Be Careful What You Wish For (RE: MW)

[Jack V Savage]

Exactly, its really silly thinking to equate not tipping a person who makes a standard MW to putting feces in their food. That's how entitled servers have become in the US.

It's not like that's a thing that regularly happens. I used to work in a restaurant, and I never saw anything remotely like that. It can't be that common because there are pretty immediate and serious health consequences for something like that.

 

[Mike]

Exactly, its really silly thinking to equate not tipping a person who makes a standard MW to putting feces in their food. That's how entitled servers have become in the US.

It's pretty ridiculous. As you mentioned there are a ton of people plugging away at thankless minimum wage jobs with no tips.

 

[Islam Imamate]

It's not like that's a thing that regularly happens. I used to work in a restaurant, and I never saw anything remotely like that.

I'm not surprised, it always seemed like an exaggeration when I saw it mentioned here. I have a friend who is very prone to anger who worked as a server and I can't recall he ever did anything that egregious to someone who didn't tip. Unless its a family restaurant in a small town I doubt the establishment would even remember unless you were a regular.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I'm not surprised, it always seemed like an exaggeration when I saw it mentioned here. I have a friend who is very prone to anger who worked as a server and I can't recall he ever did anything that egregious to someone who didn't tip. Unless its a family restaurant in a small town I doubt the establishment would even remember unless you were a regular.

From my experience, no one ever stiffed us (it was a nice restaurant in SF--Mariah Carey and Joe Montana, among others came in while I was working), but when we got a low tip, the reaction was more, "oh, shit, what did we do wrong there?" than "fuck that guy!" There were customers that were assholes, but that was apparent before the tips, and a lot of them ended up as big tippers.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

It's when you go back after being shorted on your drive-thru order that you need to be careful. Maybe better to get a refund than that missing bean burrito replaced.

 

[Bay Area]

http://www.economist.com/news/leade...higher-minimum-wages-dangerous-reckless-wager

As evidenced from the last MW thread a few days ago, a lot of MW proponents argue quite strongly that raising the federal MW to $15/hour will be just fine. Most MW proponents in that thread refused to acknowledge the fact that MW hikes usually bring about layoffs but the few that did acknlowedge this fact argued that it was no big deal because the benefits of higher incomes far outweigh any costs associated with job losses from the MW hikes.

Now as the article I reference points out, raising the federal MW to $15/hour, or 77%of median hourly income, is quite high and unprecedented even globally. The article also points out how by "moving towards sharply higher minimum wages, policymakers are accelerating into a fog" and "nobody knows what big rises will do, at any time horizon." While the latter is certainly true, I believe there does exist an example of what we could expect if MW proponents win this policy debate and the federal MW goes from $7.25/hour to $15/hour and that example is Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico has a far less productive economy than does mainland US yet since 1983 its MW was legislated to rise in tandem with mainland US MW. As a result, a full-time MW job in PR pays around 77% of PR's per capita income. If MW proponents have their way and the federal MW goes to $15/hour in mainland US, this will pay roughly around 65% of 2014 US annual per capita income. How has this policy worked out for PR?

Well they've been in a recession for over a decade and...:


http://nypost.com/2015/07/11/how-us-wage-laws-helped-sink-puerto-ricos-economy/

Suffice it to say, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it and the results don't look good.

Why do you hate the working man?

 

[ncordless]

I don't want to derail this thread but seriously fuck this logic. The thinking that these servers live off their tips only applies to those who live in states that allow tippable workers to get paid less than the standard minimum wage. Where that's not the case they're getting as much as the guy flipping burgers and that's a much more thankless job.

EDIT: Lol @ "that goes the person who thinks it's okay not to tip a server at a restaurant." No it doesn't, it only goes for the POS who thinks a tip is worth putting another person's health at risk

Tip your servers, you god damn cheapskate.

You don't even understand the concept of tipping, obviously. You don't tip people because they make less than minimum wage and you feel sorry for them. You tip your servers, your baristas, your barbers, your taxi drivers, etc. because you want better service and appreciate it when you get it. Servers aren't beggars receiving alms for the poor. That's not what it's about at all.

And you shouldn't eat at places where the cooks make minimum wage either. That's just gross.

 

[Sycho Sid]

Tip your servers, you god damn cheapskate.

You don't even understand the concept of tipping, obviously. You don't tip people because they make less than minimum wage and you feel sorry for them. You tip your servers, your baristas, your barbers, your taxi drivers, etc. because you want better service and appreciate it when you get it. Servers aren't beggars receiving alms for the poor. That's not what it's about at all.

