So let’s say the minimum wage is 10 dollars but you only made 5 dollars in tips, doesn’t the employer just add the 5 dollars?

Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone, I get the gist of it now

40 comments

  1. You still get an hourly pay, but its typically less than minimum wage. But yes, employers are required to make up the difference if you end up not making enough tips. Most people making tips end up making more than minimum wage.

  3. They do, but tipped employees usually make significantly more than minimum wage.

    Edit: OP if you’re looking for a reason to justify stiffing your server, this ain’t it.

  4. Legally yes.

    But almost never have to. A person only needs to be making $5 in tips per hour to reach minimum wage and that’s extremely easy to hit.

    Restaurants will often cut staff early if they’re unexpectedly slow.

    Servers are generally working enough hours where even if some hours are dead, they’re also at times when the restaurant is busier to even it out.

    Most servers are making at least $20 an hour minimum even at a shitty restaurant with shitty customers with tips at the end of the week.

    Some servers clear $50 per hour working at popular trendy restaurants with high tipping customers.

  5. Depends on the state. Here in California the minimum wage is the minimum even if tips are involved. My oldest son will make $50 – $60 per hour as a server when tips are factored in. It’s a good gig for someone going to school.

  6. They’re not required to, however when I was bartending in college I don’t think there was ever a time I didn’t bring in more than minimum wage, even on my slowest day. If we were THAT slow, we’d usually close up shop for a couple hours.

  7. Yes. The employer is only allowed to pay you less than minimum hourly if you are making enough in tips. If your tips do not cover the difference, the employer needs to pay your more. However this is one of those rules that is rarely followed. The idea is that better performance equals better tips, so if you go to your boss and say you aren’t making enough in tips and need to be paid more per hour, the employer will infer that poor performance is the reason you aren’t making enough in tips, and will terminate employment.

  8. They’re required by law to at least meet minimum wage if tips don’t exceed that amount. However, i’ve never seen a server get stiffed enough to actually not make minimum wage. They usually do alright.

  9. Yes, but if the employer finds that they have to do this often they’re likely to just fire that person.

  10. I have worked in restaurants and bars on and off for like 12 of my working years and have always had a ton of friends in the industry, it’s a legal requirement for employers to do that if necessary but I’ve never heard of anyone asking to be compensated in that way.

    If you are making less than minimum wage at a restaurant job you are either working at a place that will be out of business soon or are just incredibly terrible at the job

  11. Yes, they have to by law, but minimum wage is almost never enough for anyone to actually live on. Few servers would remain in that job if they were only making minimum wage.

  12. Yes, but if I usually make $25/hr in tips and only make $4, they’re not gonna bump it up to $25.

  13. Yes, under the [Fair Labor Standards Act](https://www.employmentlawhandbook.com/employment-and-labor-laws/federal/flsa/tipped-wages/), but the problem is many business (mainly restaurants) engage in [wage theft](https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/34-of-restaurant-workers-experienced-more-wage-theft-in-2021-ofw-reports/606895/) and just say you made more in cash tips to avoid paying you the difference. Since there is no way to prove that you didn’t make more in cash, they end up paying you less and you get screwed over.

    Issue is, employers also threated to fire people if they complain, so people don’t say anything about it. They have resources for you though if you contact the [Department of Labor](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints) about it, but so many people don’t even know this is an option. You can report an employer anonymously too.

    There [have](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20221102) been [successful](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20220323) lawsuits [against](https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021/) these employers for wage theft so don’t give up and just allow this theft to happen, you have rights.

  15. Technically they are supposed to. If you as a server ask for it, you will suddenly not get shifts, or get the horrible shifts, and/or get the worst sections. Also, suddenly you have to do all the side work. So as a server you don’t ask for it

  16. Yes but I never saw it happen in my many years of waiting tables.

    If you report tips so light they have to make up the difference to hit minimum wage it’s kind of a red flag that you’re either underreporting your tips (which the restaurant won’t like if they are paying you money they shouldn’t have to pay, and the IRS *definitely* won’t like), or you are a REALLY shit server.

    If not one of those things, then either the restaurant is overstaffing, or they aren’t bringing in enough business and won’t last the year.

    In any of those circumstances except the first, you should be looking for a new job, either at a better-run restaurant or in a different line of work.

    Generally speaking, restaurant service is a pretty good job, in terms of earnings potential for a job that requires no education or training. The tip system works just fine for the employee. Some people get rubbed the wrong way by the fact that their remuneration is at the whim of the customer, but they should just do a different job. There are plenty of people who can look at the big picture – how many hours did you work and what hourly income does your tip total work out to when divided by that number of hours – and see that they’re getting well-compensated.

