Sacramento restaurants solved the problem of increased labor costs inflicted on them from California’s rising minimum wage by taking a portion of the waiters tips.
Expect this trend to continue throughout California as the minimum wage gradually increases statewide. In Los Angeles minimum wage ascends to $15 an hour in January 2020.
Already in San Francisco and Seattle many restaurants are going tip free. Instead an additional surcharge is being added to the bill from which restaurants take a portion and pay a portion to the food server.
CBS Sacramento reported that one establishment in Oakland charges a mandatory 16% surcharge to all all bills, divvying it up between servers and the the restaurant to pay for rising salaries.
In January minimum wage will go up to $13 an hour in Sacramento. Moreover, California legislators are considering raising the minimum wage across the entire state to the same rate.
Breitbart News reported earlier in the week that despite the fact that labor unions fought hard to raise minimum wages in Los Angeles, they are now negotiating exemptions from the rate hike for companies whose employees are unionized.