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?
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.
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?
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 why would you want that to be inconvenient? Private ownership on necessities of life is also not a problem, especially when you have a legal obligation to maximize profit for stock owners, 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.. It might reduce the value of housing... and you wouldn't just want anyone to get in on that.
Tipping culture, on the other, if only you could do something about that....
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Yeah. I’m reluctant to tip anywhere that doesn’t offer table service.
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)
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.
Counter service gets no tip.
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.
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.
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 poor 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 cashiers 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.
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.
🎯🎯🎯
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.
Why be a patron to bad business practice?
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.
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
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!
Or do both?
No?
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 $2.50/hr, but tips can make up the difference to be somewhat more reasonable.
To abolish tipping, we need to:
Just doubling the minimum wage isn't sufficient. It'd need to be made to match inflation and cost of living as they rise in the future.
I'm thinking the government needs to fix the prices where they are and force humanity to accept a 30$/hr minimum wage to gain back the equivalent buying power of an individual in the 70s.
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 it. 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 come 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 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.
Tipping should be to reward personel for excelent service, not to enable companies to underpay their workers. Every worker should earn a living wage. When a company goes bust when they have to pay workers a living wage, they have no right to exsist and should go bust.
Good service should result in my continued patronage. This means the business is succesful and the employees deserve a raise. This is how it works for everyone else...
Why we've decided people delivering food to you should get a tip is beyond me. I don't tip my mechanic, grocery store worker or the cleaner at the office. They all deliver a direct service to you as well, but they shouldn't get a tip?
Exactly. When people work somewhere, they need to earn a living wage. When they give exceleny=t service, you can tip, no matter which business they're in.
Tipping culture sucks, but good luck getting anyone who actively benefits from it to admit that. I'm looking at you, bartenders who spend ten seconds popping open my beer and expect fucking 25% of the fucking 8 dollars on top of taxes. Fuck you, you get ONE DOLLAR PER DRINK. I dont give a fuck if you think i'm a tightwad, fuck you shit's expensive, and you're lucky I'm even doing that. Go ahead, gimme that stinkeye see if I give a fuck.
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.
Well, yeah a mixed drink is more for sure. Or if they actually like provide conversation or any service at all really. I'm not against paying for service, I just don't think the honor system is a good way of doing it when it effectively means employers reliably abuse that honor to cheap out on fair compensation, and I'm sick of supporting unfair unethical business practices. What I really need to do is quit tipping entirely, but fuck me I've worked for tips before, I know how it goes. Just that bartenders happen to be one of the few positions that receive tips that actually benefit from the arrangement compared to just being paid a fair wage for their labor. And when people feel bad for not dropping an extra 25% (Twenty-Five Percent! She actually had the audacity to complain I didn't leave Twenty-Five Percent! To my face!) it's no surprise.
I'm about ready to start telling service workers to spit in my food or form a union. You're choice.
The real irritation is that British Columbia has a tipping culture where pretty much everywhere is asking for 10-25% tip.
Restaurant staff aren't exempted from minimum wage here like in the US, so its pure greed on the owners part.
BC budtender. My managers are out-of-touch crazies that enabled tipping (5%/10%/25%) because, 'they feel bad we don't make much money', paraphrased.
That's great, love hearing that from my lake-house owning mega-rich hippie manager, but I've already posted a rant here about how my month's wage of part-time work is easily paid in a day of work with their ludicrous profit margins. 50% on cannabis where I saw 30% in the liquor industry. They can pay me a livable wage, they choose not to.
I have compounding evidence that they're shitty people wearing masks of integrity and compassion and I hate it.
Greed sucks :(
Sure would make it simpler.
(This is simplified and generalized)
In the short term it would be worse for workers. Their employers are only required to make up the difference in pay to the non-tipped minimum wage (the normal minimum wage). With tips most servers are making above minimum wage (depending on the restaurant some servers are making quite a bit more than minimum wage; it can be a viable career for some). If a server had been making more than (non-tipped) minimum wage, and everyone stopped tipping, they would probably lose money since their employers are not required to make up the difference to what they had been earning with tips. Since the federal minimum wage is not a livable wage for most of the population, this would be very bad for the servers.
Longer-term it could make a difference, since those servers would likely start leaving their jobs for better paying jobs elsewhere and the restaurants would have to raise their base pay to compete or risk closing. To some extent we’re already seeing this in some industries. I’ve noticed most of the fast food restaurants (non-tipped) are advertising starting pay close to double the federal minimum wage. If the crisis became large enough Congress might be forced to finally raise the minimum wage.
Making employees rely on tips instead of paying them a fair wage is a bad system. I’m not sure how to end it in a way that doesn’t hurt the employees, though, short of congressional action.
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 generally want people to be happy and I tip decently. As far as making under minimum, it’s set so low federally that someone would have to have no tables or be really bad to not make at least $8 an hour. I suppose it would be more likely in cities that have their own higher minimum like Denver ($18).
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
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/faq
Thanks for those.
I don't think it is very common knowledge. I wonder how many people earning $2.xx / hr know this.
ok...
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
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.
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?
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.
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.
If tip wage doesn’t meet regular minimum wage then employers are required to pay the difference
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 an employer matching the $40+/hr I made bringing food to tables on the weekend.
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.
Worse, monumentally worse. Expecting employers to make up the difference without legal force is so idiotic that it's just a publicly accepted given that choosing not to tip is choosing to let the worker in question go hungry.
Workers are so hostile about backlash to aggressive tipping culture because they see it as the side of the equation that can be expected to have any empathy at all without the threat of legal consequences trying to wiggle out from being seen as that.
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.
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
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.