Next year when the wage increases start to kick in in Seattle, large employers, including fast food franchises (if their lawsuit doesn’t pan out) will be paying more than the mom and pop places. And there will be a tip penalty at those places, so the employees at McDonalds or Chipotle will probably be making more than at a greasy spoon or a local Thai place, at least for a few years.
Now, I already eat a fair amount of fast food, so it’s not like this has been driving my decisions on that level. But now I’ll know that I’m not contributing to poverty wages, so that will be a plus. Or maybe I should eat what I have a hankering to eat and not worry about this since $15 is coming for everyone?
So is the initiative going to change anyone’s eating habits?
This is something you actually worry about? Must suck being a Lib.
yes, eat more fast food. Support the workers and it’ll help everyone.
Good luck
I probably still won’t eat at mcdonalds, but I’ll certainly feel better about eating out at places staffed by individuals making enough for a solid living. And so I’ll probably end up eating out more! Who wants to go to places staffed by unhappy people bc they can barely make ends meet?
Honestly, I don’t eat fast food. Good to know that I won’t have to feel bad for the workers (at least in terms of relative salary) if it’s the only option at some point though.
Hearing that McD’s workers will be better off than a local asian place… That’s just so odd. I feel like Seattle is becoming bizarro world sometimes.
At what the employees at McDonald’s will still be making, I doubt if they’ll be “happy people”. They aren’t going to be making $15/hr immediately (or even in the near future), and $15/hr does not make for a good living, not in Seattle or environs — not when the average one-bedroom apartment costs about $1,200/month. Most fast food employees are not fulltime, anyway.
This was better than nothing, but not much.
You’re misunderstanding how the tip penalty works. People who get tips will have the first portion of their tips deducted from their potential raise increase, which means that they will still get the new minimum’s (based on their size on the scale) but some of that income will come from their tips.
(I.e. if I tip at a Starbucks my dollar is actually going to Howard Schultz, who in turn spends it on the new raise. It isn’t going as an extra to the employee.)
But a tipped employee is still going to make the same (and sometimes more) than a non-tipped employee.
The Tip deduction is shitty policy, there is no reason that my tip which was intended for the worker should go to the boss.
But the net effect won’t mean McD employees make more than tipped employees. All employees get a raise.
And Goldy posted it earlier, probably don’t tip at Starbucks.
Whether or not the new policy makes it easier to steal wages from an employee, that could be different. But that’s violating the law, and should rest in a separate category.