4 ms·

This doesn’t necessarily refute your point about restaurants being fucked, but with tipping, aren’t customers paying the same either way? If I tip $5 on a $20 s

This doesn’t necessarily refute your point about restaurants being fucked, but with tipping, aren’t customers paying the same either way? If I tip $5 on a $20 steak or pay $25 for a steak at a place where tipping isn’t allowed and waiters are paid directly doesn’t that equal out at the end of the day? I get that the catch is that many people tip poorly, and so for many people prices would in fact functionally increase leading to different decision-making around how much “restaurant” they consume. But that doesn’t feel like enough to say it would be impossible. Plenty of non-American countries have vibrant restaurant culture without tipping.

aspenmayer 5y ago
Tipped employees are legally paid well below the federal minimum wage, as long as their tips make up the shortfall to average minimum wage over the pay period. In theory, if you don’t make minimum wage after tips, your employer is legally obligated to pay you the difference. However, wage and tip theft by employers is rampant, and not all employees which contribute to table service are tipped out by servers. I’ve heard of many employers blaming employees for not making enough in tips to meet the minimum wage, and hold it against them in terms of work performance. It’s a really sad state of affairs. Tips aren’t the problem. Minimum wage not tracking productivity is a major issue. So is the minimum wage hierarchy where tipped employees are not paid a living wage to begin with, and tips are not going to solve wage or tip theft.
- ddoolin 5y ago
  I have a couple of anecdotes here. I was paid $3/hour when the state's minimum wage was around $8/hour (NC, 2010 or so) and the employer did make up those hours where it was < $8/hour with tips, although that was exceedingly rare (generally why front-facing food service workers don't like opening shifts). Many of my friends now are restaurant workers and all of them are paid state minimum wage. I don't know if it's just California that doesn't allow wages below minimum even for tipped employees, but it was interesting to see the difference because it's a real boon to their pay. If it had been like that when I was in food service, I would've made $5/hour more which is not insignificant at those levels.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  > Tipped employees are legally paid well below the federal minimum wage And there are other ways this plays out like in places that don't normally have tipping (counter sales) or rather their employees aren't classified as "tipped employees". I've seen more and more places adding a tip option to their POS (it's normally just a checkbox on the backend) and it's done to get away with paying a lower base rate (still well above the tiny tip wage which some around $3/hr IIRC, think $13-15/hr) and foist some of the employee's paycheck onto the customers through guilt. Tipping, as I understand it, was/is supposed to be a way to show how someone went above and beyond. Nowadays it's just a 20% tax you have to pay on top of everything. It's a scam and I hate tipping even more when I'm not being waited on. I still do it because I know how this plays out (re: employees need/rely on those tips) but it always makes me mad to be asked to tip when someone just handed me something from the kitchen/case/etc. I'd much rather all prices go up by 20% instead of the business owner hiding behind guilt tipping so they can make prices look lower and get away with paying employees less. I don't expect I'll ever see it in the US but I would love for tipping to go away completely.

aspenmayer 5y ago

Tipped employees are legally paid well below the federal minimum wage, as long as their tips make up the shortfall to average minimum wage over the pay period. In theory, if you don’t make minimum wage after tips, your employer is legally obligated to pay you the difference. However, wage and tip theft by employers is rampant, and not all employees which contribute to table service are tipped out by servers. I’ve heard of many employers blaming employees for not making enough in tips to meet the minimum wage, and hold it against them in terms of work performance. It’s a really sad state of affairs. Tips aren’t the problem. Minimum wage not tracking productivity is a major issue. So is the minimum wage hierarchy where tipped employees are not paid a living wage to begin with, and tips are not going to solve wage or tip theft.

ddoolin 5y ago
I have a couple of anecdotes here. I was paid $3/hour when the state's minimum wage was around $8/hour (NC, 2010 or so) and the employer did make up those hours where it was < $8/hour with tips, although that was exceedingly rare (generally why front-facing food service workers don't like opening shifts). Many of my friends now are restaurant workers and all of them are paid state minimum wage. I don't know if it's just California that doesn't allow wages below minimum even for tipped employees, but it was interesting to see the difference because it's a real boon to their pay. If it had been like that when I was in food service, I would've made $5/hour more which is not insignificant at those levels.
joshstrange 5y ago
> Tipped employees are legally paid well below the federal minimum wage And there are other ways this plays out like in places that don't normally have tipping (counter sales) or rather their employees aren't classified as "tipped employees". I've seen more and more places adding a tip option to their POS (it's normally just a checkbox on the backend) and it's done to get away with paying a lower base rate (still well above the tiny tip wage which some around $3/hr IIRC, think $13-15/hr) and foist some of the employee's paycheck onto the customers through guilt. Tipping, as I understand it, was/is supposed to be a way to show how someone went above and beyond. Nowadays it's just a 20% tax you have to pay on top of everything. It's a scam and I hate tipping even more when I'm not being waited on. I still do it because I know how this plays out (re: employees need/rely on those tips) but it always makes me mad to be asked to tip when someone just handed me something from the kitchen/case/etc. I'd much rather all prices go up by 20% instead of the business owner hiding behind guilt tipping so they can make prices look lower and get away with paying employees less. I don't expect I'll ever see it in the US but I would love for tipping to go away completely.