[eesmith]

There's a fair bit of caveats in that report:

> The estimates of workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage are based solely on the hourly wage that respondents report (which does not include overtime pay, tips, or commissions). It should be noted that some respondents might round their hourly earnings when answering survey questions. As a result, some workers might be reported as having hourly earnings above or below the federal minimum wage when, in fact, they earn the minimum wage.

> Some workers reported as earning at or below the prevailing federal minimum wage may not in fact be covered by federal or state minimum wage laws because of exclusions and exemptions in the statutes. Thus, the presence of workers with hourly earnings below the federal minimum wage does not necessarily indicate violations of the FLSA or state statutes in cases where such standards apply.

I don't think you can easily conclude that all those employees must be tipped.

[bpodgursky]

Listen, everything is staring you in the face. You can live in whatever reality you want, but the market rate for labor is not $7.25 anywhere in the country. Nobody has any reason to tolerate federal minimum wage, and they don't.

You can try to find poke holes in reports to find caveats that oh maybe there are food service employees actually rounding down and making min wage, but it doesn't change the reality that there aren't.

You cannot in real life find a real person making $7.25 in a restaurant, because they aren't. Arguing about it on HN doesn't change that reality.

[eesmith]

> the market rate for labor is not $7.25 anywhere in the country

Here are a couple of restaurants where the feds found they broken the federal minimum wage law, from last fall.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/sol/sol20241220

"Court orders 3 West Michigan taco restaurants to pay $823K in back wages, damages to 177 workers shortchanged minimum wage, overtime"

"... concluding that the restaurants operated an illegal tip pool that led to violations of federal minimum wage and overtime regulations."

"the court found the employers ... Failed to pay tipped employees the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour."

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20241121

"US Department of Labor recovers $87K in back wages, damages from New Port Richey restaurant for 21 workers denied minimum wage, overtime"

"U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators found the restaurant required employees to purchase a uniform shirt, which caused their average weekly wages to fall below the federal minimum wage"

That site lists more, and I'm sure they aren't the only organization which does these investigations.

[bpodgursky]

I'm only going to waste my time on one of these.

> 0, Defendants violated the provisions of Sections 206 and 215(a)(2) by including kitchen staff employees in the tip pool when they are not customarily or regularly tipped employees, thereby invalidating the tip credit.

It was an invalid tip pool, because it included kitchen staff in the pool. So then the feds threw out the tip credit when calculating the effective minimum wage. In fact, there's no evidence at all that the employees actually took home less than $7.25. It's a technical violation, sure, but not evidence to your point at all.

This should have been obvious if you read your own link — do you honestly believe the waitstaff was working for $3/$4 an hour? Come on.

[eesmith]

It's now quite clear even to me that my understanding of this topic is well and thoroughly shattered.

Thank you for putting up with me.