I see multiple posts making your same claim and it's sad to see how many people live in a wealth bubble and haven't researched the facts at all. When I was young worked in the restaurant industry in a state that has a tipped minimum wage. The hourly pay for waiters and waitresses was and still is under $3/hr in that state. The rest of your pay is completely dependent on tips. This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch.
This page has a table of the many states that have a shockingly low tipped minimum wage:
“The rest or your pay is completely dependent on tips” is not accurate. You seem to focus on the hourly rate, but you don’t seem to mention that those same people are still guaranteed Federal minimum wage if they don’t make enough tips to exceed that amount. Seems odd to not be aware of that after having “worked in the restaurant industry in a state that had a tipped wage”. Moreover, it is a Federal tipped wage, not based on a state law. State law can only require higher tipped wages or disallow such wages, but is not the law that permits them.
We’re talking about wages in 2025, not when you were young.
The point is that the wage landscape has changed a lot from what you’re remembering.
> This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch.
No, I’m not talking about salaried jobs. I’m specifically talking about hourly wage jobs
As for tipped jobs: Many efforts to eliminate tipped jobs have floundered specifically because the people in tipped jobs prefer their earnings with tips included. This is partially due to the way that tip earnings are underreported significantly on taxes when people pay in cash (untracked by computer systems) so actual tipped earnings are higher.
Regardless, looking at tipped minimum wages is very dishonest because the entire definition is that these people are also getting tips. Employers are obligated to make up any difference if their tips do not bring them up to the minimum wage.
Tipped minimum wage doesn’t literally mean someone can earn $3/hour. It’s right there in the first paragraph of that Wikipedia page you linked.
As for states with a tipped minimum wage, let me ask you a math problem. Imagine you work at a restaurant and people tip 15-20% per table regardless of the state you work in. Would you make more money each day if your base wage was $3/hr like the tipped minimum wage in Pennsylvania or $16/hr like in California?
If a dish at a restaurant quadruples in price, there will be fewer customers to order it - a LOT fewer, and probably enough to kill the business. The minimum wage is not a magical tool that causes money to appear in working class pockets.
Yes, tipped workers would probably make less money with a higher minimum wage under this system. The "probably" is actually irrelevant - people working tipped jobs very clearly don't want to lose tips and will resist attempts to straighten out the system.
I also cannot help but notice that your article is from the very start of 2020, and the vast majority of inequality reduction has happened after COVID. Perhaps your take would make more sense if you relied on more recent data.
It's difficult to believe there are (so many) countries in this world who somehow have this under control, I mean the link between minimum wage and a certain level of living safety.
This page has a table of the many states that have a shockingly low tipped minimum wage:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage