What are these nutballs thinking?

The minimum wage is at its lowest real purchasing power in fifty years, and now they're going to yank the tips out from under us?

Here, check this out: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060803/...o/minimum_wage

Boneheads!

I'm against the minimum wage altogether, but the real problem with those who make tips is in the states where tip-earners do not get the full minimum wage. In Texas, servers get $2.13 an hour. 90% of the customers do not know it - they believe the servers get the full minimum wage of $5.15. Most people throw down a 2 or 3 dollar tip and think they are being generous regardless of the bill total. Then the feds figure what the tip should be (15%) based on the restaurant sales. My daughter is consistently taxed on money she never made. In the end, it won't matter too much since she will get a refund of the income tax withheld, but she'll still be out the other payroll deductions. Customers who know this are much more generous.

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The way we get into these scrapes and get out of them, it's almost as though someone was dreaming up these situations; guiding our destiny. ~The Boy Wonder, alter ego of Dick Grayson, young ward of millionaire Bruce Wayne.

Minimum wage aside, I find the whole concept of "expected" tips aggravating. I understand tipping for exceptional service; but it should not be built into the pay structure. Pay your workers a decent wage and if they make tips on top of that -- without some sort of societal expectation of some minimum tip for simply adequate service -- great.

I should not be expected to tip every service worker I encounter in the course of my day. And yet increasingly I am.

Grump grump grump....

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Man up.

In Missouri, my neice worked at a truck stop diner along Interstate 70.

She was paid a salary of $2.13 an hour but then the boss came and said that if HE figured that the waitresses made more than minimum wage through tips, then he'd deduct that extra amount (which he was figuring out himself) from their salary. p.s. Unlike what is generally believed, travellers and truckers do not tip very well at all. Nearly half the time my neice didn't get a tip whatsoever.

My neice was working her butt off and getting around $1.50 an hour. And she had to put up with the sexual harrassment of the truckers who treated her like a ho every single day.

I cried many times thinking about the horrors she went through.

Yeah, I tend to agree with raytri.
Tips are an antiquity. Without tips, chances are we'd just pay the difference in prices of food and lose our option to screw over the waitress by refusing to pay it.
I figure tips should always be optional and for anyone we wish to tip. I'm irritated that stock guys who carry stuff out to the car are not allowed to take tips (not that they don't anyway. Hell, I did.).
Everyone should be paid a competative wage and we consumers should be able to tip strictly on the basis of good service and whether we want to.
I think it would make more sense to pay waitresses on commission and bussers at a base rate plus very low rate of commission. It would be the same thing, but less... less... whatever it is that it is.

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"Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money."

-George Carlin

This provision seems like payback for raising the minimum wage. The GOP is unable to relate to the average American and will always look after corporate interests first. It amazes me to see many Americans defend corporations especially when their own situation is in dire straits. Some mid-west states like Kansas (I have extended family there) live on extremely low wages and even though the cost of living is lower there than other states, the opportunities are extremely limited, yet Kansas is solid Republican, go figure. I think these people are delusional but I'm sure their loyalty to the republican party is appreciated all the same.

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I've been informed....don't blame Bush, he's "not in control"
That must make him out of control

Restaurant jobs are basically unskilled labor, except for experienced cooks and better-than-average wait staff. The good servers get great tips. Bad ones do not. But underneath all that, sit back and contemplate how much you'd have to pay for a meal if the staff got some ludicrous "living wage," or other socialist nonsense.

Let them find better jobs if they don't like it. I like going to a restaurant without first taking out a bank loan.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

I have to pay that any way. The published prices are a sham; the actual cost of the meal is 15% to 20% or more higher than that.

So apparently you don't tip.

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Man up.

in regards to the concept of expected tips. It's gotten out of hand. Tips for pouring a coffee at Starbucks? Please. I tip very well when service is very good, and very poorly when it stinks. As you said, it should be for good service. Not "you automatically get 15% even if the service stinks."

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Obama The Naive: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.’’ The Iranian response? “The Great Satan now has a black face.’’

Yup, when the lap dance is extra good, I tip generously. But when the lap dace stinks, I don't.

What a bunch of tight-wads! Tipping is simply practicing good manners!

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"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill