There are laws in place for service workers related to minimum wage. The employers have to make up the difference if tips don’t meet the rate for hours worked. It seems to me that’s not sufficient for the times.
Hypothetically, if everyone were to stop tipping in the U.S. would things be better or worse for workers? Would employers start paying workers more?
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I’m about ready to start telling service workers to spit in my food or form a union. You’re choice.
Definitely. I’ll give a decent tip for a cocktail, but you get a buck if you’re pouring me a beer or popping open a bottle.
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Every server would quit and get a different job because no restaurant is going to match what they were making in tips, and it’s not worth the hassle to serve for what the restaurant could afford. Service quality would regress to the minimum, because there’s no incentive to provide prompt, high quality, friendly service.
Anyone who’s never waited tables vastly underestimates how much the tip incentive effects your server checking on you frequently, answering your questions and making recommendations, getting your food out quickly and ensuring everything is satisfactory, refilling your beverage frequently, bringing your check promptly, and doing it all diplomatically even when you’re being an asshole.
Frankly, I think American service expectations are a bit high, but if you’re used to it then all that would stop very shortly after the customers stop tipping. Think of the performance of every other minimum-or-near-minimum wage hourly worker. That’s your server. Anyone with the professionalism to maintain that kind of service will move on to Sales or something.
That’s a very simplistic view. Assuming that restaurants wouldn’t raise their prices to match the average people were paying before and pay their servers what they were being paid.
The difference in this scenario is that everyone would be paying the same price for the same meal and servers wouldn’t have to struggle through off days.
But yeah, definitely all restaurants would go out of business and it would be anarchy. You have a really shit view of minimum wage workers too. Almost every minimum wage worker I’ve worked with has been professional. If they’re not, they get fired. You know who hasn’t though? The millionaires who can afford to treat people like shit cause they won’t get canned.
What do I know, I only worked in the industry for a decade. My views are probably oversimplified because I only based them on personal experience with hundreds of coworkers. All the minimum effort coworkers I had to deal with must have a been crazy flukes, that’s very reassuring.
You’re probably right, unanimous industry-wide wage increases would happen flawlessly and there would be no consequences whatsoever. Change implementation at that scale is simple and easy, restaurant margins are cushy enough to smoothly handle that kind of transition, and restaurant owners would obviously navigate the voluntary wage increase without a hitch.
Hmmm where have I heard “No way to change this, says only country where this happens” before?
Considering I didn’t say that, not sure how it’s relevant to the topic.
American service expectations are overinflated, and those expectations are propped up by tip culture. You can certainly change it, the change will just come with the bursting of the service-expectation bubble.
What are you talking about? I’ve eaten at restaurants in other countries and the service has always been great.
Maybe by your standards, probably by mine, but I’m assuming we’re both fairly reasonable people. When you serve tens of thousands of people, you find out that there is a significant portion of the American public with unreasonable expectations of service. That’s the service expectation I’m talking about.
That’s a societal problem, absolutely nothing to do with the tipping culture
Try being a dick like that in another country and you’ll get turfed out the restaurant like the cunt you are
This, by the way, is why yanks think Parisians are extra rude, because they’re extra rude to cunts lol
I was in the restaurant industry for several years and I’ve never met anyone who was paid that difference. Sleazy restaurants just won’t pay it because most servers don’t even know about. Even in more reputable establishments, when managers see tips are low, they don’t just stand around until they have to pay their servers more, they start slashing hours. A tipping strike would be distributive, but it would probably lead to less servers and worse service rather than end tipping.
The real issue is that propaganda has turned customers against servers, when the reality is that the restaurant is their enemy. The restaurant is paying a starvation wage and expecting you to directly subsidize their staffing costs. The National Restaurant Association spends millions every year fighting local legislation that would pay servers a living wage, while simultaneously forcing restaurant employees to pay for certifications they need to do their jobs. They’re pocketing money from both customers and servers while watching them fight over tipping culture.
There are a lot of servers who prefer tips, especially younger people who are more likely to live with their parents and want quick cash. But most older restaurant employees would prefer stability to quick, inconsistent cash. At the end of my time in the service industry, I had moved over to event bartending, where I was rarely tipped but made $30 an hour. If their was a large migration from a tipped wage to a living wage, most servers would see the benefit and get on board.
