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Old 12-01-2007, 03:16 AM
JaredL JaredL is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2004
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Default Re: PDT 2/2 : Why has tipping increased?

Diablito,

I think it could have something to do with minimum wage or some other low-wage standard.

To keep it simple let's say you want your servers to make twice minimum wage. If the minimum wage goes up (or you just pay the lower-level staff more) then restaurant prices will go up, but not by as much as minimum wage/staff wage has increased. Therefore, for servers to continue to make the same relative to the lower guys they will have to get a higher percentage in tips.

Say you pay the dishwashers et al $10 and hour and can charge $100 for a meal. Customers tip 15 and the waiters earn 5 bucks more, or 150% of the wage of the dishwashers. If you increase the dishwasher salary to 15 and charge 104 for it then tipping 15 percent now means that the water gets $15.60, just barely more. Bump her up to 20% and she makes $20.80 which is again about 5 bucks more.

Obviously I'm simplifying here but you can see the point.
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