  17. Yeah, but when I was a waiter I never saw anyone need that. I’ve seen someone get the a little under minimum wage only to be pushed over in their last hour.

    Reddit severally ignores how much wait staff can make in a day, and how much wait staff prefer the tip system. I was a waiter years ago in a small town and could still make 100 bucks for six hours of work… minimum wage was like 7.25 at the time, so I definitely came out on top.

  18. They are supposed to and usually will.

    That said, if you’re unable to make minimum wage in tips, then usually it means either the business or the server are so bad that neither of them are likely to be around for much longer.

    If its just the lack of business, the restaurant is required to make up tips, but probably won’t because they’re likely losing money anyway.

    If the business is there, but the server isn’t making enough tips to make minimum wage, then 99% of the time its because the server sucks complete ass at their job and they’re getting no tips from patrons because they’re providing awful service. In these sorts of scenarios, the restaurant will probably make up the difference, but it’ll also likely be your last paycheck because you’re gonna end up getting fired unless you have a real good reason as to why you couldn’t make enough tips.

  19. With the added fees a lot of restaurants are adding to the tab, 3% credit card fee, 5% inflation fee it’s time to do away with tipping and start paying servers $25 an hour. Let them charge what the true costs are. Where I’m from a burger and a beer is now almost $30.

    $15
    Classic Smash
    two 3oz patties, American cheese, house sauce, shredded lettuce, pickle, potato roll GFO

    $7.50
    Rutland Beer Works Red Ale
    VT Red Ale ABV 5% A classic American amber ale full of rich, malty notes and just a hint of herbal hops.

    VT tax 10% $2.50

    20% tip $4.50

    $29.50

  20. Yes but if you don’t make enough in tips regularly, forcing the company to pay you more than their bs $2.13 an hour, you get fired. Right to work states take full advantage of that and use it to keep their expenses low.

  21. Technically you’re supposed to but there are a lot of things employers can do to heavily disincentive you from asking for it.

  25. yes, and a lot of states raise the minimum amount before tips, and about a third of states require minimum regardless of tips (tips are in addition to minimum)

    State minimum overrides federal, too, so a state with pre-tip minimums can’t give you federal minimums and take the rest from tips.

    Tiped wage can die when tips die, as far as I care.

  26. It depend on the industry. Some may be required by law. I have read restaurant workers get paid low hourly rate but tips boost it but it may be changing due to covid & recession.

  27. Kind of. It will probably depend on what state you’re in. Here in AZ they are required to give you a base hourly rate, which when I was working in the service industry was $3/hour lower than minimum wage. That was guaranteed money. At the end of the shift we would add up all our tips and record them in a book. My employer would then confirm that their base rate + my tips made at least minimum wage. If that was not the case, they would add the delta into my paycheck so that I at least made minimum wage for my time worked.

    Like others have pointed out it was very rare that we weren’t making much better money than minimum wage. At the time I think minimum wage was somewhere in the $7.80/hr and I was usually making at least $10/hr.

  29. I’m pretty sure that wait staff in California are required to be paid minimum wage, with or without tips?

  31. Yes, they’re required to make sure servers at least make regular minimum wage. But that’s crazy low in many places (federal minimum wage only $7.25/hr) and servers would hope to make a good bit more if they want to actually support themselves.

  33. Employers are “required” to make up the difference, sure.

    And asking for that to be done more than once every six months at a minimum makes you the ‘problem person’ with a ‘bad attitude’ and they’ll fire you “for cause” as soon as they have an unrelated excuse to show the employment lawyers, even if that excuse is a ‘mistake’ that everyone does every night and is basically policy.

  34. Yes, but they will fire you for some other reason if they have to pay out the difference.

  35. Others have explained the tipped wage system, but just throwing out there that California, and 10 or so other states, do not have a separate tipped wage. In our state, all employees have to be paid at least the state minimum wage ($16 an hour starting January, I believe) before tips. Tips are just extra cash on top of regular wages.

  36. When I earned tips I never even got close to minimum wage. Usually I was getting $40-50 an hour.

  37. They are required by law to do that, yes.

    However wage theft is the most prevalent crime in the United States (and possibly the world). Workers often don’t know their rights, and if they do know their rights, they often lack the means to seek legal recourse without the support of a Union.

  38. Servers are the biggest supporters of the tipping system because they make more than minimum wage off of it. Those that are against it would rather that they had a steady, reliable income and that the customers could expect their dining bill to reflect the cost of the food they ordered. That’s the way every other job works. Imagine if we had to add an extra 10%-30% to every grocery bill, oil change, and everything else so that the workers could survive instead of expecting the company they work for to pay them what they’re worth.

  40. Yes.

    I waited tables for many years. I never came close to not making minimum wage. I typically made many times minimum wage.

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