The problem is, in the absence of any legislation, the only efforts to change tipping culture comes from individual restaurants, and they always fail. Many restaurants try a living wage and go back to tipped wage because they just don’t do as well. No matter how many times you explain that the server’s wage is reflected in the price of the meal, people see a $22 item that usually costs $20 and think it’s too expensive, even if they’re losing money tipping $4 on $20.
So, a tipping strike would certainly be distributive, but it’s more likely to hurt servers and customers than restaurants. Trying to get ballot initiatives to end the tipped minimum wage locally would be more effective, but be ready to fight the National Restaurant Association when they come to town (and believe me, they will).
It would be terrible for servers. Every server will report different incomes, but when I served tables I was paid way above a fair wage. I could never imagine a standard wage matching the $40+/hr I made bringing food to tables on the weekend.
The minimum wage for servers is around $2 an hour. If we stop tipping, our servers won’t make enough money to survive. Restaurants claim that they can’t afford to pay a living wage and offer prices people are willing to pay. Yay capitalism.
The employer by law has to pay the regular minimum wage if the tips don’t make up the difference.
Does this actually happen though?
It’s the law but due to how working for wage thieving losers works, it doesn’t happen in practice.
Yeah I assumed as much. Thankfully my state doesn’t have a lower tipped minimum so this is not a concern for me. But I still tip because servers are still underpaid and I want them to be compensated fairly. Also the public is a pain in the ass so they deserve it for dealing with certain people.
I doubt it because the “culture” is that you’re a horrible person if you don’t tip stupid amounts so people are shamed into it.
Can you give a cite for this? I don’t think this happens everywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employer has to pay each employee the minimum wage, unless the employee is “engaged in an occupation in which the employee customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips”. If the employee’s wage does not equal minimum wage, including tips, the employer must make up the difference.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/faq
If an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
Thanks for those.
I don’t think it is very common knowledge. I wonder how many people earning $2.xx / hr know this.
It’s state by state. And for those that do pay their waitstaff up to minimum wage to make up for low tips, it’s averaged out over a pay period. So a waiter won’t get paid for a low tip hour or even a low tip night necessarily, so long as they hit minimum wage on average over a pay period. Which is not a liveable wage.
Anecdotally, myself and many close and extended family members have waited tables and I can’t recall ever hearing about a time in which someone was paid up to min wage to make up for low tips. There was always some excuse or trick for the restaurant to get out of it.
Hypothetically, I think if everyone stopped tipping, we’d see a drop in service level as restaurants reduced waitstaff. Stuff like more order-at-the-counter or online from your phone instead of a human waiter coming to your table. And I think there would be attempts to pivot to contract or “gig” waitstaff to put a layer between restaurants and employees.
When I tip I prefer to do so in cash so they can just pocket it. When I was a dishwasher I remember the good, hardworking servers walking out every night with huge roll of bills, and they would go buy groceries without paying taxes on it.
Enabling tax evasion doesn’t sound like a good thing to me!
I worked with someone like that until she wanted to buy a house. Banks looked at her claimed income and gave a hearty “lol, no”. She started claiming all her tips after that. I don’t remember what happened after that (this was like 2003ish)
I also do this most of the time.
Cash is also much less likely to go anywhere but where you want it to go.
I hate that many places "split tips* because I want to tip my waiter. Not that fuck stain across the room hitting on his table.
Everyone couldn’t agree to put a simple piece of fabric over their mouths in public to reduce the spread of a deadly virus. You’ll never convince everyone of anything. You’ll absolutely hurt workers. Period.
This is why it really bothers me when people comment that they refuse to tip anyone for anything. I get that you have a problem with the system. So do I. So do a lot of people. But all you’re doing is fucking over that particular server in the moment. You aren’t “sticking it to the man” or hurting their employer. You’re hurting the por sod just trying to make their way.
Please continue to tip people who are paid a tipped wage, even if you don’t agree with the system. You’re not harming the right people when you refuse to tip like that.
