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All servers earn the minimum wage

2 min read

I would like to take issue with the article in the Sept. 13 Observer-Reporter, “The minimum wage debate heats up in Pennsylvania,” by Molly Duerig of PublicSource.

I’m not going to take any side on this issue in this letter, but I do want to clear up Duerig’s misleading statements. In the article, she claims several times that servers earn $2.83 per hour in wages. That statement is false. Nationwide, it is illegal to pay anyone under $7.25 per hour. In Pennsylvania and in most states, part of the tipped income is allowed to be credited toward the minimum wage. In Pennsylvania, an employer can apply a credit of $4.42 per hour toward the minimum-wage requirement with tipped income, providing those tips have been given. If it’s a snow day, a slow day or if anything interferes with consumers coming into the restaurant, then the restaurant must make up the difference to meet the $7.25 per hour minimum-wage requirement. If no one comes in during a shift, the employer must pay the server the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour on payroll. Servers do not get paid $2.83 per hour.

In most restaurants and small diners, servers earn well over the minimum wage. Even a server receiving a 10 percent gratuity on $300 in sales for a five-hour shift would make over $9 an hour. We all know the standard tip is at least 15 percent in most places and 20 percent in many other instances.

In my opinion, changing the system in Pennsylvania would cost server jobs. A restaurant can’t survive with a labor cost of more than 35 percent of sales. And all restaurants will make severe adjustments in many areas when and if the tipped wage goes up.

Duerig’s article would like to leave you with the impression that servers are a destitute lot in Pennsylvania and that is simply not the case. And again, it’s absolutely illegal to pay anyone less than $7.25 per hour in any circumstance.

Michael Passalacqua

North Franklin Township

Passalacqua is the owner of Angelo’s Restaurant in North Franklin Township.

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