And you shouldn't eat at places where the cooks make minimum wage either. That's just gross.

I just want to say, I do tip my servers, almost always above the average. Though I do not tip a barista, seriously? But if the server is making minimum wage, I will almost definitely tip a bit less. I always factor in extra, on top of just gratuity, because I know how little they make.

 

[ncordless]

I just want to say, I do tip my servers, almost always above the average. Though I do not tip a barista, seriously? But if the server is making minimum wage, I will almost definitely tip a bit less. I always factor in extra, on top of just gratuity, because I know how little they make.

Seriously. Tip you barista. Maybe not at McStarbucks. But if you go to a real coffee shop you should tip.

 

[Sycho Sid]

EDIT: Actually, nevermind. I am going to stop derailing this thread. I usually learn something from most threads about economics, so let us get back to the topic at hand.

 

[Lee978]

The PR economy is bad, obviously. Do you really think MW is a major contributor to that? The guy's point is that the MW is too high relative to the economy. Why is that? Because the economy was already bad. I mean, this is very simple.

You're completely mischaracterizing the guys point. The reason why the MW wage is too high relative to the economy isn't because the economy was already bad (that just exacerbated the problem) but because the US economy is fundamentally different than the PR economy. For starters, the US economy is like 100x more productive than the PR economy so while the US economy might be able to support a $7.25/hour (EG) MW there is no reason to believe that the PR economy can (indeed it can't). The same reasoning is applied to states and implementing a one-size-fits-all MW. It's easy to see why such a policy could easily lead to unintended consequences like job loss.

And I'm not sure if the MW is a "major" contributor (I know that is the word Lane uses) in PR current economic malaise but I certainly believe it is a contributor, I mean how can it not be? You have people in PR who's labor is really worth like $4-$5/hour making $7.25/hour. Employers in PR wont be able to sustain such high wages relative value added for very long and people are eventually going to get laid off which is precisely what that 1992 NBER study cited in Lane's article found. According to the study:

Imposing the U.S.-level minimum reduced total island employment by 8-10 percent compared to the level that would have prevailed had the minimum been the same proportion of average wages as in the United States. In addition, it reallocated labor across industries, greatly reducing jobs in low-wage sectors that had to raise minima substantially to reach federal levels.

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6909.pdf

He refers to a study, which he doesn't name, saying that the MW in PR is twice as high relative to value added as it is in the Bahamas and Jamaica. OK. I don't dispute that. That's not a study backing up his claims, though. The other study backs up the claim that raising the MW to the level of the rest of the country hurt the economy because of the lower level of development and labor productivity (i.e., it didn't *cause* the lower level of development and labor productivity) in 1992. Not much of an argument relating to more-recent struggles, and a great overstating of the claims actually made.

You're confused Jack.

Claim:

High prices for low-skilled labor kill employers’ incentive to invest and create jobs, especially in the labor-intensive tourism sector, which faces stiff competition from the hotels and resorts of lower-wage Caribbean islands.

Back up to claim: 2012 World Bank study which found that....

the minimum wage, relative to the value added per worker, is nearly twice as high in Puerto Rico as it is in the Bahamas and Jamaica.

I don't understand how you can say that that isn't a study backing up Lane's claim.

Regarding the other study, you're again missing the point. The argument isn't that the MW in PR hurt the economy and *caused* a lower level of development and productivity. The point is that *due to the already existing* overall lower level of development and productivity in PR relative to the US, instituting a policy which ties each economies MW together hurt the economy evidenced by the job loss captured in the 1992 NBER study. Nothing has changed since 1992 in terms of MW policy towards PR so what makes you think this doesn't having anything to do with the present?

I think you got your ideological blinders on my friend.

Well, this isn't an honest approach, is it? The person here who is uniformly against the interests of the poor is Lane.

These are Lane's concluding remarks from that "hackery."

The point is not that the minimum wage should be abolished or the labor market immune to incremental regulation. Indeed, the US economy is much more productive than Puerto Rico’s, so it could probably absorb modest, gradual minimum wage increases.

Still, the island’s experience with the minimum wage and other labor-market regulations is an instructive tale, the clear moral of which is to proceed with caution.