(Disclaimer: Tipping people who are NOT paid a tipped wage is not necessary…like cashier’s at counter service restaurants.)
This is very prevalent on Lemmy.
Marginally ok thing happens that is progress in one particular part of a wider issue
No grass touchin lem:
“Well that’s not addressing full systemic change within one calendar month therefore is a waste and an assault on all of us!”
Like, we get it dude. There’s big problems out there. But that attitude just sucks the good out of every individual act, especially when that act has no contact, or ability to change the wider issue.
They didn’t say it’s pointless because it isn’t a big enough change.
They said it’s harmful because it’s screwing over the server and the employer (let alone the industry) probably won’t care.
In the past, I would have agreed but, in a lot of places the sub-minimum “tipped” wage has gone away and now tips are just bonus. I’m sure the worker likes the money, but it’s not like they aren’t getting a full wage. Tips in fact may be acting as an inhibitor to workers fully organizing and negotiating their wage with their employer.
Do you know where these places might be? I have not heard of this being a thing.
There is a link in the article https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/tipped-workers-minimum-wage-rcna132172
This is very interesting, thanks! I had no idea. For the tl;dr, it looks like Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, and many businesses in Minnesota, Montana, and Nevada have tipped minimum wage the same as non tipped minimum wage. Many others pay more than federal tipped wage, but it doesn’t mean that it approaches the state minimum wage. While still far many states than I’d expect, it’s nowhere near the majority.
I’m convinced that people who refuse to tip “on principle” are just cheapskates.
Looks like the cheapskates found your post.
I think it would still help even if only some people stopped tipping, you don’t need full coordination to make it a less viable business practice.
Why be a patron to bad business practice?
While Restaurant margins are low, raising them to minimum wage wouldn’t bankrupt them, but it might cause some employees to quit who were making a lot more than that. I don’t know if that’s your goal or not.
A better idea would be to coordinate a campaign to stop going to restaurants that do tipping. Don’t make the worker out in the work that way.
🎯🎯🎯
but it might cause some employees to quit who were making a lot more than that
Wouldn’t this, in turn, create a competitive advantage for restaurants offering higher base wages (and including what used to be tips in menu prices to begin with)? Or, if they are too stubborn for that, and good employees are lost to the industry forever and quality declines, maybe people go to restaurants less. In general I don’t like the food service business and go out of my way to avoid it altogether, but I think that paying into an exploitative thing like tips just because you and the worker have been put into that kind of manipulation isn’t the right decision. That said a campaign to stop going to restaurants that do tipping seems like a good idea also.
Employers would ultimately see it as not their mess, not their problem. They already pay the minimum wage they legally can, if they wanred to pay their employees a living wage then they would already be doing so. They know that they will lose their current experienced servers, but they also know that there will always be desperate workers who have no choice but to accept the crumbs that are offered.
I went to subway for lunch, and the machine offered 18%, 20%, and 25%
I gave zero because he’s doing his job; if I would have sat down and he served my my sandwich on a plate and refilled my drink, I’d have tipped
The only way out of this whole thing is to just never tip counter service, and to never tip really well for waiters. It feels bad, but the whole system is built around exploiting your guilt as a customer. It encourages wait staff to fight for better employment.
This is different. Counter service places do NOT make a tipped wage and so it is actually not necessarily to tip. I tip people who make a tipped wage like servers.
How do you know which employees make a tipped wage? Does it vary by area? (Not American, I don’t know)
Counter service gets no tip.
No, it’s basically consistent across the US. Servers (waiters and waitresses) and I believe food delivery drivers are paid a tipped wage.
Essentially everyone else is not paid a tipped wage and you should not feel compelled to tip them. Absolutely no one at any counter service restaurants or fast food trucks are paid a tipped wage, even though the computer screen often asks you if you want to tip. There is no need to. I usually tip 0% at these places, but tbh I’m more inclined to tip at a food truck even though it isn’t necessary.
Wrong https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
More states are following.
What about coffee baristas?
Why would they be any different? They don’t work a “tipping wage” and they aren’t bringing your food to your table or refilling drinks.
