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Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

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Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#151

Post by pwdisswordfish9 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #59
pwdisswordfish9 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're not being reported as income and taxed.That might not be the "law", but that's pretty much de-facto what happens everywhere In other words, it punishes the most virtuous; those higher on the spectrum unscrupulousness benefit the most. Not a good arrangement.

For tipped employees, most of whom are getting all their federal and state taxes back at refund time, giving them the money directly does nothing other than increase efficiency of the overall system because you cut a party out of it.

That's not a response to what was written.

The issue raised is whether this arrangement punishes honest actors and rewards dishonest ones. The answer is "yes, it does."

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#152

Post by gs17 »

no_wizard wrote: post #137
FalconSensei wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employee that's willing to show up to work and service you So you tip the cashier at the supermarket? They bag your groceries for you

I've noticed quite recently in the last 4-5 years that this isn't true anymore. More and more grocery stores I shop at expect you to bag your own groceries. Its been a wild shift in labor there to me. When I was growing up I worked at a big box retail grocery and I don't remember ever having customers bag their own items unless it was self checkout (which was barely a thing and truly seemed relegated to simple checko…

I even remeber being scolded sometimes years ago for bagging my own stuff when there wasn't a second worker to do it. At some point in COVID, Trader Joe's got extra strict about it, even as I pointed out it meant more people touching my groceries "for my safety". Now they really don't seem to care.

> Now the only place I don't have to actively bag my own things is Costco, which recently started heavily pushing their own self checkout (which, due to how items are sized there to be in bulk, makes things slow and awkward for the general public IMO).

At my local Costco, the "self-checkout" is really more like 6 cashier lines manned by one cashier. We have to wait for the employee to do everything and it's really bizarre to me, and either type of checkout just leaves things sitting in your cart in the end unless you manually box/bag them after. People seem to prefer it to the normal lanes, though. Is yours more like the self checkout at a normal grocer?

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#154

Post by Aunche »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #33

Some (many?) countries have demonstrated that no-tipping can work just fine. > makes them less competitive to any nearby coffeeshops that haven't raised prices Maybe I'm an outlier but for me I'm sick of the mental game of "Am I good member of society for the % I selected, and how much will my date judge me if I choose what used to be the norm -- 10%-15%... and am I the sucker if I choose a high amount while other pe…

> Why cant we just give employees dignity and a fair wage?

We do and that's tipped wages. A career waiter in a major American city can make over 100k, which is several times more than what they would make in Europe. Even if you adjust for cost of living and median incomes, it's still going to be much higher. On the low end of the spectrum, tipped wages and untipped wages would be both at minimum wage.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#155

Post by kmonsen »

jonpurdy wrote: post #15
Der_Einzige wrote: post #3

The only reason I continue to tip is the knowledge that my food will be spat in / worse if I don't. I would happily pay higher food prices to avoid tipping culture. Tipping culture simply doesn't exist in most of the world, and Americans who can't imagine a world without it here have no vision.

I personally got so exhausted from decision fatigue and being forced to choose a tip or not that I just go to fewer coffee shops as a result. Make it a seamless experience (single tap) and charge enough to cover costs plus profits plus a good wage and I'm happy to support.

Same here, just the whole hassle and knowing that the ice cream/coffee/cookie is going to be significantly more expensive is putting me off enough to sometimes to just avoid the whole thing. Good for my diet I guess.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#156

Post by SeanLuke »

cammikebrown wrote: post #148
SeanLuke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this? In other countries the front of the house staff do just fine without tipping. And how much of your tip goes to the food preparation staff? You're supposed to be sharing your tips with them: how much do you tip them? Tipping needs to be burned with fire. Tipping and its history is dripping in classism, racisim, corruption, and the perpetuation of poverty. It grotesquely unevenly distributes wealt…

I live in the Pacific Northwest so we do in fact tip out the kitchen quite a bit. In other countries, there are guaranteed rights that we don’t have in the US and especially not in the service industry.

