Working For Tips

There is presently a lot of heated social conversation about people who traditionally receive tips as part of their pay for work – namely those in the restaurant-bar, hotel, taxi-limousine, beauty service and travel service industries. They legally receive what’s known as a sub-minimum wage (apx. $5.00/hour) from their employers, because their tips, supposedly, bring them up to a living wage. That wasn’t true 30 or 40 years ago and it’s even worse now. That’s because more and more Americans, either out of ignorance or cheapness, are leaving smaller and fewer tips. So the question is: should the sub-minimum wage be increased? Would it surprise you to know that many Americans are saying no?

Tipping is a uniquely American custom, something Americans traveling abroad are delighted to discover and foreigners visiting here often learn to their embarrassment the first time they stiff a waiter or cab driver. There’s an irony here, since it appears that tipping began in the 1600s in England when men drinking in taverns gave money to servers “to insure promptitude” or T.I.P for short.

When the practice started to make its way into American bars and restaurants in the late 1890s, a movement against it rose up. Many Americans felt it was in opposition to the country’s ideals of class equality and would lead to the development of a “servile class” that would be rendered financially dependent on the rich. But the custom persisted – and grew – here, nonetheless.

Over time, tipping somehow went out of favor (in some instances out of legality) in Europe, and indeed created that “servile class” in America – which has never been a classless society, despite our delusions to the contrary. This explains why many Americans resent tipping and/or look down on people who work for tips and/or are ashamed to work in jobs that receive tips.

I was the daughter of a man who spent most of his working life first as a waiter and then as a skycap. He worked for tips. He worked very hard and put up with an assortment of indignities, but still never made enough to support a family, which is why my mother worked in the 1950s when most women were still housewives.

She worked until the 1980s, pouring her considerable intelligence into the bottomless, low-paying well of the pink ghetto, first as a bookkeeper, then as a comptroller, and finally as the manager of the subscription department of an elite specialty business newspaper – where she signed her letters “L. Browne,” lest the high-powered male subscribers suspect she was a woman. And meanwhile, my black father smiled as he allowed white people to rub his head for luck in the hope it would earn him a larger tip.

Since Ronald Reagan (whom I still blame for everything), America has been creating an economy and social mindset guided by millionaire Republican belief that the population is made up of Makers and Takers, an idea that middle class and working class Republicans buy into. That’s why so many people still think that teenagers are the ones working minimum-wage jobs, when the truth is, most teens can’t find jobs because the jobs they used to have are now held by adults trying to make a living and support their families. People working for tips are also doing the same thing.

In case you haven’t noticed, unless you (or you and your partner/spouse, if you have one) are bringing in a six-figure salary, nothing in America is affordable, anywhere – not housing, utilities, food, gas, a night at the movies, nothing – except clothing, house wares, and the smart electronic devices everyone loves so much, all of which are sold cheap because they’re made by indentured and child labor through the American “job creators” who are actually outsourcing those jobs to Third World countries. Welcome to the 21^st century. 

It’s time to raise the minimum wage and the sub-minimum wage, federally. And it’s time for Americans who eat in American restaurants, stay in American hotels, ride in American taxis – etc. – to ante up and leave a decent 15-20% tip.  You’re not tipping for extraordinarily wonderful service, you’re tipping because that’s what we do here. It’s the American way.

Big Changes in Medicare

If you have health care coverage through Medicare, don’t forget that between October 15^th and December 7^th Medicare folks have to decide if we’re going to keep our current plan (different versions of straight Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, which operates like an HMO or PPO) or opt for a different one. If you decide to keep your plan, you don’t have to do anything. But if you want to change your plan, it has to be done by December 7th - a day that now lives in infamy for this additional reason (in addition to Pearl Harbor, young people).

This year, it’s worth noting that in many instances, what is covered and to what extent it’s covered, has changed more substantially than in previous years. That’s because very extensive budget cuts were made that we’re really going to feel in 2015 and beyond. I have the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Advantage Plan and my co-pays will increase; it seems that some of the medications I take are no longer covered; and there is now a deductible for medications as well as higher prescription costs. I’ve learned this by just quickly glancing at the phone-book-sized package of information I received from BC/BS. I haven’t even had a chance to look at the government’s phone book, “Medicare and You,” but I’m going to have to review them both very carefully and probably make a few phone calls, too.

However, I did come across two articles that nicely summarize what’s going on and can help us plow through this frustrating process: one from Fiscal Times and one in The New York Times, both of which are more than worth a click, so I urge you to click on these links and help yourself understand what’s new, ‘cause it ain’t good news. Note that both articles suggest you also visit the official Medicare site, which is a good idea, as is contacting your current plan (the stuff they send you includes a phone number). And by the way, if you haven’t yet received your “phone book” (you should have gotten it by September 30^th), call your plan and request it. Ditto for the government tome.

I supported the Affordable Care Act and I still do. It’s apparently doing some good for millions of Americans who had no health coverage or really bad or quite unaffordable coverage. But I haven’t forgotten that it was constructed from a very big, very sloppy law with far too much input from insurance and pharmaceutical companies. And the hateful, dysfunctional GOP forced Medicare cuts to help pay for it. After all, what else could possibly have been cut and the idea of tax reform that forces rich individuals and corporations to pay more is out of the question!

The plain fact is, all health care coverage in America is bad, primarily because health care in this country is a profit-making business. If you’re on Medicare (or anything else) and are sick or get sick or need major surgery, you’re screwed. Even if you have a Medicare Supplement Plan, you’re screwed. If you don’t have plenty of your own money to supplement your health care plan – whatever it is, including Medicare – you’re screwed. Indeed, having enormous medical bills they can’t possibly pay is now the primary reason that people go bankrupt – by the millions – and that situation is only going to get worse.

So, after you spend a cozy night by the fire with your latest Medicare information materials – and try to resist throwing them into the fire – I strongly suggest you phone or email the offices of your Senators and Congressional Representative and let them know that the Medicare budget cuts are doing you harm. I promise you that a deluge of such communications will not go unnoticed by them. You might want to do this both before and after the November election – in which I urgently hope you plan to participate. 

Wake up and smell the calendar. It’s not the 20^th century anymore.