Yeah. I’m reluctant to tip anywhere that doesn’t offer table service.
My only exceptions are Housekeeping and Valet, but for food table service(I include delivery under this lable) is required for a tip. Takeout is a no go.
My only exceptions are Housekeeping and Valet
Out of interest, why? (I’m not American)
Tipping in the US pays for service (base rates typically only cover base stuff room, food, parking, etc). Housekeeping and Valet are both traditionally included alongside wait staff. Valets are a big one as it typically falls under a luxury service, just check your mileage before tipping as you may double down in gas/wear if your car is nice enough. For Housekeeping this is only really for Hotels (not motels and not long term stay hotels) and it covers daily sheet/towel changes, garbage removal, etc.
this is only really for Hotels (not motels and not long term stay hotels)
Forgive my ignorance but what’s different about motels and long stay hotels?
Motels “housekeeping” may or may not exist; bring a blacklight if you don’t want to sleep. Long stay hotels require you request housekeeping during your stay (if under one month), and generally only refresh when you check out. Hotels provide daily turndown service including fresh sheets, towels, and consumables (soap, tissues, toilet paper, mints, etc.)
Topping your housekeeper in the first day or so of a girl stay will drastically improve the cleanliness of your room going forward.
How do you know the same person will clean your room every day?
What’s a girl stay?
Editted. Hotel.
And they talk to each other. They know which rooms are bad and which are good
Tipping is of course a major issue not just in the US, but in many other countries as well. There are a lot of good books written over the years on the subject. One was written by a career waitress that is worth reading and how it leads to the acceptance of sexual abuse of the waitresses.
It’s fun to think about changing it and everyone just stopping it. If this is an important issue to you try and change it. If no one fights for what is right and progress things will only get worse.
Next time, instead of tipping just ask the shop owner to raise the wages because the waiters do such a good job
Or do both?
No?
How often do the owners of the shop show up where you live?
Often
Ah, but forgot to mention I live in a no-tip-country. Is there maybe an association between tip/no-tip culture and the percentage of shops actually run by their owners? Not for me to find out but I hope someone will share their insights with me on the 24.06.2027 about this
Yeah, usually if there’s a place that’s tip-centric it’s owned by someone who shows up RARELY if at all, certainly not to work there, and has at least one level of management between them and any anyone who is tipped; the managers who do the majority of the work for them at slightly ABOVE minimum wage
Often suggesting what seems like completely obvious and simple solutions to people outside of your country, norms and culture can make you seem ignorant.
Congrats, you’re now an unofficial American!
Hot take but I think tipping culture is one of the main reasons why Americans are suffering from such large class issues.
In Japan tipping is offensive because it puts the customer above the server when it’s a fair exchange between the two parties. It makes sense imo. For people to respect each profession it has to be treated like an equal value exchange. The server that brings my food is not my temporary slave but we have a social contract that they’ll be hosting me as the representative of the restaurant and “forced donations” completely ruins this exchange. It’s incredibly toxic.
Can a customer give a tip to a waiter/waitress in case they deliver outstanding service? Because it might be seen wrongly in that case. I’m genuinely curious.
I’m not Japanese but from my time there it seems like no, tips aren’t acceptable unless there’s some explicit mechanic like tip jar or some ritual. I did hear that long term customers tend to bring gifts on special occasions but I think that’s almost never money.
So, all of the general points you make about tipping culture are valid, but it’s batshit crazy to say that it’s “one of the main reasons why Americans are suffering from such large class issues.” One of the main reasons? Are you fucking kidding?
The main reason is that it shifts payment of the wait staff to the customer, not the employer. That means the employer has less payroll, payroll tax, etc. and pockets the difference.
It’s a financial motive, not a classist one.
