this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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I'd say yes. The situation is complex.
It's clear that tipping culture is out of control. There are many places asking for 20% tips even when ordering from a counter where the interaction takes about 10 seconds.
Unfortunately there has also been a systematic underpayment of wages which has occurred largely on the back of tips. In some states it is even legal to pay less than minimum wage and supplement that with tips. For that reason, it's not really an option to simply not tip without being the bad guy.
Certainly the system needs to change, but as of this moment in the US, just assume everything actually costs 20% more and tip.
My man you have got to shake this from your psyche, that's exactly how the employers that aren't paying their employees want you to feel. You're offloading their greed and systematic exploitation of working class people onto yourself under the misplaced guise of personal guilt. There may not a way to immediately fix the problem, but I can guarantee it will never get fixed if we dont change anything.
In some cases we're talking about people making $2.13 an hour in a country where you're easily paying $1,000 a month or even more for a studio apartment. I'd say if you don't tip you're the bad guy.
This type of change isn't going to come from people just deciding that waitstaff should starve and refusing to tip. If anything it will come from unionization of waitstaff or from legislation.
I mean, in a lot of ways it already is. More and more people aren't taking theses jobs that pay shit, and yours constantly seeing places fold or be understaffed. It's also a little disingenuous to use the extreme as an example. The vast majority of tourist destinations (relevant because OP) are not paying below minimum+ tips. It would be helpful if OP Said where they were going but assuming it's a popular destination, they don't need to be heavy handed. It's also misleading to paint it as black and white "assume tipping 20%" everywhere is bad advice. There is no expectation to tip for over the counter service, take out, etc. That is a fairly recent evolution and one that is already backfiring. If OP isn't sitting down in a restaurant where they have a server waiting on them for 30-60 minutes, they are probably absolutely fine not tipping. 15% is also still acceptable, 20% is excessive unless the service was absolutely excellent.
No, the bad guy is still the employer, and the culture that exploits both employees and customers and pits them against one another.
Meals in the US are not cheaper than meals in other countries. The menu price is roughly the same. Meals plus tips in the US cost significantly more than meals in other countries.
However staff generally benefit from this arrangement. Places that have trialed better wages and no tips have found that staff make less than what they did if they got tips. So only the customer actually wants a fair deal out of it, and everyone else isn't willing to change.
Your option here is to not eat at a waited table. The system is in place and wages are set based on that system. If you choose to eat out you’re accepting the system because the waiters rely on the tip to fill out their tip based wages. There are lots of option that don’t require table service, choose one of those and you aren’t the asshole.
And by "everything", you mean "not actually everything, but you'd need a 400 page manual to describe what gets tipped and what doesn't".
In most states it's legal to pay less than minimum wage (literally around $2 per hour) for workers who get tips.
One issue is that workers generally make more money off tips than if they just got minimum wage. So it's not just employers that are unwilling to change.
It's only legal if their tips exceed the minimum wage. Whether or not the employee would ask for the difference over fear of retaliation is another story