Regarding the minimum wage in Kansas
By Owen Morris in News
Monday, Feb. 16 2009 @ 10:00AM
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In many cases workers with disabilities or full-time students are allowed to be paid under minimum wage. Same with people under 20, whose minimum wage is $4.25 for their first 90 days of work.
Then there's the tip-based worker, who, according to the government, is anyone who "regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips." They have to be payed $2.13 and hour. If the person doesn't make enough tips to cover minimum wage, the employer has to make up the difference. That is as long as the restaurant grosses over $500,000 annually -- if it doesn't it fall under an exception for "workers whose employers gross under $500,000 annually and don't produce for interstate commerce." There are a lot of restaurants that don't gross half-a-million per year and therefore only have to pay state minimum wage.
Any guesses on Kansas' minimum wage?
Lower. Nope, you're still too high.
Kansas' minimum wage, which was set in 1988, is $2.65. A bill introduced by State Sen. Marci Francisco of Lawrence would raise that to the federal level and tie it to every federal increase. The Feds are increasing minimum wage to $7.55 this summer.
This increase would cover essentially all the groups I mentioned earlier, or as Raise the Wage spokesperson Heidi Zeller told the Lawrence Journal-World, "the biggest group of people earning the state minimum wage are in the category of care workers for children, the elderly and infirm, in addition to workers on small farms whose employers gross under $500,000 annually and do not produce for interstate commerce."
It would also mean that those sub-$500,000 restaurants would have to pay employees at least $6.55 per hour. Whereas before you could say tough luck to a waiter who made only $5 an hour at your restaurant, now, as a restaurateur, you'd be forced to make up the difference. For this reason among others, the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association is against it, as are some other big lobbying groups. Their essential argument is that restaurants are already having trouble paying the bills. Or to put it more bluntly, "When the owner suffers, everyone suffers."
Experts aren't giving the bill much chance of passing. But at least now you might understand the issue they're fighting over. And maybe you'll think twice about stiffing that nice-but-a-little-ditzy waitress on the Kansas side.
Kansas' minimum wage, which was set in 1988, is $2.65. A bill introduced by State Sen. Marci Francisco of Lawrence would raise that to the federal level and tie it to every federal increase. The Feds are increasing minimum wage to $7.55 this summer.
This increase would cover essentially all the groups I mentioned earlier, or as Raise the Wage spokesperson Heidi Zeller told the Lawrence Journal-World, "the biggest group of people earning the state minimum wage are in the category of care workers for children, the elderly and infirm, in addition to workers on small farms whose employers gross under $500,000 annually and do not produce for interstate commerce."
It would also mean that those sub-$500,000 restaurants would have to pay employees at least $6.55 per hour. Whereas before you could say tough luck to a waiter who made only $5 an hour at your restaurant, now, as a restaurateur, you'd be forced to make up the difference. For this reason among others, the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association is against it, as are some other big lobbying groups. Their essential argument is that restaurants are already having trouble paying the bills. Or to put it more bluntly, "When the owner suffers, everyone suffers."
Experts aren't giving the bill much chance of passing. But at least now you might understand the issue they're fighting over. And maybe you'll think twice about stiffing that nice-but-a-little-ditzy waitress on the Kansas side.
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