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Comment by chucksmash | Hacker News Reader

"Minimum wage" is a bit of a misnomer as there are a whole raft of situations and exemptions where the minimum wage is not actually the minimum wage you can be legally paid.

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Overnight security guard is not one of those exceptions and if you think you can convince an independent contractor to even put on socks for 35 dollars, which is the only way this would be legal, you're living in a fantasy.

Have the security guard serve food to someone once per shift. Now the minimum wage is $2.63.

Not even that, being a tip-enabled position is satisfactory to reduce the minimum to 2.63, so just slap a tip jar somewhere no one can reach (but still see) and call it a day.

Every job is tip enabled by default. I think some professions would frown on receiving tips but afaik none are legally barred from receiving tips.

Last time I tried to tip a cop they threw me in jail and tried to call it bribery.

Luckily, the judge didn’t mind. /s

They call those campaign contributions where I'm from, but that's only for sheriffs and judges.

Please don't propagate misinformation like this. Even with tipped wages you still must make minimum wage including tips. The issue is people will read and believe that someone can make just a low amount of money because a position is tipped. This is incorrect.

Tipped minimum wage requires a person to receive enough in tips to match the non-tipped minimum wage. If there aren't sufficient tips for that, the employer has to make up the difference. The only question is if Arkansas has its own version of that to require matching the Arkansas minimum wage ($11) instead of just the federal minimum wage ($7.25).

They're supposed to do that, but many don't. It's not like the IRS is going to swoop in and bust them for parking less than minimum wage. The employees that take those jobs aren't in a position to make demands and likely aren't even informed that it is required.

I think you would have to adjust the wage up quite a bit to account for the security guard's collusion with the local thieves. 100% what I would expect anyway.

You can get exceptions for people with disabilities and full-time students in a few fields. There's very few exceptions where someone can make less than minimum wage actually.

Surprised to see this downvoted as it is just a simple statement of fact, to the best of my understanding.

My understanding of minimum wage is on the (US) federal level, where in addition to the standard exceptions that folks know (servers, farmworkers, etc), small enough companies or companies that don't engage in interstate commerce are also exempt from paying the minimum wage.

I wonder if people just don't like what I wrote and downvoted ab irato, if this came across as contrarían and was downvoted for vibes, or if state minimum wage laws change the fact pattern and I'm wrong in my understanding. If I'm wrong I'd like to be corrected.

P.S. since I hate to leave something incorrect: servers actually ARE supposed to get federal minimum wage from their employer if their tips don't cover the difference between the $2.xx they get paid and the federal minimum wage.

Who the hell is going to risk their life for $35 lmao?

Thieves.

In the context of this conversation, who are you going to hire for a 12 hour shift at a real job, where their life is on the line, without having insurance or hazard pay or anything, for $35?

(metaphorical you, and this is more in response to chucksmash above)

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