9 ms·

Is 'No tax on tips' a distraction from the fight to end sub-minimum wages?

127 points by howard941 2y ago

more_corn 2y ago
How about no tax on people below the poverty line? When I was young it always killed me to make so little and still pay taxes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway48540 2y ago
  That's pretty hard to do when the absolute majority of the sum of taxes is paid by poor people. Even if you taxed the rich at 99%, it would be short by orders of magnitude - and then of course you have to consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve Also, there's a distinction between people below the poverty line, and young people making little wages in their early jobs. Why shouldn't we tax the rich kid working at McDonald's because their trust fund requires them to work for a decade before they get access to it?
  - r3trohack3r 2y ago
    Interested in digging deeper, do you have a source for this: > That's pretty hard to do when the absolute majority of the sum of taxes is paid by poor people. Even if you taxed the rich at 99%, it would be short by orders of magnitude
  - bena 2y ago
    The Laffer curve is just kind of made up. He just said "I believe this is how it should work" and then tried to make it work, even though it never quite does. And it often turns in results that its proponents don't like.
  - alemanek 2y ago
    When you account for all taxes this may be true but for just income taxes it isn’t. According to the link below the bottom 50% makeup just 2.34% of income taxes paid. So, eliminating income taxes and maybe adding a return free filing option for the bottom 50% of households looks super doable. Source: https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxe...
    - hoosieree 2y ago
      Income taxes don't affect every person equally though. Plenty of Very Rich people earn zero income.
      - alemanek 2y ago
        Yep and that is a separate issue that needs to be addressed. When you have people who are so wealthy that they can switch their nationality on a whim then that requires special solutions.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - kbolino 2y ago
    From the perspective of government receipts, the bulk of taxes are paid by the middle, not the tails. The rich don't have enough numbers, and the poor don't have enough money, to offset the area under the middle of the curve. This isn't true everywhere, but is true in the US and most developed countries.
  - jfdjkfdhjds 2y ago
    your first point is the only thing this whole discussion should be about... the second one is insanity :)
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  There is argument against and in favour. France works like that and it means a lot of people don’t pay taxes and in return don’t feel very connected to the state spending. It’s weird but I think a token amount of tax completely offset by state handovers is preferable to no tax purely from a mind set point of view (you too are part of the collective and contribute to the working of the state). The whole thing is a bit disingenuous anyway when so much of tax revenue actually comes from VAT and other indirect taxes.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Isn't that essentially already the case in the USA? The standard deduction for a single person is $14,600/year and the federal property level is very close to that at $15,060/year. It's kind-of weird how these levels are set equal nationwide... as there are regions where this is a decent living and one could own a small single family home or condo, an older but reliable car, and eat well on that salary... and places where you would be homeless and have no day to day security or stability required to even keep a job.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Are you being serious no one eats well on $15k/year.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      Nonsense.... I lived on under 10k/year for close to a decade in rural Oregon- a while enough ago that that would be about $14k/year now adjusted for inflation. I had a decent 2 bedroom apartment, two older but reliable cars I got for nearly free at auto auctions and a fast motorcycle, and cooked my own meals 3x/day from top quality local farmers market ingredients. I'm talking REALLY good food, the best quality fresh local meat and vegetables money can buy, that was the one thing I would not compromise on. I traveled a lot for fun also, but it was in my own (very fuel efficient) vehicles, cooking for myself on a camp stove while traveling and I could only afford restaurants a few times a year. Almost all of my possessions like furniture, etc. were high quality things I had slowly sourced for free over craigslist, with some dumpster diving and word of mouth. Mostly high end vintage hardwood stuff that looked expensive- Rich people don't sell that stuff, they give or throw it away. Personally, I felt like I was living very comfortably, and I quite enjoyed the challenge of living frugally. I felt a bit smug about how I creatively found ways to have pretty nice things, and a nice lifestyle without much cost. I'll add that nowadays I'm into 'sea foraging' and can jump in the ocean with a mask and a pole spear and eat like a king for free in a few minutes.
      - stonogo 2y ago
        I think if you look you'll find that housing costs have rapidly outpaced inflation, even in rural Oregon. Studio flats in La Grande are approaching a thousand dollars a month. I believe what you're saying is true, but I don't think the experiment could be replicated today.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  I always found it strange that modern socialists and leftists are very supportive of income taxes, even though it is a dreadful burden on those people who have to work for their survival. Why wouldn't leftists instead be more for taxes and tariffs on land, on commerce, on natural resources or on luxuries? The funny thing is that one of the goals of the communist party in the Soviet Union was to abolish all income taxes! Khrushchev even lamented later that they couldn't reach that goal. I suspect many hackers would have loved to be members of the Supreme Soviet, but how would they have reacted when Khrushchev suggested to abolish all income taxes?
  - throaway827 2y ago
    one reason is that it's hard for a leftist to imagine a world where people making millions or billions to have a 0% income tax rate
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      People don't make millions or billions on working and receiving a salary.
  - slater 2y ago
    > I always found it strange that modern socialists and leftists are very supportive of income taxes, even though it is a dreadful burden on those people who have to work for their survival What? We did "trickle-down" economics before. Surprisingly enough, it didn't work. At all. Also, back in the 1950s/60s, we thoroughly soaked the rich and got to go to the moon[0]. Then the 1970s came around and the new gen of wealthies were all "yeah nah, that sucked, let's do something about it!"[1] [0] in b4 "it's way more complicated than that!!1~" [1] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      When I say it's a dreadful burden, I mean it. For people doing physical labour and relying on their work for survival, they know exactly how much blood, sweat and tears they had to give for each dollar taken from them in taxes. For the people relying on real estate price appreciation for their income, taxes are more of an abstract.
flerchin 2y ago
It needs to be clear if I'm shafting a sub-minimum wage worker, or declining an egregious tip-ask at the self-check counter.
- hoosieree 2y ago
  If you must tip, only ever use cash. Otherwise you're also subsidizing Square, Toast, Visa, Stripe, etc. Did they give you exceptional service today? Use cash.
  - princevegeta89 2y ago
    Tipping cash is great whenever you have it, but it's not convenient. Not in the age of digital payments that can be completed with your mobile phone.
    - hoosieree 2y ago
      You're absolutely right, cash is indeed inconvenient. But all digital payments make you pay a middleman "platform" which tries to extract as much of the transaction as possible while providing the minimum possible value. Oh and by the way this platform's also trying to become a monopoly so it can eventually provide less than the minimum value without losing you as a customer. Crypto claims to be a solution to this, but in practice approximately all crypto transactions go through a middleman (exchange) which takes a cut. It's unreasonable to expect your barista to go through the effort of accepting crypto payments without involving an exchange. Cash doesn't have this problem. I'd love to be proven wrong about this. Is there a digital payment method that runs on phones that doesn't subsidize a middleman?
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        Chinese payment platforms are the closest to a light middle man, but this might just be VC subsidizing things. Cash has its own expense of course, you need a middleman regardless, even if it’s just your local bank branch taking daily merchant cash deposits.
beaglesss 2y ago
What's more likely is some bean counter at the IRS realized enforcing taxes on tips cost more money to enforce than they gained, or was barely break even. It's an easy political win at no risk.
