How much does a waitress make in an hour in the US without tips?

Last updated on July 8th, 2024 at 06:18 am

Working in a restaurant is the third most common job in the United States. The restaurant industry took a very bad turn in during the pandemic. Although the staffing numbers are still down, it provides a lot of jobs to millions of americans.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) , the mean annual average wage of the waiter is $29,010 translating into $13.95  per hour on average.

Although the salary also depends greatly on the experience and part of the country or location where the job is. The richer the neighbourhood and location, the higher the charge. 

The BLS data also showed that the bottom 10 percent of wait staff earned less than $8.59 per hour, while the top 10 percent earned a wage up to $22.

In the post pandemic era, the hospitality industry had a catastrophe and is still healing from it. Restaurants and bars have been struggling to replace the employees who were forced to find new work as the pandemic hit.

The National Restaurant Association announced that the industry was still down by around 750,000 jobs. The challenge of restaffing a stressful and often unpredictable industry is proving difficult and workers are paid well in some states and refuse to join below the minimum wage.

There are seven states in the USA – Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington where employers are allowed to pay subminimum wages to staff provided their tips bring their earnings up to the required minimum wage level. For this reason, some may even get a wage as minimum as $2.13 an hour. Currently according to stats, 5 million workers are being paid at that rate in the country.