There is no tipping for workers on an assembly line. We don't tip teachers. We don't tip custodians. We don't tip automobile repairmen. We don't tip busdrivers. We don't tip farmers.

You are not special. Tipping does not exist to lift you out of poverty, or because your job is different in some way. Tipping was imposed out of pseudo-Victorian classism and full-stop racism in the United States in the 1920s, and has been maintained by your employer in order to avoid paying you a normal wage. They can legally pay you poverty wages because your job includes tips.

Again, tipping must be destroyed.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#157

Post by focusedone »

pc86 wrote: post #74
focusedone wrote: post #53

Wait staff are not paid enough. At least in my state, the minimum wage for tip-accepting employees is horrific. I was a waiter twice and understand all of that so I always tip and try to be generous. Also, I'm pretty bad at math in my head so I usually guesstimate tips too high. A downside of tipping on the checkout systems I see is the baked in 15 / 20 / 25% options. OR tap custom and probably stand there like a mor…

I will happily tip 20-30% at restaurants without thinking about it, when there is even decent service (free-refill drinks refilled, server not overtly rude or clearly wishing they were elsewhere, etc). But this isn't about servers, it's about tipping having become expected or at least overtly requested in areas where it never was before. There's a Subway by my house that has the following options: 20%, 25%, 30%, cust…

Ahhh good point. That totally makes sense.

Still, even the subway worker isn't exactly making bank over there. It's not bad to have the option for tipping.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#158

Post by andrewmutz »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #95
andrewmutz wrote: post #57

> Deadweight loss happens when a person who is willing to pay more is charged less than the amount they're willing to pay That's not what a dead weight loss is. DWL happens when transactions don't happen for some reason (like price controls) and people who would have benefitted from the transaction at the market price can't do so What the author describes is instead a situation where the consumer keeps the surplus, r…

Right, what the author describes is a reduction in consumer surplus.

Yes. I think its an important distinction because deadweight losses represent wealth that is lost to the world, whereas the surplus question is not about creating wealth, just moving it around.

We should always strive to eliminate deadweight losses because it makes the world richer. Moving the surpluses around is not making the world richer and is just just redistribution.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#159

Post by ghaff »

no_wizard wrote: post #137
FalconSensei wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employee that's willing to show up to work and service you So you tip the cashier at the supermarket? They bag your groceries for you

I've noticed quite recently in the last 4-5 years that this isn't true anymore. More and more grocery stores I shop at expect you to bag your own groceries. Its been a wild shift in labor there to me. When I was growing up I worked at a big box retail grocery and I don't remember ever having customers bag their own items unless it was self checkout (which was barely a thing and truly seemed relegated to simple checko…

Baggers were common at one point. Then there was a period when they were uncommon. And they came back in again at some point for the most part. (Except for self-checkout.)

In general, assuming that minimum wage-ish jobs have a continued labor shortage, I'd expect that we'll see more self-service and automation going forward.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#160

Post by pb7 »

lbriner wrote: post #54
maerF0x0 wrote: post #33

Some (many?) countries have demonstrated that no-tipping can work just fine. > makes them less competitive to any nearby coffeeshops that haven't raised prices Maybe I'm an outlier but for me I'm sick of the mental game of "Am I good member of society for the % I selected, and how much will my date judge me if I choose what used to be the norm -- 10%-15%... and am I the sucker if I choose a high amount while other pe…

It seems different in the US, where everyone is expected to tip as part of the overall price, like the article describes, and there is tipping Europe where the tip is not needed to boost the wage to an acceptable level but is simply to reward people who have gone above and beyond. In many restaurants in the UK, a "tip" is automatically included for large parties to reward the extra work required but can be removed on…

Nearly every restaurant in London automatically adds ~12% even for 2 people. I don't know about the rest of the UK but it can't be drastically different.
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