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> But in this case the only losers would come from other people acting on illogical cognitive biases (with the exception of people who currently choose not to t

by jgwil2 2y ago

> But in this case the only losers would come from other people acting on illogical cognitive biases (with the exception of people who currently choose not to tip, or to undertip, who would then be forced to pay the real amount - but surely those people aren't a significant lobbying group, not a sympathetic group that others feel need protecting). As I see it, there are two big groups of losers: restaurant owners, who fear that people may dine out less because of the "sticker shock" mentioned in the article, and any tipped staff of restaurants, who fear that their take-home pay will go down if they are paid an hourly wage with no tipping. So even if the "sticker shock" problem corrects itself after an adjustment period, the amount of money to be made as a waiter could very well permanently go down.

swores 2y ago
The waiters' worry just needs to be addressed by, at the same time as banning tipping, a) removing the current loophole that allows hospitality staff to be paid less than minimum wage because tips will make up the difference and b) raising minimum wage anywhere that it's too low. It's crazy that instead of laws to prevent someone working full time as a waiter from being paid too little to live on they instead have to rely on customers not being too stingy and not tipping enough. The fact that nobody in other countries wishes they had the US system should be a big clue as to how bad it is - no European waiter is thinking "I wish my salary were half what it is and customers were told their tips are what prevents me from starving". It really isn't a "some winners, some losers" situation it's just a shit situation.
- jgwil2 2y ago
  > removing the current loophole that allows hospitality staff to be paid less than minimum wage because tips will make up the difference This isn't really the issue: the employer is required to make up the difference if the worker's pay does not meet or exceed the normal (non-tipped) minimum wage. The issue is that the waiters are making serious money off of tips. Say they are making $5/hr for a six hour shift and that they serve 10 tables who each buy $100 worth of food during that shift: then their total pay is going to be 6 * 5 + 10 * 15 = 30 + 150 = $180 (since the custom is to tip at least 15% of the cost of the bill). That means that in order to make the same amount of money without tips, they would have to make $30/hr (and I've chosen pretty low numbers; you can imagine that in more expensive restaurants the money just gets better). That's a pretty expensive wage and it seems unlikely that most staff would get it. > no European waiter is thinking "I wish my salary were half what it is and customers were told their tips are what prevents me from starving" Obviously it depends a lot on the kind of place but I would guess that in high-end places, American waiters are doing better than their European counterparts (at least in terms of raw wages), as illustrated above. Servers and bartenders in full-service restaurants are by and large pretty big proponents of the tipping system. In any case, I'm not a proponent of this system at all; I'm just trying to answer your question of why it hasn't changed by showing that there are in fact groups that benefit from the system as is, so it's not pure inertia that prevents us from getting rid of it.

by jgwil2 2y ago

swores 2y ago

The waiters' worry just needs to be addressed by, at the same time as banning tipping, a) removing the current loophole that allows hospitality staff to be paid less than minimum wage because tips will make up the difference and b) raising minimum wage anywhere that it's too low. It's crazy that instead of laws to prevent someone working full time as a waiter from being paid too little to live on they instead have to rely on customers not being too stingy and not tipping enough. The fact that nobody in other countries wishes they had the US system should be a big clue as to how bad it is - no European waiter is thinking "I wish my salary were half what it is and customers were told their tips are what prevents me from starving". It really isn't a "some winners, some losers" situation it's just a shit situation.

jgwil2 2y ago
> removing the current loophole that allows hospitality staff to be paid less than minimum wage because tips will make up the difference This isn't really the issue: the employer is required to make up the difference if the worker's pay does not meet or exceed the normal (non-tipped) minimum wage. The issue is that the waiters are making serious money off of tips. Say they are making $5/hr for a six hour shift and that they serve 10 tables who each buy $100 worth of food during that shift: then their total pay is going to be 6 * 5 + 10 * 15 = 30 + 150 = $180 (since the custom is to tip at least 15% of the cost of the bill). That means that in order to make the same amount of money without tips, they would have to make $30/hr (and I've chosen pretty low numbers; you can imagine that in more expensive restaurants the money just gets better). That's a pretty expensive wage and it seems unlikely that most staff would get it. > no European waiter is thinking "I wish my salary were half what it is and customers were told their tips are what prevents me from starving" Obviously it depends a lot on the kind of place but I would guess that in high-end places, American waiters are doing better than their European counterparts (at least in terms of raw wages), as illustrated above. Servers and bartenders in full-service restaurants are by and large pretty big proponents of the tipping system. In any case, I'm not a proponent of this system at all; I'm just trying to answer your question of why it hasn't changed by showing that there are in fact groups that benefit from the system as is, so it's not pure inertia that prevents us from getting rid of it.