So as you should all be aware, the Republicans have decided to support a "minimum wage increase" without even pretending that they're not trying to save their electoral asses. You should all also know that they 'poison-pill'-ed the bill to death, meaning they attached some pet GOP tax cuts, most importantly that all-important protection to the endangered American multi-millionaire, the estate tax. This was done so they could vote "for" minimum wage increases and simultaneously ensure Democrats vote against them, so they can run lying ads in October about the mean ol' Democrats not supporting a higher minimum wage. But
here's something you may not know.
I was working two jobs the next to last time the minimum wage increased. 40 hours a week at the Sirloin Stockade (lunch and dinner shift, sometimes breakfast if they were busy), then 40 hours working the graveyard for a Super 8 Motel. I remember the hullabaloo in 1988, when we increased the minimum wage from $3.15 all the way to $3.35. Whoo! Republicans were sure incensed that the commies were stealing that extra twenty cents from all those poor employers, and bemoaned all the jobs that would be lost because of the burden to payrolls! In an effort to appease wealthy contributors who both employ minimum wage workers and, it would seem, own restaurants and hotels in addition to whatever other enterprise has enriched them, they tied the minimum wage increase to a
decrease in the service minimum wage. This meant that my pay at my first job, the restaurant, suddenly dropped from $2.10 per hour to $2.01. Luckily that was offset by my $0.20 increase at my other job, increasing my pay a sum total - pretax - of $4.40 per week. My combined after-tax take home pay was just under $175 for 80 hours of work each week. Glad Congress saved my jobs with that service minimum offset!
While the service minimum has gone up (twelve cents, to $2.13, in 18 years), let's face it, it still ain't enough to live on. Fortunately, Washington and six other states realized this and ensured that we only have one minimum wage, allowing the service-type employees here to scrape by a little more successfully than those in many other states. But the GOP minimum wage "increase" bill wants to put an end to that...
The new legislation that the GOP pretends to hope to pass would change state laws in the following way:
...instead of getting to keep tips on top of their minimum wage in California, Nevada and the other states, tipped workers would be paid a base wage of $2.13 an hour and employers could use their tips to make up the rest.
Hooray! Ain't it great to be a tipped employee, with the money just rolling in and employers able to use YOUR TIPS to make their payroll? (btw, '88 was also the year that, in another tip o' the cap to big business, tips began to be taxed. For the first time, we had to take our tips to our manager at the end of each shift and let them count it, then we had to pay the payroll tax on it.)
So, you know how Republicans complain about taxes being double-dipped? This is the ultimate double-dip. Not only do the employers not have to pay the full minimum wage to workers in some of the most demanding jobs around, but they also get to pass the burden of taxes on the portion of "income" above $2.13 on to the employees. This is a double-dip Republicans can get into, one that hits the working stiff twice, while twice giving the business owner a break. One hit in payroll, one in taxes.
Still, you have to assume the restaurant owners know how hard their employees work and will lay out how this plan can benefit all parties, right?
"No provision results in the lowering of wages for any worker. The purpose of the provision is to allow employers with tipped employees to count their employees' tips as wages for purposes of meeting their minimum wage obligation," Brendan Flanagan, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement Tuesday after Democrats began raising concerns.
Why, thanks for that interesting viewpoint, Brendan, you pus-filled douchebag! Perhaps spokesmen should have their minimum wage cut to $2.13 and Brendan can tell us all about how this isn't lower wages. It's an interesting semantic trick they're using here, saying that it doesn't result in lowering wages for any worker. Sure, the employees themselves will take home less money (in Washington state's case, $5.50 per hour less), but in a free market society that really isn't important. If they work hard enough, they'll get rich in the end. Oh, and don't forget that they will have to pay income taxes on the $5.50 per hour that is now coming from their tips to replace their former wages.
However, on the books that the employers turn in to the government, they're able to count the tips that these hard-working people made for themselves and count it towards their payroll. So, from the government's viewpoint, no wages have been cut (I mean, the tax forms say right there that these folks are making the same ol' minimum wage), yet the employer miraculously sees a huge cut in their outlay of payroll - and hence payroll taxes, making them two-time winners.
Yes, the party that brings us Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, flag-burning bans and gay marriage bans, thinks Federal courts are worthy places to decide issues unless it involves government endorsement of Christian belief, wants to kill immigrants and everyone in the Middle East...those Republicans sure are more godly than us Democrats, aren't they? Screw women, screw gays, screw free speech, screw other countries, screw independent judiciaries, screw immigrants, screw YOU, you commie...somehow, these don't sound like things Jesus would say.