- r00fus 2y ago
  What's to prevent corporations and the rich from taking advantage of this? ie, my job is $10k + rest in "tips"?
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    Yeah, maybe unintuitive, but even if it costs more to collect and enforce taxes than you get from taxes, it also has a preventative side to not abuse it.
  - nickfromseattle 2y ago
    The easiest seems like who is paying the "tip". If it's your employer, it's taxable compensation. If it's a customer, than it could be a tip. Then there would probably be a bunch of sub-bullet points defining whether a tip is taxable depending on whether you have a direct relationship with the customer tipping you, whether the "tip" is mandatory, or at the discretion of the customer, are you in X roles (e.g. barista) within Y industries (e.g. food services).
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - NotACop182 2y ago
      Easier way is to put a cap on how much you make. Let’s say 70k. Make more you don’t get the exemption prevents the rich from gaming the system. Also define tips by industry. Service sector. End of story.
      - tacticalturtle 2y ago
        If you put a cap on income, then both you and the IRS need to maintain a record of the tips you received, to prove that you’re on the right side of the cap. I don’t think that saves much in administration costs.
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
I assume business would just lower the amount they pay, since tips would be worth more.
- IgorPartola 2y ago
  Businesses already pay the exact minimum wage of $2.13/hour. The employees either make an additional $5.12/hour in tips or the employer must make up the difference at every pay period. Employees routinely underreport their tip earnings beyond the $5.12/hour to not pay taxes and fly under the DoL radar. Edit: I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. There is a minimum wage like $10/hour but if an employee is tipped the employer can claim a “tip credit” of like $6 and pay the employee only $4. Then if the employee is underpaid the employer must. Make up the difference. Employees who routinely don’t make full tips are less likely to continue working at the restaurant but you can’t just legally fire them for not making enough tips. I am sure lots of people have also noticed fast food restaurants pushing for tips for the crew at checkout. This is an industry shift. Same with single owner businesses asking for tips (generally if someone sets their own price a tip shouldn’t be expected, but Square et al made that a normal part of checkout and people now believe it’s necessary). With expected tips getting into the 25-30% territory I wonder if there is an opportunity here for a restaurant chain to advertise itself as “we pay our employees well so you don’t have to”.
  - phainopepla2 2y ago
    > Edit: I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. There is a minimum wage like $10/hour but if an employee is tipped the employer can claim a “tip credit” of like $6 and pay the employee only $4 This is not true in California, at least. Restaurant workers are paid at least minimum wage (which is $16 or higher depending on locality) and then tips on top. "Tip credit" is not allowed
  - akavi 2y ago
    > I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. Rule of thumb, there's _nothing_ in US law where you can say "things vary by state, but they're all the same in way X". In this case, California has no concept of tip credits. All employees, regardless of whether they receive tips, must be paid at least minimum wage (Currently 16 $/hr)
Aunche 2y ago
Increasing the tipped minimum wage means that restaurants will add that cost to the menu. Because tips are based a percentage of your order, this means that customers actually pay more money in tips, even though these laws are marketed as reducing the need for tips.
- silisili 2y ago
  I think (hope) the expectation is to eventually increase wages and prices and phase out tips altogether. Tip culture has gone insane...even my home inspector's last invoice has a tip line!
  - ribosometronome 2y ago
    Not taxing tips will increase the reliance on them rather than remove it.
    - silisili 2y ago
      Absolutely. The article in question is about how it runs counter to increasing said wages instead, and the comment I'm replying to I think is saying if we raise wages tips will raise. Which is true, short term.
      - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
        I mean, wages have been increasing. Legislated wages are a vanishingly small portion of earned wages, except in the states with the highest minimum wages relative to market rates (and then usually only in the least-developed areas in those states, which is also where those legislated wages are likely to cause unemployment).
  - jandrewrogers 2y ago
    Minimum wage is already $20/hr where I live. Tips can approximately double that. There is no version of the world where employees will willing give up those tips and no restaurant can afford a $40/hr minimum wage. This is just a one-way ratchet on employment costs, not a plausible way to eliminate tipping.
bko 2y ago
I don't like tipping culture, but it does allow for wealthy people to subsidize service and incentivizes good service. People that are more price sensitive tip lower and every once in a while a waiter will experience an extremely generous tip. I'm not convinced that forbidding tips would increase net wages paid to servers. In terms of who is paying, restaurants will simply raise prices to account for higher wages. Their margins aren't that big. Finally I think tipping definitely incentivizes good service. Its partly cultural, but I've noticed much higher level of service in the US compared to Europe were tips are not expected as much
- duxup 2y ago
  >and incentivizes good service Does it? I think for most folks getting lots of tips they find that he tips feel more like they're going to be... whatever they're going to be. Meanwhile their day to day job is more about other things going on, or if the food came out cooked wrong ... not so much something they control like a light-switch enough to make changes. I'm not sure that incentivizes much at all.
- kitkat_new 2y ago
  tips incentivize to be white, young and female - there is almost no correlation between service quality and tip size: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362331999000610 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036233199...
- diob 2y ago
  I've actually gotten much better service in places like Australia / Japan where tips aren't a thing. From my understanding, poor people are often the best tippers in the USA, and rich folks tend to not tip.
  - loa_in_ 2y ago
    Statistically speaking, really rich people never cross paths with most establishments
  - phainopepla2 2y ago
afavour 2y ago
IMO it's just bad policy all round without a significantly higher level of detail. For example, how do we classify a tip vs a wage? If we're not very, very specific about it's going to be yet another tax loophole exploited by the rich who will pay each other $1 for work and then 'tip' thousands more. Sure you’re an engineer on staff now but wouldn’t you want to be a freelancer, paid minimum wage and then a healthy “tip” every two weeks? Win win: I don't pay for benefits, you don’t pay tax. No tax on tips can be sold as a benefit to the working poor while the small print can be written to favor the rich… no wonder politicians of all stripes are clamouring for it.
- FigurativeVoid 2y ago
  I would say this is ridiculous, until I read Snyder v. United States[1,2]. > Held: Section 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts. Pp. 7–16. 1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf. 2. https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/snyder-v-united-states/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/snyder-v-united-...
  - pdonis 2y ago
    The real kicker in that case is that Snyder claimed the money was payment for services as a consultant to Peterbilt--which would be an obvious and glaring conflict of interest with his duties as mayor. But as far as I can tell this wasn't even considered anywhere--not the Federal prosecutors and not the judges at any level.
  - golergka 2y ago
    I think a difference between a bribe and gratitude is pretty obvious. If the official had prior knowledge that he would receive an award, its a bribe. If he had no reason to expect it before making a decision, it's gratitude.
    - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
kitkat_new 2y ago
tips should be banned not only is it a shitty source of income, it also exposes you to sexism, racism and makes you tolerate shit things, because your income could be at risk standing up for yourself.
- throw_m239339 2y ago
  In some cultures, people "tip" teachers, police officers, doctors, politicians, judges... you know where I'm going with that... I'm not saying tips should be banned but there certainly is a "cultural aspect" to tipping...
  - maximinus_thrax 2y ago
    No, they don't. You're trying a false equivalency between a bribe and gratuity. A bribe happens before the service is provided and the service is contingent upon the bribe. Gratuity is post factum, technically based on the quality of the service provided.
