(Other than just asking the employees, I mean.)

Can you define what you mean by 'living wage?'

In most states, in places where there's an expectation of tips, the waitstaff and bar staff work for a service wage that's far below minimum, and make the bulk of their income in tips. I worked as a waitress part-time for about eight years in the mid-90s to mid-oughts, and I would say I averaged between $12-20/hour depending on time of year at each place. It always augmented my income and was never my fulltime work, so it's hard to tell whether this would have been sufficient to meet my needs at a 40- or 50-hour week, but it probably would have as my main job averaged less hourly than that (though it also provided my benefits).

There's no health insurance as a rule, minimal worker's comp only, and no vacation time beyond your own request not to be scheduled (and hence not to be paid for that time) and the restaurant's willingness and ability to grant that request. There were also no breaks of the kind that other hourly workers expect to get - no punching out for a meal, for instance - it was catch as catch can, and you might not sit down during a shift of 8 hours at all.

Just the usual definition--enough money to pay for basic needs (housing, food, utilities, transportation, health care, etc.) according to the costs of living in the area.

Different folks set the hard numbers at different places, but it's certainly above both the federal poverty guidelines and the minimum wage.

I'm thinking about this because I want to make more effort to only support businesses which pay their employees enough money to live on (I realize that this is probably not, practically speaking, 100% attainable).

You did say "easy shorthand", so, do the employees look and act healthy, or are they gaunt and disengaged? Also, as Miko indicates, bar and restaurant employees earn tips, so look at the menu prices, calculate a typical order, and multiply x 15%. If that doesn't seem like enough money, find somewhere more expensive.

Or, you could do like I do: eat at the cheap places, and kick in an extra buck.

I tend to keep an eye on employee turnover at places I frequent. The service industry is extremely fluid (for a variety of reasons), so the places that keep the same core staff on for extended periods of time jump out at me as places that probably treat their staff very well.

The turnover and math ideas are great--thanks!

It might be worth calling up and asking the managers/owners -- even if they BS you, it'll at least alert them that their customer base cares about how they treat their employees.

Also, some jurisdictions can supersede the usual half-minimum-wage for tipped employees rule; San Francisco, for example, requires servers to be paid full San Francisco minimum wage (which is higher than federal wage).

Just the usual definition--enough money to pay for basic needs (housing, food, utilities, transportation, health care, etc.) according to the costs of living in the area.

It's much likelier for places that serve alcohol because the per-table total charge is necessarily higher. It's least likely for fast food or quick-service.

But in general, I think restuarants are the last places to worry about. In all my time waitressing, my colleagues were either people like me - working a second job for enhanced income or while a student - or people full-timing it because it was, actually, a decent enough living. Both groups are there because it's about the most lucrative legal thing you can do that is hourly, offers evening and weekend shifts so it lets you work elsewhere, study, or parent, rewards skill and efficiency, and offers a decent wage for the effort. I waitressed because it was the best deal going in a second job. I would never have wanted to work a cashiering job, for instance, because there are few of those perks - the work and pay are the same regardless of how good you are, the hours are across the board, and the wages were less than waiting tables.

I think your goal is laudable, but it's likely that restaurant service staff are doing better than most service personnel you run across. Even in a restaurant where the waitstaff is happy with the wage, you would find a completely different story if you asked what the dishwasher gets paid. Or maybe the busboys. There's a wage pecking order in restaurants and you can't be certain, just because there's no waitstaff turnover, that there aren't a couple of people in the back working illegally for $3 an hour and some leftover food, six or seven days a week. That's quite common.

The hard part of your project, to me, would be avoiding buying anything at a convenience store or chain pharmacy, where the working arrangements are worse than table service places. Chambermaids are another seriously exploitive low-wage profession - if you do a lot of business travel it might be something to bring up when choosing a conference hotel or what have you. A lot of day care and home health aides are underpaid.

