Rodney

I made minimum wage back in '74, $2.00/hour as I recall -- working at a Straw Hat Pizza store, in fact, though we didn't deliver. As an 18- or 20-year-old who was still carried on the parents' health insurance, you could just about live on 2/hr if you got a cheap basement apartment or shared a two-bedroom apartment with somebody else.

If that $2/hour minimum wage had kept up with inflation (according to a handy inflation calculator), it would be $8.32 an hour today, more or less. I doubt that many pizza delivery drivers -- or a whole lot of fast food people in general -- get that much. But that's what you'd need to live as well as we did 30 years ago. What's the federal minimum now, $5.75? That's a joke.

Whether you're talking pizza delivery drivers or any other food service type, I can tell you one thing: the rise of the tip jar came with the fall of the minimum wage. As the minimum wage fell farther and farther behind inflation, those tip jars grew more and more numerous. That is a fact. From that, you can draw your own conclusions and judgments.