Will you feel less compelled to tip if...
 

....the congress raised the minimum wage.

This came up in a conversation with a few friends yesterday.
In past threads here most pro-tipping posters point out to the minimum wages most service staff make. With an increased mimimum wage would it change your tipping habits ?

Nope.

Because minimum wage still stinks. And the "tippable" people in the hospitality industry often make less than minimum anyway. At least the waitstaff does.

Isn't the minimum wage in CA already $3 an hour more than the federal minimum wage? Hasn't stopped me from tipping as usual.

friends of mine who work in restaurants make significantly below the minimum wage. AFAIK, for tipping industries, the only regulation is that wage+tips must be above minimum wage for an hour.

In California, all waitstaff or whatever must be paid minimum wage, same as clerical and supermarket staff. $8-10 an hour, I'm not sure. To me, this means you should tip your bank teller, grocery checker, any hourly worker as well as your waiter. And me. (I'm thinking about putting a styrofoam cup tip jar on my desk. So much cleaner than bribes and under the counter payments.)

In other states, laws have reduced wages to waitresses to about $2 an hour expecting tips to make up the difference. Hint: when in the South, tip heavily. When in California, eh.

The reason for the below-minimum wage was supposedly to create jobs and make it reasonable for small businesses to hire people. Sort of makes sense.

So, you can't just go wandering around the country assuming the waitstaff live off tips. Some do, some don't. Then again, $2 an hour is pretty miserly.

(FWIW, I read this on a previous FT thread and checked out the links regarding salaries by state and believe this to be true information.)

Not if it's a tipped position
 

If it is a tipped position, such as a waiter, then I will still tip. I rarely tip non-tipped positions, such as hotel desk clerks, hotel maids or Wal-Mart clerks.

No it will not change.

I tip by percentage:

10 % adequate
15 % good
20 % above the call of duty

I feel guilty if I don't tip. Even with the min wage increase, it still is not a lot of money.

Minimum wage increases are really kind of a joke anyway when you think about it. Yes, it will raise the amount of take home pay that the lowest wage earners will get but it seems like a lot of businesses raise their prices just high enough to cover the new costs. So even though the employees are getting more money, they (and us) are paying more through higher inflation.

The new minimum wage in CA will be $8 in two years. If goes from $6.75 to to $7.50 on 1/1/07 and then to $8 on 1/1/08. Still not a lot of dough when you look at it in the grand scheme of things.

FWIW, that's consistently not been the experience of countries that have introduced or significantly raised minimum wages.

It must have been about 20 years ago that I made minimum wage...it was $3.35 in Arizona at the time. I was 17. I only got tipped once, $5 from somebody....and I have been working since I was 14.

I went to college, graduated, and now have an annual salary. And a good one.

Minimum wage should be entry level and appropriate to skill and task. Anybody trying to raise a family on minimum wage is ______ (fill in your own blank.)

Before you flame me, know that I work in higher education. I know that anybody (yes, ANYBODY) may attend college. There are financial aid entitlement programs--read: you are entitled to the money if you don't make enough through employment.

To answer your question, no I don't feel compelled to tip less.

As memanny has not yet met the threshhold for posting in OMNI, I am going to close this thread. Interesting topic, but not for TravelBuzz & it would not be fair to the OP to move to OMNI.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator