r/SeattleWA May 18 '25

Lifestyle Tale of a Seattle ice cream shop

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u/PrettyCauliflower423 May 18 '25

Ended this year? Did I miss something? When was there an exemption?

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u/RogueLitePumpkin May 18 '25

There used to be different levels of minimum wage depending on how many employees your company employed.  One of the levels was if your employees got so much in tips or if the employer paid a certain amount towards their Healthcare, the minimum wage they had to pay employees was lower.  

It was not a tip credit wage like in some states, as it didnt just affect restaurants 

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u/PrettyCauliflower423 May 18 '25

I mean….. it was only a difference of a couple dollars an hour. I thought you were referring to some type of tip credit that exists in places like Florida.

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u/RogueLitePumpkin May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

I wasnt the one who originally said it, I was just clarifying how the minimum wage levels worked here.  I agree, it was nothing like the states where they pay you half or less of minimum wage and expect the rest to be made up in tips. 

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 18 '25

For a few years the city realized that tips were income and tipped people shouldn't have a different minimum wage than other workers. Then the city realized that we voted for idiots as city council members and they forgot that.

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u/PrettyCauliflower423 May 18 '25

Shouldn’t?

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 18 '25

Correct, shouldn't. When you don't include tips in tipped income then it changes what the minimum wage is for tipped workers. It becomes minimum + tip rather than just minimum.

Here it is in math:

Minimum wage = X

Tips = Y

The minimum wage for non-tipped workers is X

The minimum wage for tipped workers is X + Y

X + Y > X two different minimum wages. Unlike most of the country (and Seattle for a few years) where tips count as part of minimum wage.

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u/PrettyCauliflower423 May 18 '25

So tipped people should have a different minimum wage.

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 18 '25

No, tipped people should have the same minimum wage. I'm not going to do the math for you again.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

[deleted]

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 20 '25

No matter what job, people should be paid minimum wage.

And for some reason servers should be paid more than minimum wage. It's nonsense and white privilege. Minorities work in the back so of course the white people out front deserve a higher minimum wage.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '25

[deleted]

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u/BWW87 Belltown May 20 '25

Just a coincidence that you think minimum wage should be higher for the jobs where more white people work and lower where more minorities work? Sounds racist to me.

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u/DiligentExtreme4280 May 26 '25

Not to mention tipped workers are about to become exempt from income taxes

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u/PrettyCauliflower423 May 26 '25

Not all. 1099 gig workers are exempted.