I mean, the US could just get a decent welfare state like a grown-up country, but instead you have the worst paid members of society depending on tips.
Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
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Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#22Solution: pay people a decent wage. Stop externalizing the costs of running a business. If you can't make enough money to keep the business viable, then maybe the law of supply and demand and the free market is trying to tell you something.
Plenty of restaurants have a sign advertising $15 starting wage and have too jars
And this is fast casual where you don't even have a waiter.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#23Solution: pay people a decent wage. Stop externalizing the costs of running a business. If you can't make enough money to keep the business viable, then maybe the law of supply and demand and the free market is trying to tell you something.
That law works on the side of labor too : if competition (more supply of workers vs fewer work slots) for the job is high enough that employees are willing to risk working for a crappy wage plus tips, then employers can still get away with this. As long as regulations permit. I agree that a decent wage is the best path forward.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#24I mean, the US could just get a decent welfare state like a grown-up country, but instead you have the worst paid members of society depending on tips.
No thanks. I don't want a welfare state and I don't want to tip either.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#25Around me the restaurants are still doing "economic recovery fees" and "kitchen appreciation fees". I just tell them I'm not paying it and to take it off the bill.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#26I most certainly get paid a lot more than the person behind the counter does. If it's a person who did something helpful and the person gets the $, then I'm happy to tip. If they can give me some attention (e.g., not chatting away with someone behind the counter while I just stand there), I'm happy to tip.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer do tax evasion with everything on the record. Back in the days where most paid their restaurant with cash, tips were more like 15%. The move from 15 to more like 20 to 25% almost perfectly corresponds with the amount needed to make the same earnings after tax.
Do workers usually get a say in what those tip levels should be? I can't imagine that being the case.
I don't know all the mechanisms behind how it happened. I expect indirectly yes, as employees choose to work where they are paid highest (if possible) and employers putting the pre-calculated percentages on the receipt / point of sale that match those desires influence tips. You have to keep up with employee expectation to keep and retain employees and setting those expectation at the point of sale as a voluntary option is an easy win.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#28Yes. If you business wants to collect a "tip" up front, before services rendered, it's not a tip (Doordash, Instacart, etc). If 100% of the proceeds don't get straight to the employees, but some end up in the pocket of the business, it's not a tip. This last one is going to be to hear, but if you pay your employees below mimimum wage and allow for tips to make up the difference, well..... Always tip, in cash, direct…
I worry if I don't tip, they will vandalize my food. It's a hostage situation. I limit my use of the services because of it.
I've faced that after moving to SF. Stopped eating out unless its a actually special high end place or something.
I was in a rush and didn't put a tip, I found a hair in my fried rice and the tofu was not fully cooked. I'd ordered from that place a couple times before and its like $22 with tip for just Thai red curry with rice..
The prices are insane. Even if I made 10x what I make, I wouldn't eat out unless its really special.
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#29Given that even retail stores have added tipping prompts to their checkouts, I'd say yes. Plus many restaurants with placeholder tip icons that start at 25%+ You also don't know what the tip is really going towards in many cases. In the classic restaurant/waitstaff case you can reasonably expect it to go to the workers, in the random knick knack or general goods stores ??? Tipping in general is a system to transfer w…
No, tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly, rather than hiding them in prices and wages. It's an idiosyncratic system, but not an irrational one: wages and prices are stickier than tip levels.
Yes, thus higher tippers subsidize lower tippers by reducing the list price of goods.
If tipping didn’t exist and were instead embedded in wages, the employer would just raise the list prices commensurately.
There’s a fair argument to be made that restaurant wages would decline in aggregate without tipping though. Certainly there would be both winners and losers
Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
#30One thing I've never understood is the argument for tipping. It has always been "because servers are being paid less than minimum wage." Which the issue with that is that that varies state by state. Most west coast states do not have a separate tipped wage[0]. So the question is, why do we tip at all on the west coast[1]? Worse, it seems to be expanding and increasing in size[2]
The followup argument is often "well they are still being under paid." While I can buy this argument, I do not think the solution is tipping. Because if they are underpaid so are non-tipped jobs like the fast food worker, janitor, grocery worker, or movie theater employee. All tipping does is divide these people and reduce the pool for a larger collective to bargain for a higher minimum wage.
I feel we have this collective belief that tipping is bad (it sure confuses my foreign friends, who sometimes get dirty looks because they didn't tip), but once we've effectively created the criteria necessary to abolish it[3], we still maintained the cultural aspect of it: that we __need__ to tip (often thinking we'll get our food spat in if we don't). I've had others get upset with me for these opinions (I do tip btw) but I don't understand how we can think tipping shouldn't exist but continue in this direction. It's also interesting that in early America we thought of tipping as akin to bribery (I still believe this and I think this is common). It also has a history with slavery[4]
[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
[1] Obviously the argument no longer holds outside Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington
[2] When I was a kid (some 20 years ago) 10% was common for a standard tip. Now most places have an 18%/20%/25% option on screens. Some even higher! The second image in the article even shows a 30% tip
[3] I wouldn't completely abolish it, but I'd say it shouldn't be a standard.
[4] https://www.npr.org/2021/03/22/980047710/the-land-of-the-fee