I’m not talking about huge establishments. I know on a grand scale, on average, it wouldn’t affect prices that much. I’m saying at individual small businesses.

The business I worked for barely made a profit and many years actually operated at a loss.

Restaurant wages is just a lot different than regular wages. Raising minimum wage from the $3.89 minimum that is set for restaurants up to $22 would cause that huge spike in prices at restaurants. Of course a ton of restaurants that are actually paying their tipped employees $3.89 can probably afford to absorb some of that cost and be less greedy before raising prices, it’s still a big jump.

So I’m not necessarily talking minimum wage vs livable wage. Minimum wage should definitely be raised to livable wages.

I’m just saying raising $15/hr (base pay where I’ve worked) to oftentimes $27/hr (on average with tips) is next to impossible at a small restaurant business without raising prices a lot more than 4%. A small restaurant like that could maybe absorb the cost it would take to raise wages from $15 to say $16 or $17 without raising prices. But a $12 wage increase would require prices to go up those 20% being lost by tips.

Of course they wouldn’t HAVE to raise wages all the way up to $27/hr in this alternate reality, but then the workers get the short end of the stick without tips.

This is often why a lot of tipped workers are actually against getting rid tipping. Cus in the end they would make less.

Edit: also in my mind I was actually thinking closer to $2.50 but just rounded up for simplicity’s sake. So apologies there!