I am aware of that.
It’s still a shit wage – I personally wouldn’t get out of bed for $7.50/hr.
It is a pretty complicate, so not sure if there is one good site which able to compile the information, but this one may not be a bad one to take a look.
Why do tipped restaurant employees support the current tip credit system? - MinimumWage.com
My understanding is that as we try to set the minimum wage, it did not work well for the tipped workers, as the tipped workers themselves prefer to stay on the old tip system.
There was a poll done that 97% of tipped workers prefer staying on the tip system instead of moving toward a higher base wage with higher minimum wage. (you can challenge how good that poll is, but the conclusion is there)
New Study: Higher Tipped Wage = Lower Tip Percentage - MinimumWage.com
Washington DC wait staffs have came out against Initiative 77 which will raise their minimum wage.
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you should read the whole post.
you’re wrong, absolutely wrong.
So then, again, please explain to me why my understanding of the situation is wrong.
To remind you of the remark that you said was “wrong, absolutely wrong” , I had written
“government intervenes setting very different minimum wage arrangements for servers than it does for workers in the wider economy.”
I appreciate that the knowledge of why I might be wrong “absolutely wrong” may be second nature to an American but I really, genuinely, absolutely do not understand what is wrong about my understanding of what appear to be extremely well known facts.
I look forward to your clarification. Thanks.
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Apologies. I may not have explained myself well. I’d be looking for the historical motivation that prompted government (presumably the Federal goverrnment) to set up the separate and different minimum wage regulations for tipped employees. There must have been a reason why they did it.
Oh, you mean very original. I remember reading it. Let me find it (I delete previous post because it will likely need correction)
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Judging from the rest of his posts that’s all he’s got 
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Interesting question that piqued my curiosity. (Full disclosure–I have never worked for tips nor am I labor expert.)
It appears to be an offshoot of a 1964 law, the Fair Labor Standards Act. This act was amended in 1966 to address tipped employees. Can’t say my curiosity led me down the rabbit hole to determine why this was initiated, but I assume it was a piece of LBJ’s Great Society initiatives.
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@Desert-Dan depending on where your mother lives, you may have choices other than Shipt.
For example, in NYC we have a number of choices like FreshDirect (which is a standalone grocery delivery service with no physical stores), Amazon Fresh, Instacart (which delivers from a range of different stores like Shipt does), Mercato (ditto, but many smaller and specialty stores are on there), and so on. Some have subscriptions that make each delivery cheaper, some stores include the delivery (for example Costco delivers via Instacart at no extra charge), and so on. Some supermarkets in suburban areas may have their own set-ups too (independent of Instacart and the like).
Aside from commercial options, and especially in smaller places with less of those choices, there are sometimes community endeavors too. I have family in places where the town has a service that takes seniors grocery shopping once a week, or a volunteer takes their shopping list and does it for them (same for the pharmacy). In other places, this may be organized through the church or similar network. Helpful to know what’s available near your mom before she needs it.
With regard to tipping for groceries, the price of the groceries in a bag does not correlate with the effort to deliver the bag. For example, if someone orders meat and seafood to stock the freezer one week, and inexpensive basics the next, the effort to deliver the bag doesn’t change. So it’s nice to tip an amount for appreciation, but I don’t agree that it needs to be a % of the bill (as someone who lives somewhere that grocery delivery has been normal for over 20 years).
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Yes… she likes the groceries she gets from Weis Market and she wanted to stick with them. So I called them up and they informed me that “Shipt” was their affiliated delivery service.
My mother has become a bit stubborn and inflexible as she has aged. If she wants her groceries from that particular store, I’m not going to be able to convince her otherwise.
When she can no longer drive, I will have to research other services for her, as well.
And thank you for the suggestions.
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If you can believe it, this is a top-3 topic of conversation amongst my friends at the moment, so you’re not alone, lol.
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Piece work for parachute packing seems a recipe for disaster.
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Thanks , Chem.
