The "and" is very important here. Places like Seattle now mandate servers get a real wage. It inexplicably hasn't changed tip culture at all, so now they get regular wages and still complain when someone doesn't tip 20%+ for a takeout order.

The mandate stipulates that they can get minimum wage, I wouldn’t call that a “regular” wage, and certainly not a livable one.

Seattle and its surrounding cities have among the highest minimum wages in the entire world (~$22/hour). You're maybe not renting a studio apartment by yourself but it is far from destitution.

You can get a pretty decent 1 bedroom apartment in the U district of Seattle on $22/hour, such as [1].

[1] https://collegeplaceapartments.managebuilding.com/Resident/p...

A full-time job should allow at least for a moderate place of living alone, otherwise it's not a minimum wage.

I mean it's still rough if you want to live close to downtown, but it's also $21.30/hr and going to go up in 2027.

I hate tip culture too, but I don’t blame the employees for it. I never tip for takeout, counter service, retail, etc, and I’ve never actually had anyone complain or so much as make a face.

for service workers, up to 25k in tips can be deducted from taxable income ("no tax on tips")

Why should customers need to care about a store’s employees tax bracket

Because that's the shithole we live in. If you don't like it, take your head out of your ass and crucify a politician or move

From 2025 to 2028, in a specific list of qualified occupations, as long as your AGI is below $150,000.

Is there something about serving people food that means you should get a tax break? Or is that just a holdover of cash tipping to kindly get servers to actually declare the full value if their tips as wages instead of just saying they magically weren't tipped all year

IIRC it was naked vote-buying.