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Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

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Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

benaadams wrote: post #3

> as long as they pay those workers at least the minimum wage Do US employeers not have to pay workers the minimum wage?

Both in federal law and most state laws, tipped workers have a lower base minimum wage, but have to be “topped up” by the employer to the general minimum wage if their tips are insufficient (but as tips are also frequently used as a performance measure, and many tipped professions are high-labor-supply fields where vacancies are easily filled and thus employers are quick to let people go, tipped employees that would need topped up are under pressure to pad their own tips to protect their job.)

If tipped workers had the general minimum wage as their base minimum wage with no top-up requirement, much of the abuses would go away (and there'd be less employer desire to drive the practice, but the culture would probably endure for some time.)

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#62

Post by ryankupyn »

I'm struck by how significantly the effect varies between states - according to table 2, 25% of the transfers (around $1.55 billion) are accounted for by Connecticut and Delaware alone (which collectively are around 2% of the US population).

Does anyone know why the effect is so strong in these states? In the notes the authors say that Delaware is one of the states with unusually strong protections - so I'd expect transfers would actually be unusually low in that case!

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#63

Post by alistairSH »

ex3ndr wrote: post #43
MollyR wrote: post #36

I hate tipping culture. When I was young and a waitress in college, I noticed horrible racism from waiters who treated minorities badly due to tipping stereotypes. Please just get rid of it for living wages.

Have you been in countries without tipping culture? Almost all of them have much worse service quality.

This has not been my experience. I’ve found service in Western Europe at least as good as the US.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#64

Post by Para2016 »

autarch wrote: post #58
ex3ndr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been in countries without tipping culture? Almost all of them have much worse service quality.

I've been to four places without tipping in restaurants, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. I would say all of them had better service than here in the US. In particular, the East Asian countries I visited all have _excellent_ service without tips. I suspect quality of service has a lot more to do with cultural factors unrelated to tipping.

Italy? I don't believe your experience was universal.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#65

Post by Gargoyle »

briandear wrote: post #39
koolba wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure guess but probably to allow for proper taxing of tips. Cash tips are notoriously underreported. I’ve never met any who receives them who claims the full value as income. Most will claim some min to meet a “normal” amount for a work day and pocket the rest. A law like this would shift that to be income received by the management which presumably they’d have to properly account for. Even if they give it all back i…

So you like to facilitate tax evasion? So that tax that's not being paid gets paid by some other schmuck -- like the cooks or the busboys that don't generally work from tips?

I dunno how it works everywhere, but when I worked as a busboy and then later as a barback (similar job), I was paid a percentage of the tips from each waitress or bartender, directly from each individual to me.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#66

Post by astura »

lev99 wrote: post #10
dabbledash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, I hope it does. Tipping is just a way for restaurant owners to exclude the cost of labor from their listed prices.

Counter point -- Tipping is a way to insure excellent service on return visits to service oriented establishments.

In reality the tip the customer leaves is dependent on the weather, the gender, race, and attractiveness of the server, the noise level of the restaurant, and the number one determination: the amount of the check!

Plus other factors...

Quality of service only makes up 1-5% of the amount of the tip received.

Furthermore, even if tips "insure excellent service," since tip pooling is standard operating procedure, then it doesn't accomplished that goal.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/abol...

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#67

Post by Para2016 »

kakaorka wrote: post #59
ex3ndr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been in countries without tipping culture? Almost all of them have much worse service quality.

I disagree. Tipping in the UK for example is not as popular as in the US, and the service quality for me was better in the UK.

I've had reverse experience. Service was better in US than UK.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#68

Post by s73ver_ »

briandear wrote: post #50
blakesterz wrote: post #4

"DOL has masked the fact that this rule would be a windfall to restaurant owners and other employers—out of the pockets of tipped workers—by making it sound as if this rule is about tip pooling." Sounds like this one must've been written by lobbyists? Assuming this article is accurate, why would this seem like a good rule to get rid of?

Here's an idea -- why don't we let business owners decide how to pay their people? If waiters don't like tip pooling, then they can work for another restaurant that doesn't do it. It's ridiculous that the government even gets involved in this -- assuming minimum wage is met and taxes are being properly paid -- what business is it of the government how restaurants operate (beyond health and safety obviously.) Does the…

Because businesses tend to make very poor decisions regarding these things, and they have more power than the employees.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#69

Post by fiblye »

ex3ndr wrote: post #43
MollyR wrote: post #36

I hate tipping culture. When I was young and a waitress in college, I noticed horrible racism from waiters who treated minorities badly due to tipping stereotypes. Please just get rid of it for living wages.

Have you been in countries without tipping culture? Almost all of them have much worse service quality.

American restaurant service is by no means good, despite waiters/waitresses supposedly being motivated by tips. It's expected that people are paying the tip regardless, so there really isn't any motivating factor anymore.

America has the problem where calling a waiter over is rude, so you have to wait for them to come over to your area. I can't count the number of times I've been waiting 15-20 minutes just to start my order, and this is often in restaurants that are fully staffed and barely busy. I don't encounter this elsewhere.

Re: Women would lose $4.6B in earned tips if ‘tip stealing’ rule is finalized

#70

Post by mikeash »

ex3ndr wrote: post #43
MollyR wrote: post #36

I hate tipping culture. When I was young and a waitress in college, I noticed horrible racism from waiters who treated minorities badly due to tipping stereotypes. Please just get rid of it for living wages.

Have you been in countries without tipping culture? Almost all of them have much worse service quality.

I lived in France for years, have visited China maybe ten times for several weeks each, and traveled around other European countries. None of these places has a tipping culture for restaurants, and all of them have excellent service despite that.
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