    - hunter2_ 2y ago
      At counters, the tip happens before the service is provided, unless you're somehow basing the amount on the experience of ordering.
    - beaglesss 2y ago
      Tip 0 and see what kind of service you get the next time. I used to work food delivery and naturally the customers ordering takeout at fancy restaurants would always tip 0 to the restaurant even if they tipped me for delivery. I quickly found myself ignored by all the workers at those restaurants, orders take an hour extra to fill, no one talk to me, etc. eventually I learned to tip out of my own tip because my next service is contingent on the prior tip.
      - rangerelf 2y ago
        Because here in the US the tip is considered part of their salary. No tip? You're not paying them for their work, it's no wonder they're ignoring you. And that can only be fixed with legislation.
bcrosby95 2y ago
I dislike this proposal. Just like I'm not a fan of $20/hour minimum wage for fast food in California. I don't see why we should hold service workers that get tips, and in California's case, those that work at fast food, above other wage earners. It feels degenerate that the government is signalling to us that we should e.g. work in fast food and as a waiter over preschools and child care.
- jerlam 2y ago
  Especially in states like California, where there is no separate lower tipped wage for anyone.
- Simulacra 2y ago
  Well, for one the SEIU is a significant political voting bloc that no politician or business wants to cross
micromacrofoot 2y ago
what would stop me from "hey I'll do this for $5/hr, but it would be nice if you tipped me $500 for it" — this "policy" is just election sound clip pandering
Kon-Peki 2y ago
I would assume that the implementation mechanism involves reporting tips to the IRS so they can be taxed at a 0% rate, and that you would have to be classified as a non-exempt employee with a maximum hourly earnings rate. So basically, unreported income remains tax evasion. White collar workers paid via tips is tax evasion. Etc
- meroes 2y ago
  Sounds like all the blue collar workers who get tips are now screwed by this system. Getting tipped against a maximum wage defeats the purpose of tipping them. Say you tip your mailman $100 at Christmas or refrigerator deliverer type stuff.
websap 2y ago
We're moving to a world that most restaurants won't have servers taking your food and drinks order. This is already happening in Seattle, multiple spots are now counter style ordering, you order, get a number and someone just comes from the kitchen to deliver the food. Some of them also have a QR code associated with your number which you can scan to order follow up items. Tipping more than 10% for counter style ordering doesn't make sense to me, because I don't even know who is receiving the tip? The American Economoy just cannot support servers given the rise in cost for doing business and changes in consumer behavior due to inflation. Servers will be soon available only in the "nice" restaurants.
- princevegeta89 2y ago
  If you ask me, tipping more than 0% for counter style ordering where there is no dedicated waiter involved makes no sense. Even worse are the coffee shops - if you think getting a coffee is just a few bucks and is relatively cheap, note that you get robbed when you end up tipping. $1 or more tip on a $5 coffee. And there is nothing special you get, the baristas are just doing their basic job. Also the looks you get when you select the option "no tip" or the 0% tip, don't make it worth anything at all. I stopped going to coffee shops a long time ago.
  - djbusby 2y ago
    I tip at my local coffee (1-2/wk) because they are always nice, cool when I forget my wallet, get my "usual" w/o prompting, stickers for my kid, give me pro-tips on pastry baking, etc But if I went daily it'd be like $8/coffee. Espresso machine at home was the right answer. Pays for itself after only 200 coffees.
    - alphabettsy 2y ago
      I tip at places like coffee shops and delis because the person taking my order is often also preparing it. If they’re just handing me a bag from the kitchen I don’t tip. Maybe this is silly.
maerF0x0 2y ago
IMO there should be a CoL adjusted minimum livable wage across the country, and it should be illegal to pay a >18 year old less than what it takes to live on. And that should be calculated from the barest minimum living standards[1]. At a certain point it becomes unconscionable for a wealthy society not to provide pure commodities at their lowest cost of delivery to it's poorest. As we do that, tips should be eliminated too. There's very few of us with a hard enough heart who'd say no to someone who asked for a glass of tap water, or to use the toilet. As a society advances other basic necessities should move into the common domain too. (And the wonderful thing about capitalism is it has driven down the real costs of most of these things to historically absurdly low prices eg a thrift store pants for $7 in the face of $15 minimum wage is cheap compared to history when it was normative to have only 2 sets of clothes) [1]: I'm thinking like shared bedroom, thrift store clothes, rice + beans + costco, annual checkup + bare minimum health insurance, annual dental cleaning / bare minimum insurance, a mint mobile $15 a month cellphone plan, and a library card for entertainment and education. You're not thriving, and you're not a catastrophic burden on the system either.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Our society is wealthy partially because of this inequality, not in spite of it. The real risk and extreme danger of penury provides a pressure for people to work for the lowest wages possible, keeping the price of the produced goods low for those who can afford them. Places with more mechanisms to prevent falling into deep poverty and policies to alleviate it have higher wages at the very bottom, and less wealth both in personal net and GDP per capita. But even then it only benefits local workers: they still depend on an immiserated worker underclass somewhere to make their cheap goods. Capitalism created this problem, and it is a fundamental mechanism in how capitalism creates wealth. It's not within the powers of capitalism to solve it.
- amflare 2y ago
  Absolutely not. Compensation should reflect value received. This idea effectively forces a business to subsidize their employees, because you damn sure can't pass all that to the customer (because then we are just back where we started, just with an extra 0 on every transaction). Small businesses and business with low profit margins will be forced out of business. And this would consolidate capital into the hands of the big businesses and billionaires who can afford to pay everyone tens of thousands of dollars more than they can bring into the company. A McDonald's cashier is not worth $55,000 just because they are >18 years old. That position is not supposed to be a career. That position is supposed to be a first job for a dumb 16 year old who needs gas money and $500 for a PS5. When their needs outgrow their paycheck, they are supposed to move to a job that pays more. Can McDonalds afford to pay the extra? Sure. But Jimmy's Hotdog Stand down the street can't, so he goes out of business and the money he would have made goes to McDonald's instead and the rich get richer.
aamargulies 2y ago
Topics like these are a footnote in the fight against wealth inequality, a fight we’re losing to the rich. Gary Stevenson is doing hero’s work on this subject and it is the whale in the room for everyone’s financial well-being. https://youtu.be/TflnQb9E6lw?si=tzUGGC5xektyU9kc https://youtu.be/TflnQb9E6lw?si=tzUGGC5xektyU9kc
debacle 2y ago
The US is in desperate need of a labor movement. The Democrats dance with the UAW and are deeply tied to the AFT/NEA, but most labor unions in the US are getting the crap beat out of them and both parties turn a blind eye. It's good that more unions are speaking with/to Republicans, but what is really needed is a dedicated workers' party.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago
  [dead]
- gosub100 2y ago
  I know this is a naive question, but I don't know why it's so difficult to start a union in the age of online communities. For instance there are dedicated forums and subreddits for e.g. Uber eats and Amazon delivery and Walmart and all the grueling, exploitative jobs. They all have a common thread and viewpoint, why isn't it trivial for them to organize online, pick a date, and one day all "come out" formally as union employees?
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    Have a look at the process for unionization: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections. For instance it's per workplace and there's a threshold of how much support among the workers you need, etc. It's not just something you join and then you're in a union.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    > They all have a common thread and viewpoint, why isn't it trivial for them to organize online, pick a date, and one day all "come out" formally as union employees? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting If you were to organize a union, how would you increase membership while ensuring that management doesn't know that you're organizing a union? You mention online forums and similar but how do you let people know about the forum for the sake of organizing while keeping management out of the loop for the sake of secrecy?