Don’t be so hard on them. Consider that media is owned by private interests, and that’s been their whole life. Unions are evil, worker rights are a privilege, and you wouldn’t want to regulate or tax businesses if it means they would make less profit. They create the jobs, don’t forget that. Nor should you tax private fortunes, that’s already been taxed, even if it is actively used as collateral for loans and a mechanism to avoid income tax. On that topic… higher taxes on very high income is also unwise, because, you can avoid paying income tax by leveraging aforementioned loans, and that shouldn’t be more inconvenient than it needs to be. Private ownership on necessities of life is also not a problem, especially when you have a legal obligation to maximise profit for stockowners, which I’m sure won’t motivate higher health care prices, or motivate denial of coverage or reduced level of treatment. Same goes with housing being an investment. People got to live somewhere right? That’s a business opportunity right there. Better not regulate that or tax that too much either… Might reduce… value of housing… and you wouldn’t just want anyone to get in on that.
Tipping culture is obviously one of the main reasons at fault here…
In Japan tipping is offensive because it puts the customer above the server
Saying they don’t put the customer above the server in Japan sounds very wrong to me. Servers use highly polite language to customers, while customers generally act in a way that feels very dismissive to me as an American - e.g. yelling to no one in particular when you want service, saying nothing when a server brings food or drinks. This is my experience at least.
Complete opposite experience here. Customer experience in Japan is top notch except there’s often too much ritual. For example buying electronics often involves like an hour long process as you pick up these cards that represent your items, take them to the cashier, pay, get a long 1 on 1 lesson and onboarding but at the same time it’s what makes the process wholesome and respectful. Bars and restaurants in particular are super wholesome.
Yes, the workers stick to the ritual but customers hardly care. People don’t even greet the konbini workers or say thank you or anything that signals they deal with another human
Hot take but I think tipping culture is one of the main reasons why Americans are suffering from such large class issues.
It’s not a cause, it’s a symptom
It is definitely messed up, but it’s also the only reasonable way for people in a lot of more conservative states to make any money at all as service staff, because those states tend to have comically low base pay for servers because “they work for tips”.
It’s an intentionally self-perpetuating cycle that makes things more expensive for customers, and fails to pay the business’s workers what they deserve. It’s basically enhanced wage theft combined with a pricing structure that also intrinsically hides the fact that the business owner is also intentionally hiding something like 15-25% of their cost of business, and you get to make up the difference.
It has been a long time but when I waited on tables for $2.xx / hour no one ever told me about any minimum I had to make or the employer would pay more. If that exists it is new and I wonder how common it is. If my tips were shit, I took that hit and got no help from the employer.
I was fortunate to be from a state where minimum wage for tipped persons was the same as everyone. I also kept that rate when I transferred to a state where tipped employees were paid $2.xx / hour. My mistake was moving to a different employer and the lower hourly rate.
A lower hourly rate for tipped employees is pure profiteering bullshit on the part of employers. It should be outlawed at the federal level. There is no good reason for an employer to get in the middle of an employee and customer. Customers tip employees, NOT employers.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/faq
You are a victim of wage theft.
Sadly I think that might be the only way to make it stop. But it doesn’t feel right. If a waiter/waitress is getting a zero dollar paycheck, that means they’re making more than some minimum amount. If we stop tipping, they’ll be paid that minimum amount. In our effort to get service jobs fairly paid, should we punish them by paying them less first?
Stuff like more order-at-the-counter or online from your phone instead of a human waiter coming to your table.
This already seems to be happening as companies push to squeeze more and more profits for the shareholders. I was at a local pizza place not long ago that you were forced to scan the QR code and order yourself. They did bring the food out, but that was it. You even had to get your own drink and refills.
Off-topic, but that was also the biggest bill I had from a pizza place in as long as I can remember. It was bumping $100 for 4 of us to eat sub-par pizza and drink water.
Worse.
Without tips, the employer pays $7.50/hr. That’s not enough to live on, especially since food service workers are almost universally working part time.
With tips, the employer pays $2.50/hr, but tips can make up the difference to be somewhat more reasonable.
To abolish tipping, we need to:
- Abolish servers’ wage ($2.50) / pay full minimum wage.
- Double the minimum wage to $15/hr.
Just doubling the minimum wage isn’t sufficient. It’d need to be made to match inflation and cost of living as they rise in the future.
I’m thinking the government needs to fix the prices where they are and force humanity to accept a 30$/hr minimum wage to gain back the equivalent buying power of an individual in the 70s.
