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A Good Christian had Jesus pay for their meal
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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Yeah, if owners were required to cover the difference when waiters get stiffed or under-tipped, I bet things would change pretty quickly.
They are? Unless you mean to an arbitrary tip amount like 20%. Businesses are required to pay servers minimum wage if tips don’t make it. It’s still super scummy and they should pay living wages by default, but they can’t just not pay people.
That minimum wage for servers can be as low as $2.13 an hour, depending on the state. The amount and how it is applied varies widely and all of the minimums are pretty low. That server needs every last dollar.
EDITED TO ADD: this conversation goes on for a while in which another person goes out of their way to mischaracterize US law in multiple ways. I stopped responding simply because the law doesn't say what they think it does, and they're trusting you not to look carefully at external sources. I have linked them so you can look through them yourself and not have to rely on someone simply asserting "That doesn't say that." Well, see it for yourself.
This person wants to get eyes on the minutiae in order to draw attention away from what I started with: that minimum wage for servers is absolute shit, not all servers are guaranteed even that, and they need every dollar. I have yet to be corrected on that.
If paying servers a living wage is something important to you, as it is to me, don't be fooled: what servers actually go home with, and the laws that dictate that amount, are a complete fucking mess, there are literally exceptions and variations of the law in EVERY state, and it all adds up to hard-working servers not getting paid their due because people fight very hard to defend the tipping system, based on racism and slavery, exactly as it stands.
Handy links:
What servers make in the United States as a full-time job -- Salary.com
Compare and contrast this with the 2026 federal poverty guidelines (used for SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, etc)
Federal Poverty Level Tables -- 2026
(Note: I linked a third party site because official HHS poverty guidelines pdf publication returns an error)
The US Department of Labor Reference Guide to FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) -- dol.gov
The first table I linked to, in my comment above; note especially the tip credits:
Fact Sheet #32: Youth Minimum Wage - Fair Labor Standards Act -- dol.gov
The same information, but with minor explanations in an easier to read format:
Tipped & Youth Minimum Wage by State: 2025 Table for Employers
You are misunderstanding. A server must be paid $2.13 an hour (depending on state) plus tips. However if the tips do not raise the server to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 (or the state's minimum wage if required) then the business must pay the difference.
Basically if a server goes in for a 4 hour shift and doesn't have a single customer/tip they must at minimum be paid by the company $7.25 an hour.
Funnily enough this is stated a couple of paragraphs down in your very source:
No, I am not misunderstanding. There are a number of exceptions: hotel restaurants, bartenders, minors, students, people in Montana working for a "business not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act with gross annual sales of $110,000 or less." That last one you're only guaranteed $4.00 an hour.
That's why I linked the table.
That bit you quoted does not apply to all situations, nor does it reflect this provision at the bottom:
Here's another source that gives it from another viewpoint. Whichever way you turn it, server pay is abysmally low. They need every dollar. And no, not all of them even make minimum wage.
That is incorrect all of these employees are subject to the Fair Labor Standard act. Everything previously stated applies.
So that's an interesting one, because Montana is even stricter than the what is laid out as an exemption federally. Which is a buisnesses that makes less than 500,000. But those buisnesses also cannot engage in Interstate Commerce per federal law. In the modern world it is nearly impossible to have a buisness making any amount money that does not engage in some form of Interstate Commerce. So functionally that exemption is meaningless.
You did skip a few types of employees that are actually exempt like movie theater employees. Originally they were exempted from overtime and federal minimum wage provision of the FLSA. However, this has since been changed and now they are only exempt from overtime regulations.
Now to your last part which is the crux of your misunderstanding
This only applies to the wage they receive before tips. Still per federal law they must make at least $7.25 an hour after tips.
What this paragraph is saying is that a state may have a minimum tipped wage of $4.00 per hour, but a provision for students that sets it to $3.00 per hour. The table does not reflect this.
An individual state law cannot supersede federal law. So these employees still must make a minimum of $7.25 an hour. That is base tipped minimum wage plus tips. If the minimum wage, be it 3 or 4 dollars to use the example, and the person's tips add up to less than 7.25 an hour then the buisnesses must cover the difference. Unless the buisness is exempt, which is functionally impossible for a restaurant.
This is all to say yes, all servers do indeed make at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. If they are not making at least that they should contact the department of labor for unpaid wages.
Just in case you missed it: (emphases mine)
I did indeed miss that one, so you got 1 out of 4
Almost everything you said was error filled, and you provided no material proofs for it, because you can't: links don't exist for what you pull out of your ass.
But it's what you said it in defense of that is truly shitty. No surprise, then, that it requires lies to defend.
No lie was told, everything can be found through the links you provided if you take the time to click through the DoL website some more instead of cherry picking.
At least I've been able to admit my mistakes instead of a stubborn refusal.
Also can you stop trying to assign a false moral stance on the issue to my statements? Everyone deserves a living wage, I'm just stating what federal law says for tipped servers.
You wrote,
I am well aware of what that means. I think that you are not. Check out what the DoL has to say about businesses and individuals not covered by FLSA: there are plenty of businesses that do not meet the standards but have employees that do, for example.
You are really reaching when you insist -- incorrectly -- that Montana's exception has no real world meaning. I assure you that exception was very specifically placed in the law for a real world business' benefit, and that that business had pull in the state capitol or it would not have been added, just as the FLSA itself provides for those exceptions to be made by the states.
If you can't be bothered to educate yourself on what "interstate commerce" means in the federal legal sense, that's fine by me because I've provided links for all of my assertions, unlike you: people can read them for themselves.
The FLSA has carve outs for various kinds of employees, and while minors are covered, they are not covered as adults are:
In addition, only a handful of states actually ban subminimum pay for minors, requiring by law full minimum wage. You wrote,
That is where you are flat out wrong. When it comes to minors and other special categories of workers, they can and do.
Here's the DoL page on that, you should read it:
Fact Sheet #32: Youth Minimum Wage - Fair Labor Standards Act
Here's another page that lays out what that means for tipped minors. Quoting from further down in the page:
Again, that's why I linked the table. It's a complex maze of laws and conditions. And I didn't miss this. You wrote,
That's because I did not expect someone to fight so hard, with such incorrect and easily disproved assumptions, in defense of such a shitty principle: not paying servers a living wage.
Honestly nothing you said made any sense there. You expect me to believe buisnesses lobbied the state of Montana to make a law that is more strict than the federal law? Kind of a silly assumption.
You can just admit you have no idea what interstate commerce is. The DoL defines that too, dig through your own sources a touch more.
I will concede I was mistaken on youth minimum wage. You got 1 out of 4 groups you identified correct. And before you bring up "students" that applies to students enrolled in a vocational program. Not someone that is a student working at another place of buisness. The other 2 you mentioned are not even mentioned by your own sources again.
But then you said
State law cannot supersede federal law. The federal law specifies that youths may be paid 4.25 and hour. I was mistaken there, but that has no impact on the Supremecy Clause of the constitution. A state cannot decide to set the wage for those employees lower than provided by federal law, which was the whole point anyway. I never should have allowed myself to get so far drawn off topic, but here we are.
That's complete fantasy and not something I said nor implied.
A specific tip amount, yeah. Minimum wage is pretty low compared to 20% tips. Fully agree that just having a living wage across the board would be the best solution, though.