And then, too, there are the hidden underpaid people. All of our food, for instance, is as cheap as it is because of low-wage, often under-the-table immigrant labor. You could buy all your food at the farmer's market or via fair trade outlets, but that'd be the only way to avoid benefitting from the underpaid labor of food producers. Our cheap clothing and office supplies and housewares are not made in the USA, and that's why their prices are so low. Cleaning services, which do office buildings and public spaces at night, and "maid" services that come to people's houses, are other havens of lousy working conditions and wages.

I try to promote good stuff by patronizing as many independently/locally owned places as possible. I'm sure there's a great deal of overlap with your project in that. But some of the problem is so systemic that a few end-user/consumer choices won't solve it, and most of the time we don't have good enough information to act on. People who hire illegally and exploit are good at hiding it - from the IRS, from the INS, and from the rest of us, too.

In Canada service employees make at least minimum wage. Tipping is similar to the US - 15% to 20% more or less depending on service.

There ya go, box - go out to eat in Canada!

You're completely right, Meeks--and I don't think for a minute that the thing is completely attainable (for me, at least).

Part of why I'm thinking about bars and restaurants is that these are visible places, that often employ friends-of-friends and people I know from around town (and lots more people, myself included, have worked in food service at some point in their lives), where people generally go in groups and socialize and stuff. And they're places where people's spending is at least partly discretionary. Because of all this, I think it's a good way to encourage people to talk about this stuff and think about it and like that.

(Note that this is not my goal with this post--I could really use some quick-and-easy ways to evaluate, roughly, how people are paid and treated.)

That's a good point. I think that the anecdotal response of the staff is probably your best litmus test. I worked in good places and was enthusiastic with my praise for them (food quality too). The only thing is, if you ask them while they're in the place and on the clock, they aren't always so free to speak. Still, you could get away with "Is this a nice place to work?" every now and then. Especially if you are comfortable making something up, and you could say "My niece is looking for a service job, is this a nice place to work?"

I also wonder about anonymous online ways to find out, for instance if you have an active local Craigslist or other community message board.

But I think Ardiril's basically right - pay depends on the average take per night - so busy places with higher prices are better places to work, living-wage-wise, than slower places with lower prices. There are high-end busy restaurants that can't keep a good staff together, but that's usually about conditions of employment, like schedule and creepy bosses or drama, as opposed to money.

gaspode, seanyboy, and I had a Twitter exchange yesterday where we talked about housekeeping/cleaning services and I have to say that as someone who hates the weekly task of dusting, mopping, vaccuuming, etc., I am more than happy to spend $95 a month having someone come out to clean my place and attempt to keep it mostly clean myself the rest of the month. We found the service through a high end concierge referral company and I was so impressed by the job the gal did on cleaning the apartment before we moved in that I request her to come by every time. I'm not sure what the her cut is of the fee they charge is, but I usually tip her $20 for an hour of work, which is equivalent to what I make an hour at my white collar job (and incidentally, about how long she takes to do our 1.5 bedroom apartment).

I don't know if that's a "fair wage" and perhaps I'm feeling a little guilty for not being a "perfect" housekeeper, but I honestly know what chores I like and what I don't like and weekly maintenance is one of those I detest. So I'm giving myself a break and keeping my household happy by helping us pay for someone to do that for us once a month.

(Gyah... such poor writing. I should have more coffee.)

I think housecleaning can be a really good independent profession that suits your hours and makes decent money. I know some people who have or do clean houses for a living or on the side and are really happy with it, and some friends that have the same housecleaner for years and both parties are quite content.

The only question is as always - who owns the service, and are their practices legal and ethical? Some branded maid services have a lousy reputation for working conditions and fair practices. Others might be just fine and a good deal for the user, the owner, and the worker.

One of the factors in how much money you can average in a day, of course, is how many houses you can get to in that day. You don't make any money during your transportation time and transportation costs money, so that drives your hourly average down.

Here in Australia we get paid minimum wage at cafes... but our minimum wage is *much* higher than in the US. $15.51 per hour.

Then again, some restaurants still rip off their employees. The Chef was working in the number 1 restaurant in the country, and bragged about how high his pay per hour was... which was pretty high, but he was only paid for *half* the hours that he actually worked, so his pay looked a LOT less impressive when you factor that in.