This has been a high-flying season for the NFL and four of the next round of games feature over/unders of 51.5 points. For instance, both the Tennessee Titans and Green Bay Packers are averaging 31 points per game, and they’ll collide Sunday night with an over/under of 56. “No game has offered more points this season,” reports aggregating service TheLines.com. (The Packers are favored by four.) Of course, odds mean almost nothing when the cleats are strapped on. Witness the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ ignominious face-plant against the Cincinnati Bengals after being favored by 14.5 points. Still, the oddsmakers are euphoric. Even a mismatch of the Cleveland Browns (by 10) against the New York Jets is expected to generate 44.5 points. Our Las Vegas Raiders are expected to have their playoff hopes narrowly squelched by the Miami Dolphins (-2.5) with an over/under of 47.5. If you like sheer scoring, you can watch the inept Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers slug it out for a projected 48.5 over/under. Most games are expected to be knuckle-biters, with only three quasi-blowouts in sight: Tampa Bay Buccaneers by nine over the Detroit Lions (51.5), Baltimore Ravens rolling over the New York Giants by 10 (no over/under) and the dominant Kansas City Chiefs putting a 10.5-point kibosh on Raheem Morris‘ renascent Atlanta Falcons (53). As for Raider Nation, well, there’s always next year.
Steve Wynn was wrong about tip-pooling but he was also ahead of the curve. The Department of Labor has amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to require that tips be shared with back-of-house employees. Proponents say this tide will lift all boats but there are skeptics. In its favor, the new rule excludes managers from tip pooling. Wage & Hour Administrator Cheryl Stanton said it “removed the regulatory restrictions on an employer’s ability to require tip pooling when it does not take a tip credit and instead pays tipped employees the full minimum wage in direct wages.” However, it used to be that when a tipped worker’s front-of-house duties fell below 80% of their work time, their pay became subject to the federal minimum wage. No more. The Economic Policy Institute contends that $700 million in salary could be lost. “The new regulation from the Trump administration does away with [the 80/20] protection, replacing it with vague, much less protective language,” affecting as many as 243,000 employees, says the EPI. The good news for tipped workers is that the change will take 60 days to implement, giving the Biden administration time to attempt to thwart it.
One more little thing … Have yourself a merry Christmas! You’ve earned it.
Tip stealing is never OK, attempting to do this when the restaurant business is teetering because of the pandemic is just disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, blowing up months of negotiations on stimulus then jetting off to your private club to spend Christmas when tens of millions of people suffer through a public health disaster that you ignored and lied about is just putrid. Obviously he is doing this because not enough Republicans are willing to destroy our Republic and help him steal the election he lost. His Administration promised repeatedly that we would vaccinate 20 million Americans by January 1st, so far we have injected only one million, and its the 24th… Stay safe, Merry Christmas…
The restaurants and their employees are hurting bad, and we need to take the boot of government gone wild off their neck. I am so glad the President told Congress to give him a better covid relief bill than this meager $600/person stimulus next to the $billions of pork projects the Democrats included in this bill. The President works all the time for us, no matter where he is. We should all rejoice that his personal leadership has given us now two vaccines, with more coming, in such a record short time to begin vaccinating before the end of the year. Many of the American people were so brain-washed by the media that they showed their appreciation by voting against him. It is amazing what he got done with all the terrible things the Democrats and the media did to try and stop every move he made and to criticize every good think he did. God bless this man.
It’s the President’s own Department Of Labor this is implementing the tip stealing in restaurants, hopefully the new Biden Administration will quickly nip that in the bud, they have a lot of work to do… Combining the Covid relief bill with the government spending bill is only a thing because Mitch McConnell ignored for six months the relief bill that the Democrats in the House passed that was way more generous than the $600 compromise. Get it done Mr. President, playing golf everyday then tweeting about it from the clubhouse of your private club does nothing for millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits expire today, not to mention the three thousand who die each day from Covid…
In early summer Pelosi and the House Democrats passed not a Covid relief bill, but a $3+ Trillion bill that was full of pork, with bailouts to blue states for years of Democrat mismangement, and many other items totally urelated to Covid relief. The Senate correctly ignored it. The ensued months of negotiation between the Trump Administration, the Senate and Nancy Pelosi. Countless compromises were offered by the Administration, but Pelosi would not budge from her pork bill, only a small cut in length of time. She made it clear after the election that it was only then that she would consider a more realistic bill. The current bill is horrible. A meager $600 per person and full of non Covid pork. President Trump should hold out for a more realistic bill with more money for the American people and NO PORK!