In the meantime, I’ve been off down the rabbit hole created by gaffk’s link (thanks, Kim). Soem fascinating reading there (although it did get overly technical for my needs here)
If I’ve got this right , the legal starting point is the 1939 Fair Labor Standards Act. This had several subsequent amendments, including the 1966 amendments which created the current situation. It appears that, prior to 1966, tipped workers were completely excluded from the minimum wage regulations, created in 1939. So, I conclude, the 1966 changes represented a sort of halfway house arrangement that sought to help tipped workers, as there was a fairly close link between the national minimum wage and the sub-minimum that they were covered by.
Outside of immediate interest, gaffk’s linked article makes the strong point that tipped workers are generally in low waged and high poverty parts of society. There’s something similar here in the UK, although we have minimum wage restaurant service is generally a lowish paid job - something the trade unions representing those workers keep trying to address (disclosure: throughout my working life I was an active member of my goverment employees union - and still have lifelong retired member status)
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Really brings out the worst people and the worst in people.
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Amazon experimented with this for a while - the company volunteered the funds for a few days and participation was huge. Can’t help but wonder if they are toying with the idea of shifting to a gig/1099 tipped model for delivery drivers. Nothing Amazon does is uncalculated.
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I hear you. I am in a similar situation with my mom. Her apartment building has a shuttle that takes seniors once a week, but if she misses it then she needs delivery. Computers have been her kryptonite since their inception, so it then falls to me to get her groceries delivered. I don’t live close enough to drive out regularly. I set up an Amazon Prime account and she decided she hated everything that was sent from Whole Foods and Fresh. Then Instacart, and I had Price Chopper deliver her the items. Nope. Turns out that it doesn’t matter what I send, if it doesn’t come in a Shaw’s bag, she doesn’t think it is good enough. 
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Yes… I attempted to talk to my mother about computers and putting a desktop computer in the home.
That was met with a stiff “No” when I asked why not?? She told me she didn’t want “the government watching her through that thing”.
At that point, I knew I needed to just accept the fact that her logic and reasoning skills have diminished and not attempt to discuss certain matters.
Like your mother with the “Shaw’s” grocery store, my mother is exactly the same way with her “Weis Market” groceries.
Not to go off track, but my mother recently called the local TV station because they changed staff on her local news and she wanted to know where the previous person was. She got angry when the news room wouldn’t tell her where the previous anchor had went. My mother was acting like the news anchor was her personal friend and she had a right to know where they were.
To appease her, I did some digging on the internet and found her favorite news person had taken a job half way across the US. Then she wanted to know why this anchor had taken this new job and I just made something up.
Personally, I have no idea who is on my local news, they come… they go… don’t really care who is delivering my morning news.
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Thanks for the insight, Tom. Much appreciated. Your words of wisdom have certainly cheered up my day. Have a great one yourself.
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lol, omg, my mom replaced the landline with an iphone but takes her old flip phone (if any phone) when going places so they don’t track her … how sweet, you think the gov’t cares what an 80 year old lady is up to 
As for tipping … did this round start with an Eater piece? Don’t take Eater too seriously.
In the US, tip credit is state by state, minimum wage is state by state, restaurant jobs run the gamut from Denny’s to Per Se, there is no one size fits all. If you have extra money to give away, most people are not going to say no.
In Seattle, minimum wage for tipped employees is $15.75, only $1.52 less than full minimum wage. It would be tough to live here on only $16/hr, but how much more should the job pay? To live decently here, you probably need $25-30/hr working full time. What echelon of middle class should hospitality skills/talents land you in, and should front & back of house make similar wages? While we’re at it, what profit margin can a restaurant have, are we still good with ‘razor thin’? As someone mentioned above, there is so little transparency. If we knew what people actually made, I wonder if it would change anything.
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Chalk one up for the conspiracy theorists. Unless, of course, your mom is a domestic terrorist. 
I know someone who leaves her phone at home as much as possible, for the same reason, and who now also pays cash for all purchases.
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