I happened across this the other day. TikTok video shows mom receiving $9 paycheck after working over 70 hours.
This is how young people are failed by our schools and their parents, plus just how duplicitous Pravdas are.
So, let’s go over the facts. I picked these numbers off the back of her paycheck.
Hours Worked: 70.80 @ 2.13/hr | $150.81 |
Tips reported | 708.00 |
Gross Pay | 858.81 |
Social Security | 53.25 |
Medicare | 12.45 |
Federal tax withheld | 75.83 |
Net pay | 717.28 |
Tips brought home | 708.00 |
Paycheck | 9.28 |
Effective hourly wage (708 + 150.81 divided by 70.80) = 12.13/hr.
So the math checks out and agrees. What our bartender and reporter didn’t mention was the average of $70 (assuming she was scheduled 10 shifts over 2 weeks) she brought home in tips every night. Yeah, did you hear her talk about the $708 she brought home? Other than mentioning "why you should tip your server," she didn't reference how much she got. And frankly, working as a tipped server in some of my jobs, it is a common occurrence to under-report your tips. You can't wiggle out of the tips added to a credit card, but I would not be surprised that at least $5-10 of her cash tips "disappears" on the way to the manager's office to count tips at the end of every shift. We could be easily talking about another $50 in income she took home on top of the $708 she did report.
So if Ms. Cortez would like to be paid more on payday instead of just paying the taxes, I suggest the manager keep her credit card tips and “deposit” them into her payroll so instead of taking home $70 every night, she gets a bigger check at the end of two weeks. See? Problem solved! And the unanticipated problem to this is now all of her tips might not make it into her account, or there will be a “service fee” for the business owner to do the bookkeeping to do this for her. No matter what, chances are high she wouldn’t get the whole $708.
Now, this is partly the fault of the school system because if Ms. Cortez is sincere in her anguish, the schools did not teach this woman math or reasoning. If she knew her video statements were bullshit and was trying to be a drama queen or whatever for likes (or whatever Tik-Tok does) then her parent(s) failed to teach her truthfulness and integrity.
Likewise, it is the fault of the reporter to perpetuate either the idiocy or duplicitousness of this woman by being sympathetic to Ms. Cortez in her article. It is also condescending to the reader, as it implies that most people don't know about this issue. I am sure most people have at one time in their lives worked in a "tipped" job. I personally always tip. How much I tip depends on the server. More than five visits (take your order, deliver drinks/appetizers, deliver food, check on you/top off drinks, deliver check) also gets more. A smile, even when they are obviously exhausted, gets a lot more.
Crap like this does not make me angry, it does not make me upset. It makes me sad to see such mindsets in the world.