposit to buy a meal. Now a person can work an hour at minimum wage and not make enough to buy a meal for one person. Not that I am pushing for a minimum wage increase, I don’t even believe in the concept but those who do look foolish asking for a fifteen dollar an hour minimum, if they think it actually works they should be asking for at least a hundred and fifty an hour.
If someone had told me when I was in grade school that one day I would earn $7.25 an hour I would have laughed, if they had told me that would be the minimum wage I would have thought they were as loony as Nancy Pelosi. That kind of money was reserved for people with advanced degrees or owners of very profitable businesses. At that rate most people would have figured that there was no need to even consider working more than twenty hours a week because they could spend the rest of the time having a blast. Many would have worked one day a week and been happy. Many were actually supporting families on a weekly pay that was less than what one day of the current minimum is in nominal terms. My mother worked in a sewing plant when I was three years old or so and a person now can earn in one hour what she earned in forty and have nothing to brag about.
If we are going to have any kind of taxpayer financed help for the poor it should be in the form of the old “poor farm” or “poorhouse” where anyone who is destitute can go and live at a bare subsistence level and anyone who is able to do any kind of work has to work in the kitchen or at some other job. That would prevent starvation but it would not reward people for sloth as the current system does. There would be no money given to anyone, only the very basic necessities of life and televisions and cell phones are not basic necessities of life.
Hi Rip, well I remember 29 cent gas as a kid and they filled up the car for you and gave you a free glass for a fill up.
But what was startling to me was how Italy, France, Spain, Greece and the rest had the even the poorest of the poor having to pay these 300% higher prices for the same goods as the United States. I think we are going to see our government go there as well. It is there way to raise new taxes.
The thing that gets me is their 100 year mortgages, their believing most things like their health care is near free when in fact they are getting ripped a new one and don’t realize they are having most of their personnel wealth stolen.
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