Why Restaurant Workers Aren’t Going Back
No, it’s not because they are getting unemployment checks
Working as a server or bartender is hard work. Like retail work, you have to smile while putting up with rude or demanding customers. Back when I was a bartender, one irate customer spat his false teeth at me.
Also like retail workers, you aren’t paid well. In fact, in most states you’re paid far less than minimum wage. Servers rely on tips to make up the difference.
By “far less,” I mean under $3.00 an hour in most states.
Tips are unreliable. That set workers up for a major crisis in 2020, when restaurants and bars closed down due to the pandemic, and their workers’ unemployment benefits were calculated based on a sub-minimum hourly wage.
Some service workers weren’t even eligible to apply for unemployment benefits because despite being employed full-time, they didn’t make enough in hourly wages to meet minimum income requirements.
And I thought servers’ income was unpredictable before COVID-19.
Some might say servers are getting what they bargained for if they didn’t declare all their tips as income, and it’s true that tips were often “under-the-table” income for servers until the 1990’s when tax regulations required workers…
