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That's the interesting part for me, the "$2/hour waiter" is an illusion created by the tip-credit system. Federally, an employer can pay $2.13/hour in direct wages, but only because they're allowed to count the employee's tips toward the $7.25 minimum wage. If the tips don't get them there, the employer is legally required to make up the difference.
So the worker isn't actually working for $2.13/hour because they're guaranteed at least minimum wage. The tip credit just shifts part of the wage onto customers. That's another reason I think eliminating the tip credit could change the psychology around tipping. Once the full wage is visibly coming from the employer, the idea that "you have to tip because the waiter only makes $2/hour" disappears with it. Then restaurants may have to pay the same as Walmart stockers or cashiers...and we don't tip them.
Somehow a show of gratuity (gratus, ”thankful”) and abundance has been turned into gaslighting and a perverse kind of social security.
Hard to remove that culture now. Maybe if waiters refused to work for $2/hour and found temporary work for a moment instead (babysitting, dog walking, or ask their LLM for more ideas), the employers would eventually have to raise wages to where supply and demand meet. People still want to eat out (and if they don’t, at least tourists will).
An employment contract between waiters and restaurants should be voluntary after all.