This doesn't sound to me like a person who is "uniformly against the interest of the poor." The dude doesn't even think we should abolish MW's and even admits that the US economy could absorb MW increases. The guy sounds to me like a completely rational human being who has seen the data regarding MW policy and PR and who believes the US should use the PR experience to guide them regarding public policy.

 

[Lee978]

Why do you hate the working man?

Rofl. Why do you hate constructing cogent and substantive counter arguments? :icon_chee

 

[Jack V Savage]

You're completely mischaracterizing the guys point. The reason why the MW wage is too high relative to the economy isn't because the economy was already bad (that just exacerbated the problem) but because the US economy is fundamentally different than the PR economy. For starters, the US economy is like 100x more productive than the PR economy so while the US economy might be able to support a $7.25/hour (EG) MW there is no reason to believe that the PR economy can (indeed it can't). The same reasoning is applied to states and implementing a one-size-fits-all MW. It's easy to see why such a policy could easily lead to unintended consequences like job loss.

You're not showing me mischaracterizing his point. His point is to blame PR having the same MW as the rest of the country for PR's inferior economy. But clearly, as these issues precede the economic problems (they're the whole reason the MW could be a problem for them!). That's just an obvious logical error.

And I'm not sure if the MW is a "major" contributor (I know that is the word Lane uses) in PR current economic malaise but I certainly believe it is a contributor, I mean how can it not be? You have people in PR who's labor is really worth like $4-$5/hour making $7.25/hour.

What's this "really worth"? I didn't think you held some kind of objective theory of labor value. But could it cause a distortion in the market? Sure. As I mention in every MW thread, the fact that X+N might be a better MW than X doesn't mean that X+2N or more is a better MW than X. In the case of PR, it might make sense to have a lower MW than the rest of the country. However, the argument that MW is a major contributor to PR's economic problems is ridiculous.

You're confused Jack.

You're just misreading me. The World Bank study doesn't back up his broader claim that MW has been some kind of disaster in PR. It's a transparent rhetoric trick. He's taking his main point to be self-evident (that MW has caused a disaster in PR) and defending an inessential point. You're falling for his trick when you respond to someone calling out his hackery by defending the World Bank, as if that's the controversial issue.

Regarding the other study, you're again missing the point. The argument isn't that the MW in PR hurt the economy and *caused* a lower level of development and productivity. The point is that *due to the already existing* overall lower level of development and productivity in PR relative to the US, instituting a policy which ties each economies MW together hurt the economy evidenced by the job loss captured in the 1992 NBER study. Nothing has changed since 1992 in terms of MW policy towards PR so what makes you think this doesn't having anything to do with the present?

He clearly states:

"Puerto Rico

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Time to compare Jack's pie chart of PR economic doldrums factors to the published dude's and then hold it up to reality and...

 

[Islam Imamate]

Tip your servers, you god damn cheapskate.

You don't even understand the concept of tipping, obviously. You don't tip people because they make less than minimum wage and you feel sorry for them. You tip your servers, your baristas, your barbers, your taxi drivers, etc. because you want better service and appreciate it when you get it. Servers aren't beggars receiving alms for the poor. That's not what it's about at all.

And you shouldn't eat at places where the cooks make minimum wage either. That's just gross.

I'm not going to continue to derail this thread any longer, SidJustice actually made my points for me well enough.

 

[ultramanhyata]

The federal minimum wage proposals are usually a roll out over a number of years, like back during bush when it went from 5.15 to 7.50

Ah... The Bush era. Halcyon days for American socialists.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Time to compare Jack's pie chart of PR economic doldrums factors to the published dude's and then hold it up to reality and...

No idea what you're trying to say, but while non-hacks have different views on the effects of MW, no one thinks it's *that* big a deal either way. Lane is just a hack, and he has been for a while. I know a former colleague of his who would tell you the same thing.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

I think often people only look at the minimum wage affecting the minimum wage earner. However the reality is every person within the business is going to need to get a raise or otherwise you would have m minimum wage people earning as much as your shift leaders, managers, and supervisors. You have to bump everyone up not just the minimum wage person.

Again a raise in MW is needed. Doubling it nationwide is moronic. People in North Dakota do not need 15 hr MW.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Again a raise in MW is needed. Doubling it nationwide is moronic. People in North Dakota do not need 15 hr MW.

This is by far the majority position on the left in American politics. I'd guess that a majority of Republican voters would also agree, though no notable Republican national figures (Boehner, McConnell, anyone running for president, etc.) would.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

no one thinks it's *that* big a deal either way.