I sympathize with the barista here, but mindset that customers need to cover 10 to 20% of his income is symptom of decades of brainwashing of employees and customers alike. In this case NPR is part of this brainwashing. I will not tip someone for doing their job. I will only tip when I feel it is needed based on the service provided.
I’m really disappointed in this article. Tipping culture needs to go away. It is disingenuous on all fronts. The customer gets lied to about the price of something. The company gets to subsidise their workforce to the detriment of the employees. And some employees will not file their earning correctly and commit tax fraud. If companies paid a living wage with benefits the employees would be much better off and the public wouldn’t be left holding the bag. NPR should have done an article about the real costs of tipping culture on the public. Tipped employees get shit for minimum wage, no health benefits, and will not be able to contribute/pull from the full benefits of social security later in life. And the public will be continually stuck trying to fix this stupid problem all because of greedy ass companies skimming as much money as they can from us.
Yes actually I am. When the worker cheats on their tip taxes then the company also doesn’t pay their percentage of social security taxes for the worker. The company frickin loves this btw because they pay less and the liability for accurate reporting lies on the worker. So the worker gets double cheated and will eventually receive less of their benefits than they should.
In 1960 businesses paid 52% per corporate income tax over $25,000. In 2020 they paid 22% for all income. https://taxfoundation.org/historical-corporate-tax-rates-brackets/
Corporate income taxes made up 23.2% of the U.S. governments income in 1960 while individual income taxes made up 44.0%. But in 2018 corporate income taxes only made up 11.3% of the U.S. government’s income where Individuals paid 49.8%.
But please, tell me again how endless programs borrowing against social security and rich people refusing to pay their share are okay but a waitress not reporting the $50 she made in cash tips is the real problem.
We need to revise the federal minimum wage, because it is obviously VERY VERY far behind a living wage as it was intended to be, and remove any caveats regarding tip based positions allowing a lower hourly wage. I’ve seen estimates that out the minimum anywhere between $23-$33 an hour if it kept up with inflation and/or productivity so anything less is just plain criminal.
I say we should advocate for indexing the federal minimum wage to inflation because doing it based on CPI is sure as shit not working anymore.
That’s a good way to send inflation out of control. Minimum wage laws are certainly outdated, but if we tied them to inflation it would be a death spiral. Prices go up, wages go up, which pushes prices up more, so wages go up. Not to mention other factors that cause higher inflation that aren’t directly tied to wages would also push prices and wages up, it would get out of hand real fast.
Look, I know it’s idealist, but corporate profits are at an all time high. C-level execs make hundreds to thousands times what their lowest level employee does. It’s disgusting. The greed and their assumption that we will just let them continually be more greedy is disgusting. Maybe they don’t need all that. They can actually pay their employees better. They choose not to because we have barely any social nets in this country, what does exist can be really hard to get, and people have to eat and have a home. They prey on desperate people, hide behind the idea that minimum wage is "supposed to be for teenagers, and refuse to entertain the notion that they are the problem.
Corporate exec salaries don’t have anything to do with the rest of payroll, though.
If you think big corporations subtract money from the employees payroll and add it to the C-suite salaries, you don’t really understand the financials of a big corporation.
I agree that execs make too much money, but it’s really not a mutually inclusive thing. CEOs can make the same amount of money they currently are, and people can make a living wage. It’s the legal requirement of perpetual growth that’s ultimately to blame.
NPR had the audacity to use a picture of a worker protesting for a living wage in this article. They completely miss the point of the protests and overall labor movement if they think it’s a customers responsibility to pay workers right.
I mean, it IS. Restaurants need to price their menus so that everything is covered in the price I HAVE to pay. That includes a liveable wage for the employees. Whatever I give on top is up to me and a small gesture of gratitude if the employee is exceeding my expectations.
What I give on top shouldn’t be there to pay the liveable wage. It should actually be on top of that. You know, what a tip was originally meant to be.
NPR like most American manipulation media is controlled by the rich. So this article is once again showing their true colors.
