alt Hacker News > California doesn't have a special minimum wage for tipped professions?
The difference is where the money comes from: directly from employer vs directly from customer. But in all cases *the sum of these sources* must equal the minimum wage.
If the employee is not taking home at least minimum wage, then the employer is guilty of wage theft.
If the employer does not make at least $x towards an employee's wage, the employer is guilty of wage theft.
So instead, read the CA's (and AK, MN, MT, NV, OR, WA) rule as "tips may not be credited towards an employee's salary".
[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
Replies
> If the employer does not make at least $x towards an employee's wage, the employer is guilty of wage theft.
See what your server's reaction is if you tell them to report this wage theft.
They won't. They'll just suggest you tip them to compensate.
You keep posting this over and over as if states with a lower tipped minimum are equivalent to states with the same minimum, regardless of tips.
You're not wrong that, in states with a lower tipped minimum, the tips act as a credit. But you're ignoring what the power imbalance in those situations can do to an employee, and you're ignoring the fact that in states like that, tips paid by customers are effectively subsidizing the employer out of paying minimum wage.
And I don't think that it would be surprising that wage theft is more common in places where the tipped minimum is set lower than the general minimum.
As a customer, I would much rather know that the employer is paying the full fair minimum wage regardless, and any tip I leave will always be on top of that. I don't want to be paying a part of the employee's wage that the employer would otherwise be paying.