So many factors go into deciding whether to quit your job, but the pay is a big one.
Even if money isn’t your top priority, it’s important to figure out how much you’re actually getting from your current employer because what you make is more than just your salary or wage.
Estimating your total compensation gives you a truer measure of how much your employer actually spends on you. And it will help you figure out if a new job offer will work as well or better for you financially.
The company that owns Olive Garden is raising wages in a bid to attract workers. But the move doesn’t go far enough to satisfy critics of a practice common in the restaurant industry.
Currently at Darden Restaurants (DRI), which owns Longhorn Steakhouse, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen and other chains in addition to Olive Garden, all employees are entitled to at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 or state minimum wage.
But not all of their wages have to come from the company. In many states, employers pay tipped workers a sub-minimum wage floor, which amounts to $2.13 at the federal level and is higher in some states. Customers pay the rest in tips. If those tips don’t bring employees up to the minimum wage, companies like Darden are required to make up the difference.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and other top economists say productivity is the key to long-run wage growth for American workers. That would be true — if only the fruits of economic expansion were actually trickling to average incomes. International Monetary Fund
“If the labor market continues to improve, we will see some pickup in wage growth, but we have at the moment low productivity growth,” Yellen told Congress in her last official testimony of her term as Fed chair, which ends early next year. “That wage growth would be greater over time if productivity growth picks up.”
Dispatches From The Front 