brodouevencode 2y ago
It seems like a distraction. I had a uncle that would tell the wait staff that the cash he handed them was a gift and not a tip (with a wink and a nod).
- mlyle 2y ago
  Haha. Your uncle probably had waitstaff that did not understand that he was talking about a tax distinction and thought he was creepy. :P
  - brodouevencode 2y ago
    He would only eat at the Waffle House near where he lived. They got it after a while.
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
The tipping culture in the US has got totally out of control over last 3-4 years. I'm more than fine tipping low waged people who provide an actual service like wait staff and barbers, but the ubiquitous payment terminals taking over for credit card payment, where the cashier/counter staff expect a 10/15/20% or more tip (some now have 20% as the minimum, unless you go "custom") for doing nothing, piss me off! What next, will tips for supermarket cashiers be next? CVS checkout too?
- jjice 2y ago
  I was at a small train station in New England heading to Boston with a friend a few weeks ago. We each got a bottle of water. $5 each (should have seen that coming), but the real shocker was that the convenience store inside the train station asked for a tip on the terminal. On the $5 bottles of water we picked up and brought to the counter. The absurdity there makes me feel like I'm in Waiting for Godot.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    It is ridiculous. If they want to increase the price by 15% then just do that, but don't pretend you're not by just asking for a 15% tip instead (for the pleasure of using the self-checkout terminal).
- laweijfmvo 2y ago
  why would you tip a barber? because they cut your hair good? what was the base payment for then?
  - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    I guess some of it is cultural rather than rational, but is tipping wait staff so much different? If you go to an expensive restaurant and pay double for the same food as in a cheaper one, then what exactly are you paying for, and in any case why is the tip a percentage (vs fixed amount, as is normal in the UK) such that the wait staff in the more expensive place get more? Whether rational or not, I'm personally fine tipping where the worker is making a low wage, and have spent time personally attending to me. Part of it is thinking that they'll appreciate it more than I will miss it.
stainablesteel 2y ago
minimum wage is not a problem the value backing the currency is the problem, government is spending too much and your cash is not worth anything the artificial minimum or maximum you're owed is a hoax and only hurts the economy by preventing people from working if they can't achieve that amount, and by hurting the economy makes you poorer by devaluing your currency, meaning what you're paid will be worth less due to the value of the currency, not its amount
nerdjon 2y ago
I am honestly curious who was really pushing this? Unless I missed it I don't think I heard anything about no taxes on tips until both candidates suddenly supported it. So just seems like it came out of nowhere. If we really are going to stick with tips, I think it's fine. Maybe it will fix some of the issues on the workers side temporarily. But we honestly just need to move away from tipping in the US. Give everyone a livable wage and increase prices slightly. I am already paying 15/20% more thanks to tipping so there is no harm in just increasing the cost of the item, likely less than I am paying now since it would be evenly split between everyone instead of just those that tip.
- tacticalturtle 2y ago
  Trump heard a waitress in Las Vegas complain about tip taxes, so he proposed it: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5071144/no-tax-on-tips-campaigns-trump-harris https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5071144/no-tax-on-tips-... > Trump has been campaigning on the "no tax on tips" policy since June, after a Las Vegas server told him the government was taking too big of a cut from her tipped wages. Then Harris was forced to match. That’s pretty much it. There’s no economic analysis behind it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
lulznews 2y ago
It’s clearly a dumb gimmick for a dumb and gimmicky country.
jrochkind1 2y ago
Violation of Betteridge's law, cause, absolutely.
OptionOfT 2y ago
Tips, and in general, taxes and fees should become part of the advertised. It should not be on the consumer to be guilt tripped into paying for a living wage of server, nor to be guilt tripped into a 3% healthcare surcharge, or to be deceived by seeing a price advertised, only to have to pay a whole bunch more because of added fees. I can understand the justification for taxes to be separate, I don't like it, but I get it. But the 'fuel surcharge' / 'healthcare fee' / ... should be part of your price. How can I compare 2 places if they get to advertise super low prices, only to make it up with self-imposed fees?
- manuelmoreale 2y ago
  This is one of those cultural differences that are so hard for me to even comprehend. The idea of living in a place where the price I see written is not the one I’m going to pay for is so bizarre. Like it doesn’t make any rational sense given the context I grew up in. Still, reading this entire discussion is a reminder that societies can be incredibly different even in the most mundane of things like going to get a coffee.
numpad0 2y ago
I'm from culture where tips don't generally exist, at least for common folks. Waiters are paid >=minimum wages, and most don't like pocketing cash at work. You can just call any of staffers and make orders, around here, in most casual restaurants. You don't have to wait for your waiter to come back around, the guy carrying that platter of steaming hot lobster has his wireless POS tablet that works for any table and he'd be tsk happy to take your orders because he's paid only by hours and not stealing his colleagues' income by doing so. In restaurant owner's perspective, it makes waiters way more scalable, easier to overcommit, and also reduces loss of sales from I/O timeouts; any workers can notice empty glasses and collect upsells. To waiters, it gives more stable source of income, which may or may not be plenty, but stability is always nice. To customers, it works like mentioned above. Isn't this better use of everyone's time?
unsignedint 2y ago
I really dislike the tipping culture. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for tipping when someone goes above and beyond. But I can't stand the expectation that a tip is mandatory, rather than something that's earned. There was this one time at a restaurant where they completely dropped the ball. They brought me a cup of coffee but never came back to take my order, despite me asking. I ended up leaving without eating anything. Of course, I paid for the coffee, but I didn’t leave a tip. When I mentioned this to some friends who used to work in the service industry, they all said I was the jerk for not tipping. But honestly, I don’t think I was in the wrong. I visited Australia a while back, and I loved how their bills have a tipping line, but it’s never expected. That’s how it should be everywhere.
sys_64738 2y ago
To earn a dollar after tax by the payee, then the payer needs to earn $2.23 before tax. The winner is always Uncle Sam.
Simulacra 2y ago
It's a distraction from the issue of ending tips entirely. They are not sufficient to live on, creates tension and animosity between service employees and consumers, and lets businesses off the hook from paying an actual wage. Tipping needs to die.
snapplebobapple 2y ago
Its a distraction from how stupid minimum wages are and from how chain restaurants probably abuse geographic labor oligopolies to push down wages making minimum wage a less bad policy than the correct policy of no wage controls. We meed to fix both.
sublinear 2y ago
The "fight to end sub-minimum wages" is a distraction from no tax on tips.
big-green-man 2y ago
Is it really a fight? On who's behalf is this fight happening, and who is fighting for it? I've never met a service worker who relies on tips that wanted to end the practice. Tips seem to be the entire draw to those types of work in my experience. I've never met a tip worker that was doing it over a wage job they'd rather have, unless it was some type of professional salary type gig like they're going to school to become a nurse or something, and in those cases, they're doing tip work because it enables them to make that happen when no other job really would. Seems to me like the people fighting for it aren't the people living that way and those fighting are fighting on behalf of people who don't really want their help.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
I really wanted us to pull back away from tipping culture (to just paying more fairly), but an exemption on tax income is only going to make tipping culture much more pervasive. We already don’t have a sub min here in Washington state, and then we have tips asked for at self service kiosks, when will it end? Now I’ll be expected to tip my car mechanic also?

