True, when the pandemic started a lot of tipped workers whined about how low their unemployment checks were because they go off reported income. My local NPR station had a story with a few waitresses and bartenders who admitted they reported under $20,000 a year to the IRS but actually made over $60,000 with tips they didn’t report. None of them reported cash tips.
That’s why waiting tables used to be such an excellent job, especially for teens or college students, or adults at high-end restaurants.
Taxes in general are bullshit. Theft.
However, I imagine it’s a bit difficult to hide tips today, since the overwhelming majority of payments — & presumably tips — are done via credit cards. Leaves a paper trail.
Do you know many hotels are not cleaning your room anymore? As such I don’t leave a tip.
I only time housekeeping when I make an unusual mess.
Long ago, when I came to Atlanta, the Company put me up in a kind of extended stay (They were not called that then… more an Apartment Complex with short term stays).
Anyway, I would often leave a few bucks on the kitchen sink and they would do the dishes for me,
If my room is unclean or otherwise disorderly when I arrive, then no tip.
If it is in good shape, I’ll tip.
Kind of a paying it backwards mentality. Like paying for the person’s Starbucks behind you.
That is fair.
I am traveling for work often and I was shocked when they stopped cleaning rooms.
It’s a covid 'protection rule.
So ridiculous. The virus does not live on surfaces.
His Eminence Fauci has said so multiple times.
One of my sisters friends is a waiter at a high end steak house, $400-500 is typical for a Friday and Saturday night, unfortunately most people use a credit card and his employer withholds taxes for him. I used to hang out with a few strippers, they’d make almost $100k a year tax free. My landlord Buddy has a stripper renting one of his houses, she has a tax return that shows $52,000 a year in income so she can access credit.
Tips based on Percent of Ticket makes little sense.
How much more difficult is it to deliver a $50 steak vs a $15 steak at Longhorn.
When I was selling Real Estate, I thought the same… how much more difficult to sell a $500,000 house than a $100,000.
I understand that it is much tougher to sell a Million$ and up house… but in the now under $500,000, things are pretty similar.
When I was selling Real Estate that number was more like $350,000. Houses have gone up.
Strippers I think used to be a fantastic career field for that reason.
However, with the rape of the US dollar’s value, which has been perpetually in progress since the Nixon administration, the handful of singles received from each customer results in significantly less purchasing power than in decades past.
Perhaps the inflation allows more strip clubs (of much lower quality of course) and makes more jobs for others, but I imagine the individual strippers see their disposable income shrinking, especially after several cumulative years.