Table of Contents
- What Is the Hot Waitress Economic Index?
- Key Takeaways
- How the Hot Waitress Economic Index Works
- Indicators and Factors of the Index
- Important Considerations
- Hot Waitress Index vs. Other Strange Indicators
- What Is a Lagging Indicator?
- What Is the Average Pay of Food Service Workers?
- What Is the Average Pay of All Workers in the United States?
- The Bottom Line
What Is the Hot Waitress Economic Index?
Let me explain the Hot Waitress Economic Index to you—it's an offensive and dubious economic indicator that tracks the number of attractive people working as servers.
According to what I'll call the attractive server index, the more good-looking servers you see, the weaker the economy is. The questionable assumption here is that attractive individuals have no trouble landing higher-paying jobs when the economy is strong.
This indicator suggests that in tough economic times, high-paying jobs become scarce, forcing more attractive people into service-industry roles. But this theory completely ignores employee skills, qualifications, or experience.
The attractive server index was first outlined by Hugo Lindgren in a New York Magazine article. At the time, Lindgren was a magazine and newspaper writer and editor; he's since moved into Hollywood production, not economics or academia.
Key Takeaways
You should know that the Hot Waitress Economic Index is an offensive and dubious sign of a financial recession. It argues that a higher number of good-looking servers points to a weak economy. This index was coined by journalist Hugo Lindgren in New York Magazine, and it hasn't been vetted by economists.
How the Hot Waitress Economic Index Works
In his 2009 piece at the start of the Great Recession, Lindgren wrote about noticing more attractive people serving tables at a Lower East Side spot in New York City. These were replacements for laid-off staff, and the manager figured good-looking waitresses would boost sales.
The attractive server index hasn't been checked by economists, and we don't know if that one establishment's strategy worked. Traditional economic theory says employment is a lagging indicator for recovery, but Lindgren claimed his index was a leading one.
He wrote, 'As a commodity that’s fairly cheap, historically effective as a marketing tool, and available on a freelance basis, hotness will likely be back in demand long before your average Michigan autoworker is.'
There's little research backing this indicator. Studies show attractive people are seen as more capable and confident, leading to better jobs and pay—this is known as 'lookism' or beauty bias. It might imply a lack of better jobs when attractive folks are waiting tables, which some view as lower-skill and lower-pay work.
Indicators and Factors of the Index
Server pay varies a lot depending on the restaurant's location, clientele, food quality, and the servers' own competency. Assuming the service industry is low-skill dismisses how competitive it is—Yelp reviews can get a server fired fast for being seen as uneducated, unskilled, or poor.
Important Considerations
Some economic indicators are respected, like GDP or initial jobless claims, but almost anything can be pitched as an indicator, so you need to test its validity before trusting it.
There can be a pop culture mythos around some economic indicators, says Erika Rasure, Ph.D., assistant professor of business and financial services at Maryville University and a member of the Investopedia Financial Review Board. These can be very superstitious. People try to make correlations between observable phenomena but it doesn't make it true. In this case, it is misogynistic and sexist.
Rasure advises you to do your homework to judge an indicator's accuracy. How well has it been studied? Don't act until you have the facts, and don't believe everything on TV or the Internet.
Hot Waitress Index vs. Other Strange Indicators
The accuracy of the attractive server index is questionable, but it's not the only weird one in finance. If you can imagine it, someone probably already theorized it. Some people think the full moon affects the economy—I see these as pop culture finance reads, says Rasure.
Over the years, various insulting and suspect theories have emerged, like the predictive power of marine ads, men's underwear sales, or lipstick sales. The logic is similar.
In a tough economy, marine recruitment ads get tougher because goals are met easily—they don't worry about scaring people off. Men's underwear sales drop because people make do longer, and lipstick sales rise as a cheap luxury, though not in a masked pandemic.
What Is a Lagging Indicator?
A lagging indicator relies on past events and trends—it's like a warning that something similar could happen again unless things change. Leading indicators, on the other hand, anticipate future issues and help prepare against them.
What Is the Average Pay of Food Service Workers?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in September 2023, the 2022 median pay for food service and related workers was $13.52 per hour. Secretaries and administrative assistants earned $21.19 per hour that year. Both interact with the public, but food service workers do it more intensely. 'Median' means half earned more and half less.
What Is the Average Pay of All Workers in the United States?
The average hourly pay for all non-farm workers was $34.55 as of January 2024, up 4.5% from the previous year.
The Bottom Line
The Hot Waitress Economic Index tracks attractive people working as servers, theorizing that more of them in these roles means a weak economy—they'd presumably have better-paying jobs otherwise, partly due to looks.
This index ignores qualifications like skills, experience, or education. Don't use it to gauge your chances of switching fields based on anything but appearance.
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