127 points by howard941 2y ago

How about no tax on people below the poverty line? When I was young it always killed me to make so little and still pay taxes.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwaway48540 2y ago
That's pretty hard to do when the absolute majority of the sum of taxes is paid by poor people. Even if you taxed the rich at 99%, it would be short by orders of magnitude - and then of course you have to consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve Also, there's a distinction between people below the poverty line, and young people making little wages in their early jobs. Why shouldn't we tax the rich kid working at McDonald's because their trust fund requires them to work for a decade before they get access to it?
- r3trohack3r 2y ago
  Interested in digging deeper, do you have a source for this: > That's pretty hard to do when the absolute majority of the sum of taxes is paid by poor people. Even if you taxed the rich at 99%, it would be short by orders of magnitude
- bena 2y ago
  The Laffer curve is just kind of made up. He just said "I believe this is how it should work" and then tried to make it work, even though it never quite does. And it often turns in results that its proponents don't like.
- alemanek 2y ago
  When you account for all taxes this may be true but for just income taxes it isn’t. According to the link below the bottom 50% makeup just 2.34% of income taxes paid. So, eliminating income taxes and maybe adding a return free filing option for the bottom 50% of households looks super doable. Source: https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxe...
  - hoosieree 2y ago
    Income taxes don't affect every person equally though. Plenty of Very Rich people earn zero income.
    - alemanek 2y ago
      Yep and that is a separate issue that needs to be addressed. When you have people who are so wealthy that they can switch their nationality on a whim then that requires special solutions.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kbolino 2y ago
  From the perspective of government receipts, the bulk of taxes are paid by the middle, not the tails. The rich don't have enough numbers, and the poor don't have enough money, to offset the area under the middle of the curve. This isn't true everywhere, but is true in the US and most developed countries.
- jfdjkfdhjds 2y ago
  your first point is the only thing this whole discussion should be about... the second one is insanity :)
RandomThoughts3 2y ago
There is argument against and in favour. France works like that and it means a lot of people don’t pay taxes and in return don’t feel very connected to the state spending. It’s weird but I think a token amount of tax completely offset by state handovers is preferable to no tax purely from a mind set point of view (you too are part of the collective and contribute to the working of the state). The whole thing is a bit disingenuous anyway when so much of tax revenue actually comes from VAT and other indirect taxes.
_yb2s 2y ago
Isn't that essentially already the case in the USA? The standard deduction for a single person is $14,600/year and the federal property level is very close to that at $15,060/year. It's kind-of weird how these levels are set equal nationwide... as there are regions where this is a decent living and one could own a small single family home or condo, an older but reliable car, and eat well on that salary... and places where you would be homeless and have no day to day security or stability required to even keep a job.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Are you being serious no one eats well on $15k/year.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    Nonsense.... I lived on under 10k/year for close to a decade in rural Oregon- a while enough ago that that would be about $14k/year now adjusted for inflation. I had a decent 2 bedroom apartment, two older but reliable cars I got for nearly free at auto auctions and a fast motorcycle, and cooked my own meals 3x/day from top quality local farmers market ingredients. I'm talking REALLY good food, the best quality fresh local meat and vegetables money can buy, that was the one thing I would not compromise on. I traveled a lot for fun also, but it was in my own (very fuel efficient) vehicles, cooking for myself on a camp stove while traveling and I could only afford restaurants a few times a year. Almost all of my possessions like furniture, etc. were high quality things I had slowly sourced for free over craigslist, with some dumpster diving and word of mouth. Mostly high end vintage hardwood stuff that looked expensive- Rich people don't sell that stuff, they give or throw it away. Personally, I felt like I was living very comfortably, and I quite enjoyed the challenge of living frugally. I felt a bit smug about how I creatively found ways to have pretty nice things, and a nice lifestyle without much cost. I'll add that nowadays I'm into 'sea foraging' and can jump in the ocean with a mask and a pole spear and eat like a king for free in a few minutes.
    - stonogo 2y ago
      I think if you look you'll find that housing costs have rapidly outpaced inflation, even in rural Oregon. Studio flats in La Grande are approaching a thousand dollars a month. I believe what you're saying is true, but I don't think the experiment could be replicated today.
carlosjobim 2y ago
I always found it strange that modern socialists and leftists are very supportive of income taxes, even though it is a dreadful burden on those people who have to work for their survival. Why wouldn't leftists instead be more for taxes and tariffs on land, on commerce, on natural resources or on luxuries? The funny thing is that one of the goals of the communist party in the Soviet Union was to abolish all income taxes! Khrushchev even lamented later that they couldn't reach that goal. I suspect many hackers would have loved to be members of the Supreme Soviet, but how would they have reacted when Khrushchev suggested to abolish all income taxes?
- throaway827 2y ago
  one reason is that it's hard for a leftist to imagine a world where people making millions or billions to have a 0% income tax rate
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    People don't make millions or billions on working and receiving a salary.
- slater 2y ago
  > I always found it strange that modern socialists and leftists are very supportive of income taxes, even though it is a dreadful burden on those people who have to work for their survival What? We did "trickle-down" economics before. Surprisingly enough, it didn't work. At all. Also, back in the 1950s/60s, we thoroughly soaked the rich and got to go to the moon[0]. Then the 1970s came around and the new gen of wealthies were all "yeah nah, that sucked, let's do something about it!"[1] [0] in b4 "it's way more complicated than that!!1~" [1] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    When I say it's a dreadful burden, I mean it. For people doing physical labour and relying on their work for survival, they know exactly how much blood, sweat and tears they had to give for each dollar taken from them in taxes. For the people relying on real estate price appreciation for their income, taxes are more of an abstract.

flerchin 2y ago

It needs to be clear if I'm shafting a sub-minimum wage worker, or declining an egregious tip-ask at the self-check counter.

hoosieree 2y ago
If you must tip, only ever use cash. Otherwise you're also subsidizing Square, Toast, Visa, Stripe, etc. Did they give you exceptional service today? Use cash.
- princevegeta89 2y ago
  Tipping cash is great whenever you have it, but it's not convenient. Not in the age of digital payments that can be completed with your mobile phone.
  - hoosieree 2y ago
    You're absolutely right, cash is indeed inconvenient. But all digital payments make you pay a middleman "platform" which tries to extract as much of the transaction as possible while providing the minimum possible value. Oh and by the way this platform's also trying to become a monopoly so it can eventually provide less than the minimum value without losing you as a customer. Crypto claims to be a solution to this, but in practice approximately all crypto transactions go through a middleman (exchange) which takes a cut. It's unreasonable to expect your barista to go through the effort of accepting crypto payments without involving an exchange. Cash doesn't have this problem. I'd love to be proven wrong about this. Is there a digital payment method that runs on phones that doesn't subsidize a middleman?
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Chinese payment platforms are the closest to a light middle man, but this might just be VC subsidizing things. Cash has its own expense of course, you need a middleman regardless, even if it’s just your local bank branch taking daily merchant cash deposits.

beaglesss 2y ago

What's more likely is some bean counter at the IRS realized enforcing taxes on tips cost more money to enforce than they gained, or was barely break even. It's an easy political win at no risk.

r00fus 2y ago
What's to prevent corporations and the rich from taking advantage of this? ie, my job is $10k + rest in "tips"?
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  Yeah, maybe unintuitive, but even if it costs more to collect and enforce taxes than you get from taxes, it also has a preventative side to not abuse it.
- nickfromseattle 2y ago
  The easiest seems like who is paying the "tip". If it's your employer, it's taxable compensation. If it's a customer, than it could be a tip. Then there would probably be a bunch of sub-bullet points defining whether a tip is taxable depending on whether you have a direct relationship with the customer tipping you, whether the "tip" is mandatory, or at the discretion of the customer, are you in X roles (e.g. barista) within Y industries (e.g. food services).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - NotACop182 2y ago
    Easier way is to put a cap on how much you make. Let’s say 70k. Make more you don’t get the exemption prevents the rich from gaming the system. Also define tips by industry. Service sector. End of story.
    - tacticalturtle 2y ago
      If you put a cap on income, then both you and the IRS need to maintain a record of the tips you received, to prove that you’re on the right side of the cap. I don’t think that saves much in administration costs.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago

I assume business would just lower the amount they pay, since tips would be worth more.

