Wage for Ind. servers among the lowest in the US, By Dana Hunsinger Benbow, April 8, 2011, Indianapolis Star: “Customers ask for ice water with lemon. And then more lemons. Oh, yes. Some sugar, too, please. They ask to split a meal – half the sandwich with mayonnaise and tomato, the other with mustard and onion. Make that a Caesar salad on one plate and fries, no salt, on the other. When it’s all said and done and the meal is over, waiter Thomas Ievoli said he’s at his tipping point. Unfortunately, his customers aren’t. ‘People are expecting more service and paying less for it,’ said Ievoli, a server at Old Pointe Tavern and a bartender at Lockerbie Pub. ‘They do all kinds of special requests. They will sit there forever. They special-order and then tip you 10 percent – if not less.’ In the economic downturn, lower tips have made it tough for waiters and bartenders to survive. In Indiana, it’s especially tough because it, along with 17 other states, has the lowest minimum wage for people who depend on tips in the nation: the federal standard of $2.13 an hour. While the federal minimum wage has steadily increased over the years to $7.25 an hour, the $2.13 mark for tipped employees has remained in place since 1991…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty