How to Make an Unloved Job More Attractive? Restaurants Tinker With Wages.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Long before the pandemic persuaded so many restaurant employees to abandon the business, Corrinna Stum chafed at the illogic of the pay.

She started as a server at age 15, and quickly discovered how stressful it could be to earn only the federal minimum wage for tipped employees (now $2.13 an hour) and hope that tips would make her whole. Her husband, Matt, a cook, was never entitled to a share of diners’ largess.

So last spring, when the couple opened Ruby’s West End, a cafe in Portland, Maine, they decided that every aspect of their restaurant would diverge from business as usual. Stum, 30, spurned pricey subscriptions for reservation and scheduling software, and instead used that money to help pay every member of her small team $12.15 per hour, Maine’s full minimum wage. She also added a 20% service charge to every check, to be shared with the kitchen staff, which traditionally doesn’t benefit from tips.

Word of those plans was enough to lure one server, Olivia Shipsey, from her job at a busy downtown restaurant, even though it meant giving up the generous tips she earned there. “I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of,” said Shipsey, 23, who is now Ruby’s morning manager. On a good day, the service charge can lift her wages to as much as $27 an hour, on par with what she earned downtown.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/unloved-job-more-attractive-restaurants-192448660.html

[PoliticAverse]

1. "Because a service fee is categorized as income, Hammel must pay taxes on it"

Because a service fee is categorized as income, Hammel must pay taxes on it, while forgoing a federal tax credit for employers who pay the tipped minimum wage.

Once again, tax law provides disincentive to people who want to improve things.

And a tacked-on charge can offend potential customers who bristle at the idea of an obligatory tip, regardless of the quality of service they receive.

Because it is a "obligatory tip". Why would a customer be in favor of that?

[quaint]

2. Because they're progressive?

It works elsewhere in the world.

[PoliticAverse]

3. Actually no, lots of places in the world don't have tipping, mandatory or otherwise.

What other businesses in the US have a mandatory tip/service charge?

How about eliminating the "service charge" and just price it into the food, like all other businesses price service into the amount charged for goods.