IgorPartola 2y ago
Businesses already pay the exact minimum wage of $2.13/hour. The employees either make an additional $5.12/hour in tips or the employer must make up the difference at every pay period. Employees routinely underreport their tip earnings beyond the $5.12/hour to not pay taxes and fly under the DoL radar. Edit: I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. There is a minimum wage like $10/hour but if an employee is tipped the employer can claim a “tip credit” of like $6 and pay the employee only $4. Then if the employee is underpaid the employer must. Make up the difference. Employees who routinely don’t make full tips are less likely to continue working at the restaurant but you can’t just legally fire them for not making enough tips. I am sure lots of people have also noticed fast food restaurants pushing for tips for the crew at checkout. This is an industry shift. Same with single owner businesses asking for tips (generally if someone sets their own price a tip shouldn’t be expected, but Square et al made that a normal part of checkout and people now believe it’s necessary). With expected tips getting into the 25-30% territory I wonder if there is an opportunity here for a restaurant chain to advertise itself as “we pay our employees well so you don’t have to”.
- phainopepla2 2y ago
  > Edit: I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. There is a minimum wage like $10/hour but if an employee is tipped the employer can claim a “tip credit” of like $6 and pay the employee only $4 This is not true in California, at least. Restaurant workers are paid at least minimum wage (which is $16 or higher depending on locality) and then tips on top. "Tip credit" is not allowed
- akavi 2y ago
  > I should add that lots of states and some cities have their own minimum wage laws but they are all structured the same. Rule of thumb, there's _nothing_ in US law where you can say "things vary by state, but they're all the same in way X". In this case, California has no concept of tip credits. All employees, regardless of whether they receive tips, must be paid at least minimum wage (Currently 16 $/hr)

Aunche 2y ago

Increasing the tipped minimum wage means that restaurants will add that cost to the menu. Because tips are based a percentage of your order, this means that customers actually pay more money in tips, even though these laws are marketed as reducing the need for tips.

silisili 2y ago
I think (hope) the expectation is to eventually increase wages and prices and phase out tips altogether. Tip culture has gone insane...even my home inspector's last invoice has a tip line!
- ribosometronome 2y ago
  Not taxing tips will increase the reliance on them rather than remove it.
  - silisili 2y ago
    Absolutely. The article in question is about how it runs counter to increasing said wages instead, and the comment I'm replying to I think is saying if we raise wages tips will raise. Which is true, short term.
    - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
      I mean, wages have been increasing. Legislated wages are a vanishingly small portion of earned wages, except in the states with the highest minimum wages relative to market rates (and then usually only in the least-developed areas in those states, which is also where those legislated wages are likely to cause unemployment).
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  Minimum wage is already $20/hr where I live. Tips can approximately double that. There is no version of the world where employees will willing give up those tips and no restaurant can afford a $40/hr minimum wage. This is just a one-way ratchet on employment costs, not a plausible way to eliminate tipping.

bko 2y ago

I don't like tipping culture, but it does allow for wealthy people to subsidize service and incentivizes good service. People that are more price sensitive tip lower and every once in a while a waiter will experience an extremely generous tip. I'm not convinced that forbidding tips would increase net wages paid to servers. In terms of who is paying, restaurants will simply raise prices to account for higher wages. Their margins aren't that big. Finally I think tipping definitely incentivizes good service. Its partly cultural, but I've noticed much higher level of service in the US compared to Europe were tips are not expected as much

duxup 2y ago
>and incentivizes good service Does it? I think for most folks getting lots of tips they find that he tips feel more like they're going to be... whatever they're going to be. Meanwhile their day to day job is more about other things going on, or if the food came out cooked wrong ... not so much something they control like a light-switch enough to make changes. I'm not sure that incentivizes much at all.
kitkat_new 2y ago
tips incentivize to be white, young and female - there is almost no correlation between service quality and tip size: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362331999000610 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036233199...
diob 2y ago
I've actually gotten much better service in places like Australia / Japan where tips aren't a thing. From my understanding, poor people are often the best tippers in the USA, and rich folks tend to not tip.
- loa_in_ 2y ago
  Statistically speaking, really rich people never cross paths with most establishments
- phainopepla2 2y ago

afavour 2y ago

IMO it's just bad policy all round without a significantly higher level of detail. For example, how do we classify a tip vs a wage? If we're not very, very specific about it's going to be yet another tax loophole exploited by the rich who will pay each other $1 for work and then 'tip' thousands more. Sure you’re an engineer on staff now but wouldn’t you want to be a freelancer, paid minimum wage and then a healthy “tip” every two weeks? Win win: I don't pay for benefits, you don’t pay tax. No tax on tips can be sold as a benefit to the working poor while the small print can be written to favor the rich… no wonder politicians of all stripes are clamouring for it.

FigurativeVoid 2y ago
I would say this is ridiculous, until I read Snyder v. United States[1,2]. > Held: Section 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts. Pp. 7–16. 1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf. 2. https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/snyder-v-united-states/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/snyder-v-united-...
- pdonis 2y ago
  The real kicker in that case is that Snyder claimed the money was payment for services as a consultant to Peterbilt--which would be an obvious and glaring conflict of interest with his duties as mayor. But as far as I can tell this wasn't even considered anywhere--not the Federal prosecutors and not the judges at any level.
- golergka 2y ago
  I think a difference between a bribe and gratitude is pretty obvious. If the official had prior knowledge that he would receive an award, its a bribe. If he had no reason to expect it before making a decision, it's gratitude.
  - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago

kitkat_new 2y ago

tips should be banned not only is it a shitty source of income, it also exposes you to sexism, racism and makes you tolerate shit things, because your income could be at risk standing up for yourself.

throw_m239339 2y ago
In some cultures, people "tip" teachers, police officers, doctors, politicians, judges... you know where I'm going with that... I'm not saying tips should be banned but there certainly is a "cultural aspect" to tipping...
- maximinus_thrax 2y ago
  No, they don't. You're trying a false equivalency between a bribe and gratuity. A bribe happens before the service is provided and the service is contingent upon the bribe. Gratuity is post factum, technically based on the quality of the service provided.
  - hunter2_ 2y ago
    At counters, the tip happens before the service is provided, unless you're somehow basing the amount on the experience of ordering.
  - beaglesss 2y ago
    Tip 0 and see what kind of service you get the next time. I used to work food delivery and naturally the customers ordering takeout at fancy restaurants would always tip 0 to the restaurant even if they tipped me for delivery. I quickly found myself ignored by all the workers at those restaurants, orders take an hour extra to fill, no one talk to me, etc. eventually I learned to tip out of my own tip because my next service is contingent on the prior tip.
    - rangerelf 2y ago
      Because here in the US the tip is considered part of their salary. No tip? You're not paying them for their work, it's no wonder they're ignoring you. And that can only be fixed with legislation.

