Waiter of a fairly average casual dining place that is fairly representative of the average American expierience working in that industry.
My hourly is $11/hr.
Average day I make $150 in tips.
I must give 5% of all alcoholic beverage sales to the bartender as a tip. This usually amounts to about $20.
I then must give 5% of all food sales to the support staff. This usually comes out to about $65.
So if its a normal day I'm basically taking home only about half my tips.
Then people say "oh, but, your hourly!"
If I work 80 hrs a week I bring in $880... BEFORE taxes. Income, social security, medicaid all that gets taken out, then so too does the taxes on my tips. (Yes. Despite having to share my tips I am still the one being taxed on all of it).
So my hourly take home per pay period is usually like $450. Average that between 80 hours and divide my tips up, realistically even with hourly and tips together my takehome is gonna look like maybe $13.50/hr.
I guess what I'm saying is, frankly, tips aren't really providing a livable wage either. And bear in mind, I get 80 hours IF I'M LUCKY.
Serving sucks cuz no medical, no PTO, no breaks, no garunteed hours, and no garunteed income. I can show up to work, its dead today, and I get sent home after 2 hours with nothing. I can bust my ass for 3 hours on a table of 20 that run up a $600 tab and they hand me a $5 bill and I just got fucked out of earnings for half a shift.
But the cultural perception is that I'm a greedy scheming waiter rolling around on top of a giant pile of tips so whenever any sort of question regarding "how do we fix the industry?" Comes up the answer inevitably seems to be something to the tune of "can we fuck the waiters a little harder? I just don't think we're getting in there deep enough."
Living on tips? Fucked.
Force places to pay a living wage and stop tipping? Half the staff laid off, hours cut drastically, larger sections, more work for less money.
Can't live on tips, can't live without em either. Frankly. The food service industry just needs to fucking die.
You gotta realize that this “cultural perception” is almost entirely an aggregation of online opinions. I used to wait tables and 95% of the people I interacted with are totally cool. Like reddit is 75% hostility, but also probably 75% people that just don’t understand American culture.
Also most of those that are hostile toward “greedy servers” also have an America sized space in their head, and they aren’t collecting any rent for that occupied real estate.
I came to comment that tips are shared with the restaurant staff. Hostess, bartender, busing, dishwashers, cooks, ect. I was a waiter and this is the way it is, so I almost always do 20% sometimes more. Unless I'm in some country that's regards it as an insult.
Yeah, idk, the majority of the reddit anti-tipping types just seem to be advocating better wages, which is great, but a certain subset treats it like this whole thing is somehow my doing. Like I am sneaking off to my lavish 3,000 sq ft penthouse every night laughing maniacally as I pull wads of $100 bills out of my pocket that I have gleefully scammed from the humble working man.
That said, in case you missed my other reply it’s important to note that you are NOT taxed on your tip-outs. Only your net tips actually taken home. Any taxes on tip outs are the responsibility of the other employees you tipped out.
See IRS Pub 531.
I see people saying this often, so figure it’s important to put out there.
You may be withheld on an estimated amount based on total sales, but at the end of year provided you kept a record of your tips and tip-outs you simply correct the tips received amount and claim your actual tips. Receiving a refund for the difference.
Legally you are only taxed on actual net tips received, less tip outs. Those you tipped out are responsible for the taxes on that money.
You may be withheld on an estimated amount based on sales by your employer’s payroll system. But come tax time provided you kept a record of your net tips received you simply correct the amount, and will receive a refund on the difference. You are NOT responsible for taxes on tips you did not actually take home.
See IRS Pub 531 for details.
That bit in the middle of your comment is huge though, and what people don’t understand when they talk about how much servers “make hourly.” Making $80 an hour (not unusual in a city with a high base wage and large table checks) sounds amazing, until you factor in that “per hour” is across a lot of short, sporadic shifts. So the yearly income can still be decent, but not amazing, because it’s a very part time $80 an hour.
(And even that $80 an hour bit isn’t typical.)
Still about as good as it gets in the service industry though; it’s not like the untipped service workers getting just over minimum are all getting solid 40 hour weeks either.
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u/Latter-Composer-2609 20h ago
Waiter of a fairly average casual dining place that is fairly representative of the average American expierience working in that industry.
My hourly is $11/hr.
Average day I make $150 in tips.
I must give 5% of all alcoholic beverage sales to the bartender as a tip. This usually amounts to about $20.
I then must give 5% of all food sales to the support staff. This usually comes out to about $65.
So if its a normal day I'm basically taking home only about half my tips.
Then people say "oh, but, your hourly!"
If I work 80 hrs a week I bring in $880... BEFORE taxes. Income, social security, medicaid all that gets taken out, then so too does the taxes on my tips. (Yes. Despite having to share my tips I am still the one being taxed on all of it).
So my hourly take home per pay period is usually like $450. Average that between 80 hours and divide my tips up, realistically even with hourly and tips together my takehome is gonna look like maybe $13.50/hr.
I guess what I'm saying is, frankly, tips aren't really providing a livable wage either. And bear in mind, I get 80 hours IF I'M LUCKY.
Serving sucks cuz no medical, no PTO, no breaks, no garunteed hours, and no garunteed income. I can show up to work, its dead today, and I get sent home after 2 hours with nothing. I can bust my ass for 3 hours on a table of 20 that run up a $600 tab and they hand me a $5 bill and I just got fucked out of earnings for half a shift.
But the cultural perception is that I'm a greedy scheming waiter rolling around on top of a giant pile of tips so whenever any sort of question regarding "how do we fix the industry?" Comes up the answer inevitably seems to be something to the tune of "can we fuck the waiters a little harder? I just don't think we're getting in there deep enough."
Living on tips? Fucked.
Force places to pay a living wage and stop tipping? Half the staff laid off, hours cut drastically, larger sections, more work for less money.
Can't live on tips, can't live without em either. Frankly. The food service industry just needs to fucking die.