Tipping culture in U.S.
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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Is that true in all states? I thought I read recently that there were still holdouts.
Anyway, in the immediate term it would be terrible for most tipped staff who depend on that money for things like rent, food, gas, etc. For employers to pay more, they would likely need to raise prices; smaller restaurants in particular can operate on some pretty tight margins and I doubt the big guys will take less profit. Where that ultimately would go, I'm not sure.
I live in Japan now and we don't do tips here. Things are more expensive in menu price, but there's no magical 20% to pay after. We also have single-payer health insurance system. Businesses are required to do some health insurance stuff for full-time employees, but I don't know what what point/size. Even if the employee has to pay 100%, health insurance and pension are income-based. Rents are also generally less crazy. As with everywhere, food prices and inflation are issues here, but people are surviving. The bar down the street pays 1500/hour to start (minimum in Tokyo is a bit over 1000/hr) and that's increased for the late night portion leading to a higher amount of pay.
Honestly from what I've seen on YouTube videos it looks like Japanese food/restaurants costs less to the customer
Depends on the type of place and where it is, but it can be cheaper. Beers here are quite expensive comparatively. I guess the caution I would give is that I've been back to the US once in the last 6 years (last summer), so things may have changed a lot there that I'm unaware of.
It's amazingly cheap to eat out in Japan compared to the US. I used to live in Japan and have visited since. Just a couple of years ago, even, right before the pandemic struck. It is a little more expensive in Japan now than it was then because they're seeing inflation for the first time in practically forever, but it's still very cheap compared to the US.
It's one of the best things about visiting Japan. You can go nuts eating fantastic food at bargain prices. You can find expensive restaurants if you want to, of course.