Seriously, I made 7.25 starting off and eventually got to $11 in a restaurant. In a single night I would work 6-8 hours and still make less then the waitresses who worked 4-5 hours. They get paid an hourly wage, and still get to take home >$100 untaxed income a night. Minimum wage is only needed for slow or stingy places.

Good thing the term un-American refers to values and not citizenship status.

Well I think this is just nice. Hopefully more acts like this really do encourage solidarity.

The way things are going at the moment you'd think the USA was headed for a civil war.

I'm not trying to downplay the gesture. I know that tip culture is very prominent in the US, so I think it's honestly a cool thing to do. I just don't think it's fair that greedy employers can get away with that. Taking advantage of that tip culture and keep al the profits for them, which happens. But, well, is a cultural thing, I just can't understand how it works, so if people in the US are happy with that... fair enough.

And I'm not offended in the slightest for being called un-American. What would the opposite be? Having slaves, punishing women into abortions, putting millions of people into slavery through prison, drone striking weddings to kills thousands of innocent people? Why would I want to be called American?

Meh, you don't need to feel sorry for most food workers who live on tips. Unless they suck at their job or work at a bad place of business with bad tippers or a slow stream of customers, you can make tons of money. Going through college I delivered pizzas. On most nights it was easy to clear $100 after I took out money for gas, and that's on a 7 hour shift, plus my hourly wage. People who are good and work in restaurants can pull even more money in. Especially diners and stuff like IHOP or Dennys where there are a lot of customers and not many servers.

As for the thread, lol, wonder if GAF discussed it and I wonder which way they spun it?

If you are not a server, or bartender in the restaurant industry and don't get tips you do get screwed with the tipping system, not denying that.

However, even if a bar is very busy and has lots of customers the wages of the bartenders and waitresses are almost always less than standard minimum wage and instead set at the government allowed tip industry minimum wage.

So as a quick case study to show the ripple effect raising minimum wage has at a restaurant lets use this example.  Bar X is paying a waitress $4.25 an hour while the minimum wage for tipping jobs is $3.25. The the local government increases that minimum to $5.25.  This is now a net cost for the business that they have to pay each and every waitress and bartender. The waitress making $4.25 will demand a wage increase to $6.25 to account for existing wage increases and seniority to carry over. The company is forced to comply so as to not lose their employees loyalty to the company. So now each empolyee is suddenly making the extra $2 an hour. If this is a small but successfull restaurant they will have around 15 employees that get this $2 an hour raise. The average for employee work hours is 30 a week. This is now a $900 pure loss of income. If this place was even mildly successful and had an medium cost of $15 a plate they would need 60 additional customers a week to not lose money. That obviosuly is not going to happen overnight. Their only choice to not lose money would be to increase cost of food and hope they don't increase it so much that they start to lose business.

Minimum wage is not about being stingy, or being a horrible company. It has a far broader reach than that.

So a waitress thinks that any White American that supports Trump is a racist? Is that what I am getting from this? Seriously?That should be what this news is about. Why people think that if you're OK with Trump and are White, you must be a racist.

My original post that only mentioned Trump. Gotcha.

It seems like I hit a nerve.

I know this is potential propaganda to make Trump and his supporters look good, honing in on one solitary event like this  - but I mean at the same time.. it did happen. At least as far as we know..  And I have a hunch many other Trump supporters at least somewhat exemplify this attitude. Besides, God knows Trump's opposition uses propaganda against him FAR more often, not to mention seemingly have FAR more instances of bullying, rioting, violence, etc. Even if you don't agree with many of his appointments and/or policies (as I don't), you can only look at the current results, which is currently the actions of the supporters from both sides. And at a certain point, looking at the contrast of both sides, you've got to wonder, who is really in the right here?

In addition, I just don't understand the "Trump is racist/sexist" rhetoric, especially when you compare him to his only real opposition on the general.. A buffoon who says some impulsive, dumb shit? Sure. Egotistical alpha male? Probably. A bit Xenophobic even? Maybe. But racist/sexist? I just don't see it. Where's the evidence? 

This is heartwarming to see this story of kindness and unification amidst all the venom and divisiveness (mostly by the left of late), and I hope more Trump supporters lead by example to help wash away this mostly unfair "hateful bigot" they have been branded with.