bcrosby95 2y ago

I dislike this proposal. Just like I'm not a fan of $20/hour minimum wage for fast food in California. I don't see why we should hold service workers that get tips, and in California's case, those that work at fast food, above other wage earners. It feels degenerate that the government is signalling to us that we should e.g. work in fast food and as a waiter over preschools and child care.

jerlam 2y ago
Especially in states like California, where there is no separate lower tipped wage for anyone.
Simulacra 2y ago
Well, for one the SEIU is a significant political voting bloc that no politician or business wants to cross

micromacrofoot 2y ago

what would stop me from "hey I'll do this for $5/hr, but it would be nice if you tipped me $500 for it" — this "policy" is just election sound clip pandering

Kon-Peki 2y ago

I would assume that the implementation mechanism involves reporting tips to the IRS so they can be taxed at a 0% rate, and that you would have to be classified as a non-exempt employee with a maximum hourly earnings rate. So basically, unreported income remains tax evasion. White collar workers paid via tips is tax evasion. Etc

meroes 2y ago
Sounds like all the blue collar workers who get tips are now screwed by this system. Getting tipped against a maximum wage defeats the purpose of tipping them. Say you tip your mailman $100 at Christmas or refrigerator deliverer type stuff.

websap 2y ago

We're moving to a world that most restaurants won't have servers taking your food and drinks order. This is already happening in Seattle, multiple spots are now counter style ordering, you order, get a number and someone just comes from the kitchen to deliver the food. Some of them also have a QR code associated with your number which you can scan to order follow up items. Tipping more than 10% for counter style ordering doesn't make sense to me, because I don't even know who is receiving the tip? The American Economoy just cannot support servers given the rise in cost for doing business and changes in consumer behavior due to inflation. Servers will be soon available only in the "nice" restaurants.

princevegeta89 2y ago
If you ask me, tipping more than 0% for counter style ordering where there is no dedicated waiter involved makes no sense. Even worse are the coffee shops - if you think getting a coffee is just a few bucks and is relatively cheap, note that you get robbed when you end up tipping. $1 or more tip on a $5 coffee. And there is nothing special you get, the baristas are just doing their basic job. Also the looks you get when you select the option "no tip" or the 0% tip, don't make it worth anything at all. I stopped going to coffee shops a long time ago.
- djbusby 2y ago
  I tip at my local coffee (1-2/wk) because they are always nice, cool when I forget my wallet, get my "usual" w/o prompting, stickers for my kid, give me pro-tips on pastry baking, etc But if I went daily it'd be like $8/coffee. Espresso machine at home was the right answer. Pays for itself after only 200 coffees.
  - alphabettsy 2y ago
    I tip at places like coffee shops and delis because the person taking my order is often also preparing it. If they’re just handing me a bag from the kitchen I don’t tip. Maybe this is silly.

maerF0x0 2y ago

IMO there should be a CoL adjusted minimum livable wage across the country, and it should be illegal to pay a >18 year old less than what it takes to live on. And that should be calculated from the barest minimum living standards[1]. At a certain point it becomes unconscionable for a wealthy society not to provide pure commodities at their lowest cost of delivery to it's poorest. As we do that, tips should be eliminated too. There's very few of us with a hard enough heart who'd say no to someone who asked for a glass of tap water, or to use the toilet. As a society advances other basic necessities should move into the common domain too. (And the wonderful thing about capitalism is it has driven down the real costs of most of these things to historically absurdly low prices eg a thrift store pants for $7 in the face of $15 minimum wage is cheap compared to history when it was normative to have only 2 sets of clothes) [1]: I'm thinking like shared bedroom, thrift store clothes, rice + beans + costco, annual checkup + bare minimum health insurance, annual dental cleaning / bare minimum insurance, a mint mobile $15 a month cellphone plan, and a library card for entertainment and education. You're not thriving, and you're not a catastrophic burden on the system either.

giraffe_lady 2y ago
Our society is wealthy partially because of this inequality, not in spite of it. The real risk and extreme danger of penury provides a pressure for people to work for the lowest wages possible, keeping the price of the produced goods low for those who can afford them. Places with more mechanisms to prevent falling into deep poverty and policies to alleviate it have higher wages at the very bottom, and less wealth both in personal net and GDP per capita. But even then it only benefits local workers: they still depend on an immiserated worker underclass somewhere to make their cheap goods. Capitalism created this problem, and it is a fundamental mechanism in how capitalism creates wealth. It's not within the powers of capitalism to solve it.
amflare 2y ago
Absolutely not. Compensation should reflect value received. This idea effectively forces a business to subsidize their employees, because you damn sure can't pass all that to the customer (because then we are just back where we started, just with an extra 0 on every transaction). Small businesses and business with low profit margins will be forced out of business. And this would consolidate capital into the hands of the big businesses and billionaires who can afford to pay everyone tens of thousands of dollars more than they can bring into the company. A McDonald's cashier is not worth $55,000 just because they are >18 years old. That position is not supposed to be a career. That position is supposed to be a first job for a dumb 16 year old who needs gas money and $500 for a PS5. When their needs outgrow their paycheck, they are supposed to move to a job that pays more. Can McDonalds afford to pay the extra? Sure. But Jimmy's Hotdog Stand down the street can't, so he goes out of business and the money he would have made goes to McDonald's instead and the rich get richer.

aamargulies 2y ago

Topics like these are a footnote in the fight against wealth inequality, a fight we’re losing to the rich. Gary Stevenson is doing hero’s work on this subject and it is the whale in the room for everyone’s financial well-being. https://youtu.be/TflnQb9E6lw?si=tzUGGC5xektyU9kc https://youtu.be/TflnQb9E6lw?si=tzUGGC5xektyU9kc

debacle 2y ago

The US is in desperate need of a labor movement. The Democrats dance with the UAW and are deeply tied to the AFT/NEA, but most labor unions in the US are getting the crap beat out of them and both parties turn a blind eye. It's good that more unions are speaking with/to Republicans, but what is really needed is a dedicated workers' party.

oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
gosub100 2y ago
I know this is a naive question, but I don't know why it's so difficult to start a union in the age of online communities. For instance there are dedicated forums and subreddits for e.g. Uber eats and Amazon delivery and Walmart and all the grueling, exploitative jobs. They all have a common thread and viewpoint, why isn't it trivial for them to organize online, pick a date, and one day all "come out" formally as union employees?
- barbazoo 2y ago
  Have a look at the process for unionization: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections. For instance it's per workplace and there's a threshold of how much support among the workers you need, etc. It's not just something you join and then you're in a union.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  > They all have a common thread and viewpoint, why isn't it trivial for them to organize online, pick a date, and one day all "come out" formally as union employees? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting If you were to organize a union, how would you increase membership while ensuring that management doesn't know that you're organizing a union? You mention online forums and similar but how do you let people know about the forum for the sake of organizing while keeping management out of the loop for the sake of secrecy?

