Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Why would it? That’s not what’s being suggested at all.
Well the most obvious reason is that tipping culture is robbing workers who it’s supposed to help.
In my state, “tipped” positions’ minimum wage is 2.12/hr. Despite the fact that tipping isn’t guaranteed or mandatory. There are other “tipped” positions than waiters. How often do you tip the car hop at sonic that brings you your drink? They often make less than minimum wage. The dude making your sandwich at subway? Yeah, they deduct that guy’s tips from his hourly.
Tell me why we shouldn’t end a system that exploits the culture to get away with paying out poverty wages?
The biggest opponents of ending tipping are the bartenders and servers. There aren’t many other jobs where they can make hundreds of dollars in a few hours on a busy night, and they would not give up that even when offered $30 an hour
I don’t doubt that, and it would be fine if it were just servers. Now that tipping culture has spread, it’s actively hurting people who the population at large doesn’t feel like they should have to tip
Your understanding of minimum wage is incorrect - under the FLSA, if an employees tips do not bring their wages up to minimum, the employer must make up the difference. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped/2020
Still horseshit though. If you can’t pay employees a fair wage, you don’t deserve to be in business, and it shouldn’t be on the customer to subsidize your employees’ shitty pay rate.
I realize that. The idea is that these employees make minimum wage no matter what you tip them. The only tipped position that routinely breaks that is a restaurant server.