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“No tax on tips” is an industry plant

newyorker.com

481–490 of 618 posts

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest type theft done in the United States, by far, for decades, is wage theft. In terms of dollars stolen. All other forms of serious crime have dramatically fallen since the 90's per Capita. Some are at 1/3 the rate they were then. (FBI UCR) remember that next time you see a headline or politician speak about crime. We are safer, doing less crime to each other, and seeing more prison population than ever befo…

The US prison population has been declining since 2010: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_...

Yes. Also, it’s still far too many people per capita. Too little is done to prevent the circumstances that make crime more likely. The sentences are often ridiculously long for the offense. The conditions are generally poor and often torturous. Too little is done to reincorporate the formerly incarcerated into society.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a fast food restaurant here in the States, people tipped but usually not well. I wasn't pressed about it, I was getting a full minimum wage. Entitled customers didn't give me trouble for whatever reason, they seemed to size up my coworkers as softer targets. > Why? I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.

When visiting the States I have observed on a couple of occasions where a customer shouted at staff and used the threat of withholding a tip as leverage to be unreasonably nasty to wait staff. The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.

To be clear, I don't defend it. I'm mildly against it. Unfortunately I don't in it's at the root of entitled customer behavior in the States, I think there's a deeper cultural contempt for service workers. You'll see similar behavior towards workers who aren't tipped but who provide some sort of face-to-face service, like cashiers and teachers.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#483

> But, when three members of the group came forward to testify, all expressed support for the Tipped Workers Protection Act and opposition to the One Fair Wage Act, which they portrayed as an effort to steal their tips This article is missing a real issue here by trying to make the story all about the employers. Many workers like the tip system because it creates inequality among the restaurant workers. Good servers…

>creates inequality Did you mean that it rewards them for their efforts?

For food service, specifically waiting tables - how much of the tip is because of effort and better service - and how much is due to the attractiveness and general demographic characteristics of the server?

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a mechanism to move labor costs to the consumer. How does this work? The corp already handles some form of payment to the worker, especially when you tip as part of a card payment. And in both cases, the consumer foots the bill. How's it different from paying the worker more and asking for more money upfront?

psychologically they are very different. Framing the wages as a "tip" moves the conversation to the drivers and users, where users think tips are an out of hand culture problem and drivers view the users as stingy. Then the company sits out of the spotlight collecting their absurd rents

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Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#485

> But, when three members of the group came forward to testify, all expressed support for the Tipped Workers Protection Act and opposition to the One Fair Wage Act, which they portrayed as an effort to steal their tips This article is missing a real issue here by trying to make the story all about the employers. Many workers like the tip system because it creates inequality among the restaurant workers. Good servers…

I wonder if paying servers a commission on the food sales would improve things somewhat. At least it force employers to include that into the price of the items

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#486
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s very little empirical evidence correlating tipping with better service.

There is evidence correlating being attractive to getting better tips, interestingly.

And evidence correlating being a minority with lower tips.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#487

> But, when three members of the group came forward to testify, all expressed support for the Tipped Workers Protection Act and opposition to the One Fair Wage Act, which they portrayed as an effort to steal their tips This article is missing a real issue here by trying to make the story all about the employers. Many workers like the tip system because it creates inequality among the restaurant workers. Good servers…

Sales' commissions and servers' tips is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#488
post #249

I’d honestly like to hear from someone who is a proponent of tipping how they think it makes any sense. By that I don’t mean I need the reason for tipping explained to my, everybody understands the argument for why you should tip: but how does it make sense when you consider who you tip and who you don’t?

Do you understand the part about how the tipped minimum wage being so much lower was born largely out of racism?

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Irish are _much more_ receptive to criticism of the country from immigrants than most countries. In my experience, the United States and England (not the entire UK) have the thinnest skin and some people will straight-up tell you to f-off home on the slightest criticism, especially on the subject of human rights or the expeditionary wars. There are of course the usual suspects, the racists and "Pro-Irish"…

> I disagree. Irish are _much more_ receptive to criticism of the country from immigrants than most countries. Unless, of course, the criticism is someone making a personal observation about how they saw tipping culture expand during their time in Ireland, right? Then the appropriate response is to generalize that Americans love making ignorant comments about other cultures.

> Unless, of course, the criticism is someone making a personal observation about how they saw tipping culture expand during their time in Ireland, right? Then the appropriate response is to generalize that Americans love making ignorant comments about other cultures.

Unless they're factually incorrect, which is the case here.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when I was visiting family a few years ago in Kentucky. I kept seeing tons of ads everywhere about hiring for plumbers, and some warehouse roles. The listed salaries were not that far off from what even the local McDonald’s was paying

There was a (at least local) McDonald's inversion just after Covid; they were paying $20/hr which was competitive or better than the local factories. It's one of those "reset" things you need to do now and then, because it's really easy for an industry like CNA or similar to end up paying less than the gas station for more annoying work.

So it does make great sense for a CNA or a preschool teacher to be quite a bit more highly paid than a gas station attendant or fry cook, due to the much higher responsibility level and like you said the annoyance.

However, I don't think anything that's happened in the last 5 years has helped that. If anything, the inflation has cost everyone dearly, but if I put 20% of my income into stocks I am less impacted than poor people who put 100% of their income into goods and services whose prices have gone up as a result of everyone's wages.

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