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brace covered is with us she's a reporter with the Center for American
Progress is blog Think Progress a price
her hair done I am well mine pronounce your last name right
I covert like word up i hack perfect
okay there's you you rota
a actually you're a great piece about how the government botch the wall street
a crisis I'd I i would like to ask you about that and also mississippi drug
testing welfare recipients
but the one that was at the top of the list was banane
tippen and pain a living wage is
or is it ok if we talk about all these things yeah definitely
cool art the I'm I brought this up in the first or the show
about the the public options new brewpub in here in DC that's going to just pay
fifteen dollars an hour
and and benefits rather than tips and I'm getting always calls from people who
are tipped workers saying hey wait a minute i buy was making a pretty good
living here
job I'm by I and and and
I'm wondering you know what way when you are researching has what did you learn
about to
tipped workers well I think the first thing to
remember about up workers in this country is that they have a very
a much lower minimum wage then every other worker
that work the text minimum wages two dollars and thirteen
than which actually probably some pretty well because
the minimum wage for everyone else is $7.25 an hour
and now restaurant owners are supposed to make up the difference if
kept don't bring their hourly wages after
$7.25 an hour but a lot of them down still a lot of people who are living a
who are working in the restaurant industry are living off really low wages
detect start making it up and that's why we see
a poverty rate among them that is nearly triple that everyone else
and well you know I understand that for some people
the kids can feel really lucrative and I think uncertainty establishment that's
probably true
but I for by a large that doesn't tend to help people make
I really stable living I and it also comes with a lot of other
unsavory side effects I the research and testing really shows
that people think that what they're doing is reporting that service but
that's really not what I meant that happening
I'm tips really don't very very much I service
a lot of people say they're not even paying twenty percent which is
basically the the standard will think that what we what we kept
11 percent of people say they leave nothing at all so it's it's a system
that's not really rewarding people for better service
what they and that rewarding people for are things like
I there are 1 in or a woman who tracked it will get even more of a chip
white servers make more money than black servers so
there's a lot of starters unconscious things that are going on that are
expressed in tipping
that we don't really like and I think we think that we like to express my
appreciation for
but service aren't actually was coming through now I mention I lived in
Louise night in our kids lived in Germany for a year back
some many years ago but at that time
and I'm assuming is still the case German companies
paid their wait staff well enough
that most Germans don't tip or when they do tip they basically just round out the
changing of you
if you're if your meal came to twenty-five dollars and thirty cents in
and you put down twenty six dollars they bring a bag seventy cents you leave the
you leave the the coinage on the table and you know I might amount to a dollar
or two dollars because they've got
larger points and we do but but a a occasionally you would leave a tip if
you got what you thought was really extraordinary service
but II told the story by I
act left 20 percent tip once when I in their early days we had moved there in
and the waiter brought it back to me he was insulted he he felt that I was
ridiculing him
and a is that a system
I mean that's that's typical all across Europe in and in many other parts the
world
is that a system that we should consider adopting the United States
right yeah I i think that that is a much more humane
system and what these restaurants are doing in the US that are experimenting
with them
is that they are getting real estate and instead they're just paying their
workers
all living wage in giving them a great benefit which i think is a better
trade-off
and the public option which is the bar in DC that opening it will be doing at
this point
pay at least fifteen dollars an hour out hopefully maybe a little bit more for
the
you have all the more experienced and its I pointed out like it that's what
are the first thing
restaurants or bars and I'm seem to do this it doesn't cater to high-end
clientele
so I think that's really interesting about them other restaurants have done
the same thing
more on the high N scale and a I think they make a pretty good deal for their
workers at as issue restaurant in New York
state yet vacation days pasted believe health insurance as well as
decent pay which is a lot more than what most restaurant workers can say they get
and and Kanye West Coast a place called lingeri
babe and tipping and the sounder
also really love that because he says that his service improves his revenue
one up
more people wanted to work there stiff and the environment that it creates is
one
abt I K-mart instead of sort of competing against each other for checked
and service improvement because like I said chips not really very on service
they're not really sending a message
stuck here for a manager to you know on talking about service and
waiters feeling like they're trying to figure out what it is that they're
getting jumpy back from
the people that they're serving and all that leaves that better atmosphere
has had led him to have higher profits because people want to come eat there
bar it's great now meanwhile down in Mississippi I was going off on bobby
Jindal than last are we had
the conversation about sex at our schools but at Mississippi next door
I week we talk about the war on women
but I have not heard the phrase war on the poor used very much but
I don't know how else to describe what mississippi is doing
and mississippi just passed a bill kid drug test
some welfare recipients basically what they're gonna do it at all
people who are applying to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families which is
cash assistance they have to answer questionnaires that evaluate
their likelihood is substance abuse and then if they are deemed to be a risk
which i think is interesting I'm not entirely sure how they determine that a
questionnaire
at their team to be addressed may have to take a drug test and
if they had has positive have to undergo treatment for substance abuse
if they test positive again it may get kicked out for our three month
and third positive test kick them out for a year
now I need me saying to yourself well you know they tested positive for drugs
I think about what that tax cuts off someone's life line when maybe they are
struggling with substance abuse
change how are they supposed to get back on their feet if they don't have
a little bit of help to get them through for an entire year
is this time period is the state providing the funding for the treatment
I crowd not sure where the funding for the training camp and they're not
expanding
in expanding Medicaid so they're they're not throwing them into the it a public
health first
up right are funding at least the administrative costs those
doing me the drug test through money
becomes to them from the government for this program and with disturbing about
that is that
state get a limited hot money from the government for welfare
and then the state has somewhat wide discretion to decide
how they use it but if they use all that money administer drug test
that means it's not money that's going to work benefit are helping people pay
for child care
or helping with job training now it's its fineee
it steal it from it for one thing is taking it from another
and it's not the first
state by far you experiment drug testing the well we see what all the other ones
it's very costly and you don't get
any benefit from it you know I there's a stereotype
for whatever reason that welfare recipients are more likely to be drug
users but I'm again we found that actually not the case that they have
lower rate this
substance abuse I'm than the general population so it's kinda
you on a wild goose chase for something that's quite expensive
yeah I ate it and it's a racial I stereotype I mean this goes back I
remember ronald reagan in nineteen eighty
sane doesn't make doesn't it doesn't
doesn't get you upset when you're standing in line waiting to buy
hamburger
and some young block and we all know what that what he meant when he said
that
stand funny awaiting a by t-bone steaks with a with the
with food stamps and it's just it's just so
wrong any outside price covered thanks so much for being with us
here