brodouevencode 2y ago

It seems like a distraction. I had a uncle that would tell the wait staff that the cash he handed them was a gift and not a tip (with a wink and a nod).

mlyle 2y ago
Haha. Your uncle probably had waitstaff that did not understand that he was talking about a tax distinction and thought he was creepy. :P
- brodouevencode 2y ago
  He would only eat at the Waffle House near where he lived. They got it after a while.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago

The tipping culture in the US has got totally out of control over last 3-4 years. I'm more than fine tipping low waged people who provide an actual service like wait staff and barbers, but the ubiquitous payment terminals taking over for credit card payment, where the cashier/counter staff expect a 10/15/20% or more tip (some now have 20% as the minimum, unless you go "custom") for doing nothing, piss me off! What next, will tips for supermarket cashiers be next? CVS checkout too?

jjice 2y ago
I was at a small train station in New England heading to Boston with a friend a few weeks ago. We each got a bottle of water. $5 each (should have seen that coming), but the real shocker was that the convenience store inside the train station asked for a tip on the terminal. On the $5 bottles of water we picked up and brought to the counter. The absurdity there makes me feel like I'm in Waiting for Godot.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  It is ridiculous. If they want to increase the price by 15% then just do that, but don't pretend you're not by just asking for a 15% tip instead (for the pleasure of using the self-checkout terminal).
laweijfmvo 2y ago
why would you tip a barber? because they cut your hair good? what was the base payment for then?
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  I guess some of it is cultural rather than rational, but is tipping wait staff so much different? If you go to an expensive restaurant and pay double for the same food as in a cheaper one, then what exactly are you paying for, and in any case why is the tip a percentage (vs fixed amount, as is normal in the UK) such that the wait staff in the more expensive place get more? Whether rational or not, I'm personally fine tipping where the worker is making a low wage, and have spent time personally attending to me. Part of it is thinking that they'll appreciate it more than I will miss it.

stainablesteel 2y ago

minimum wage is not a problem the value backing the currency is the problem, government is spending too much and your cash is not worth anything the artificial minimum or maximum you're owed is a hoax and only hurts the economy by preventing people from working if they can't achieve that amount, and by hurting the economy makes you poorer by devaluing your currency, meaning what you're paid will be worth less due to the value of the currency, not its amount

nerdjon 2y ago

I am honestly curious who was really pushing this? Unless I missed it I don't think I heard anything about no taxes on tips until both candidates suddenly supported it. So just seems like it came out of nowhere. If we really are going to stick with tips, I think it's fine. Maybe it will fix some of the issues on the workers side temporarily. But we honestly just need to move away from tipping in the US. Give everyone a livable wage and increase prices slightly. I am already paying 15/20% more thanks to tipping so there is no harm in just increasing the cost of the item, likely less than I am paying now since it would be evenly split between everyone instead of just those that tip.

tacticalturtle 2y ago
Trump heard a waitress in Las Vegas complain about tip taxes, so he proposed it: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5071144/no-tax-on-tips-campaigns-trump-harris https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5071144/no-tax-on-tips-... > Trump has been campaigning on the "no tax on tips" policy since June, after a Las Vegas server told him the government was taking too big of a cut from her tipped wages. Then Harris was forced to match. That’s pretty much it. There’s no economic analysis behind it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

lulznews 2y ago

It’s clearly a dumb gimmick for a dumb and gimmicky country.

jrochkind1 2y ago

Violation of Betteridge's law, cause, absolutely.

OptionOfT 2y ago

Tips, and in general, taxes and fees should become part of the advertised. It should not be on the consumer to be guilt tripped into paying for a living wage of server, nor to be guilt tripped into a 3% healthcare surcharge, or to be deceived by seeing a price advertised, only to have to pay a whole bunch more because of added fees. I can understand the justification for taxes to be separate, I don't like it, but I get it. But the 'fuel surcharge' / 'healthcare fee' / ... should be part of your price. How can I compare 2 places if they get to advertise super low prices, only to make it up with self-imposed fees?

manuelmoreale 2y ago
This is one of those cultural differences that are so hard for me to even comprehend. The idea of living in a place where the price I see written is not the one I’m going to pay for is so bizarre. Like it doesn’t make any rational sense given the context I grew up in. Still, reading this entire discussion is a reminder that societies can be incredibly different even in the most mundane of things like going to get a coffee.

numpad0 2y ago

I'm from culture where tips don't generally exist, at least for common folks. Waiters are paid >=minimum wages, and most don't like pocketing cash at work. You can just call any of staffers and make orders, around here, in most casual restaurants. You don't have to wait for your waiter to come back around, the guy carrying that platter of steaming hot lobster has his wireless POS tablet that works for any table and he'd be tsk happy to take your orders because he's paid only by hours and not stealing his colleagues' income by doing so. In restaurant owner's perspective, it makes waiters way more scalable, easier to overcommit, and also reduces loss of sales from I/O timeouts; any workers can notice empty glasses and collect upsells. To waiters, it gives more stable source of income, which may or may not be plenty, but stability is always nice. To customers, it works like mentioned above. Isn't this better use of everyone's time?

unsignedint 2y ago

I really dislike the tipping culture. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for tipping when someone goes above and beyond. But I can't stand the expectation that a tip is mandatory, rather than something that's earned. There was this one time at a restaurant where they completely dropped the ball. They brought me a cup of coffee but never came back to take my order, despite me asking. I ended up leaving without eating anything. Of course, I paid for the coffee, but I didn’t leave a tip. When I mentioned this to some friends who used to work in the service industry, they all said I was the jerk for not tipping. But honestly, I don’t think I was in the wrong. I visited Australia a while back, and I loved how their bills have a tipping line, but it’s never expected. That’s how it should be everywhere.

sys_64738 2y ago

To earn a dollar after tax by the payee, then the payer needs to earn $2.23 before tax. The winner is always Uncle Sam.

Simulacra 2y ago

It's a distraction from the issue of ending tips entirely. They are not sufficient to live on, creates tension and animosity between service employees and consumers, and lets businesses off the hook from paying an actual wage. Tipping needs to die.

snapplebobapple 2y ago

Its a distraction from how stupid minimum wages are and from how chain restaurants probably abuse geographic labor oligopolies to push down wages making minimum wage a less bad policy than the correct policy of no wage controls. We meed to fix both.

sublinear 2y ago

The "fight to end sub-minimum wages" is a distraction from no tax on tips.

big-green-man 2y ago

Is it really a fight? On who's behalf is this fight happening, and who is fighting for it? I've never met a service worker who relies on tips that wanted to end the practice. Tips seem to be the entire draw to those types of work in my experience. I've never met a tip worker that was doing it over a wage job they'd rather have, unless it was some type of professional salary type gig like they're going to school to become a nurse or something, and in those cases, they're doing tip work because it enables them to make that happen when no other job really would. Seems to me like the people fighting for it aren't the people living that way and those fighting are fighting on behalf of people who don't really want their help.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

I really wanted us to pull back away from tipping culture (to just paying more fairly), but an exemption on tax income is only going to make tipping culture much more pervasive. We already don’t have a sub min here in Washington state, and then we have tips asked for at self service kiosks, when will it end? Now I’ll be expected to tip my car mechanic also?