Perception vs. Reality part 3 (servers)

     & finally, the last occupation I wanted to write about - servers. I feel like they garner a lot of sympathy, and it's not necessarily unwarranted. How could they not, when the federal government only mandates that tipped employees make $2.13/hour? For the scope of this post, though, I'll keep things local.
     So, in our great big state, the minimum wage for servers is not lower. That is, whatever everybody else's minimum wage is, that's what servers get (at the bottom end). So - throughout California, servers must be paid at least $12/hour. In San Jose, Milpitas, & Santa Clara? That jumps to a sweet $15. So we're talking a base salary of $30k/year ($15/hr x 40 hours/week x 50 weeks/year). This is where things get fuzzy, so I welcome input so I can modify this post with more accurate numbers.
     Despite my best Googling efforts, I couldn't find how much an average meal in the Bay Area costs. So, I'll spitball and you'll just bear with me (go ahead and call me out if anything seems wildly off). Considering an average party of 4 (I rounded up from 3.7 and also have no clue how outdated that source is), let's do a brief rundown:

• An entree per person at... $15/each, sounds about right for casual eateries (probably a typical spot that's 2 $$ on Yelp). That's $60.
• A shared app for $12 puts us at $72.
• & let's say just half the group grabs a beer or drink for another... $18, to make the numbers easy. We are looking at a tab of $90.
• After tax (9.25% in San Jose), that's $98.33.

     Now, how much do people tip? According to Zagat, the national average is 18.1%. I'm trying to keep figures local, but this data isn't specific enough (not really sure why they include coffee shops). So let's just go with 18%. On a bill of $98.33, that works out to $17.70. Let's take some other considerations into account:

• I usually allot an hour for a meal from the time I sit down to the time I leave. Hour and a half isn't unheard of but definitely longer than my usual experience.
• Servers usually serve multiple parties at a time.

     At the lower end, assuming a server only works one table per hour (which sounds like an impossibly conservative [low] number), that's a $15 base rate + $17.70, or $32.70 per hour. At 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year, that works out to .............. $65,400. Which, honestly, is way more than I expected.
     Let me bring up a few counters:

• A party can take longer than an hour
• Restaurants experience downtime

     To which I say:

• There's a reason I use averages
• I only assumed one table per server per hour

      So... yeah. Obviously those are just a couple numbers I hacked together, so there's plenty of wiggle room. But just going off of ballpark figures, it's hard to say servers are having a tough time, at least in CA. & yeah, not all servers are full-time, but guess what? That just sounds like the same issue with teachers. They might not work year-round, but when they do, the pay ain't bad.
     To wrap up the series - I do NOT hate on any of the particular occupations I wrote on. I just feel they get an unwarranted amount of sympathy from society at large. I DO support raising minimum wage (I am a firm believer that a rising tide lifts all boats), and that coincides with my belief that everyone in America should get paid more (so I am also a fan of a "Freedom Dividend," as championed by Andrew Yang).