• Under certain conditions, South Carolina restaurants may pay food servers less than the minimum wage.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  South Carolina does not have its own minimum wage laws, which means employers in South Carolina are bound by the federal laws contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act. These laws ensure that food servers earn at least the minimum hourly wage. Since food servers often derive income from tips left by customers, the law allows restaurants to pay them at a lower hourly rate, as long as the combination of tips and payroll wages equals the minimum hourly wage or higher.
  
  

Tipped Employees and Minimum Wage

• The U.S. Department of Labor defines tipped employees as "those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips." Though the minimum wage in South Carolina is $7.25 an hour, restaurants may pay tipped food servers a minimum hourly wage of $2.13 an hour as long as this wage, combined with tip earnings, adds up to at least the $7.25 wage for each hour the employee works.
  
  

Tip Credit Criteria

• A restaurant employer in South Carolina may pay food servers the reduced rate of $2.13 under certain conditions. The employer must inform the employee of the reduced payroll wage. The restaurant must keep documented evidence that the reduced wage and the tips earned by the employee are equal to the federal minimum wage. The employer must also allow the food server to keep all tips earned, except in the case of tip-pooling arrangements. Such arrangements are common in the restaurant industry and involve food servers sharing a percentage of their tips with buspersons, hosts and hostesses, bartenders and other employers who help the food server wait on customers.
  
  

Dual Jobs and Side Work

• If a food server holds two or more positions at a restaurant, and the other positions -- such as working as a floor manager or behind a sales counter -- does not produce tip income, the employer must pay the regular minimum wage while the employee performs duties in the non-tipped position. However, food servers often must do "side work" that does not directly result in tip income, such as rolling silverware into napkins, cleaning service stations or wiping down tables in the section of the restaurant where the server works. The law does not require restaurants to pay food servers the full minimum wage for this incidental work.