- San Francisco, Seattle, NYC, Oregon: the new rage for predictable scheduling laws [Sara Eber Fowler, Seyfarth Shaw]
- “Montgomery County Wage Hike Will Drive Business to Virginia” [Emily Top, Economics21, Andrew Metcalf/Bethesda Beat, earlier here, here on the Maryland controversy]
- Truthfulness of plaintiff emerges as sticking point in gig-economy-threatening Grubhub suit [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica, earlier]
- Expecting further $15/hour wage enactments, Shake Shack plans for kiosk and app ordering without traditional cashiers’ counters [Ryan Bourne, Cato] What a former McDonald’s CEO had to say last year about the minimum wage-kiosk nexus [Ed Rensi, Forbes] Related: Twitchy quoting me;
- After restaurateur Danny Meyer moves to no-tip policy favored by labor activists, many servers report drop in income [Eater NY] As USDOL rethinks, will there be an end of tip pooling cases against the hospitality industry? [Daniel Schwartz]
- “Department of Labor’s FLSA Overtime Rule: Where Is It Now?” [Eric A. Welter and Kimberly Kauffman, Welter Law Firm]
Filed under: minimum wage, Oregon, restaurants, San Francisco, Seattle, wage and hour suits
5 Comments
“many servers report a drop in income”.
Stub article does not mention how the income change was assessed. Was the drop in income reflected on their 1040 forms? Would their real taxable income possibly have increased while at the same time their ‘take home pay’ decreased?
Yep, there’s the real issue. No payroll taxes or income tax withholding on tip income. And without an employer controlled tip pool, they can lie to the IRS about their tip income with very low risk of getting caught.
I’m curious whether this is that much of a factor at a high-end place like one of Danny Meyer’s restaurants, where the majority of tips would be paid by credit card, and therefore tracked and reported accurately through the restaurant’s point of sale system. Do that many people tip in cash on expensive meals?
Don’t forget that most of the crowd at that high end of a restaurant could probably easily afford to be walking around with a couple grand in cash.
Don’t forget, they are also used to tipping door men, bellhops, and others who don’t take credit cards.
Ed Rensi’s piece in Forbes about the $15 minimum wage is really good. Well written and clear about how businesses are adapting. He doesn’t even have to get alarmist to make his point. The job losses make it for him. And as an ex-CEO for Mc’D, you’d think people would pay attention.
The Starship delivery robot is kind of cool too, though it looks like a tripping hazard for people glued to their phones.