What confuses me most is when you are given the option to give a tip before any service has been given. On deliveroo, for example, I have the option to tip the driver while I'm at the checkout. Why would I give a reward for good service when I have no idea if the service is even good? There's already a rider fee as part of my bill, so it doesn't make any sense to me to give them more money at that point
gmadsen · 1h ago
It is a mechanism to move labor costs to the consumer. On some delivery apps , the driver can decide which jobs to take based on the pre-service tip. So the companies have effectively put the responsibility to pay driver's base wage on the users themselves, while the company still takes a huge corporate cut
vultour · 1h ago
I suggested we do this at work. We’ll add a tip field to our Jira tickets and whoever’s ticket is worth the most gets priority. Oh you submitted a production incident a week ago? Sorry, there’s not even $5 on it, we filter those out.
caleblloyd · 1h ago
We may just get this, along with a $7.25 per hour base wage!
thfuran · 56m ago
It's $2.13 for tipped employees.
xp84 · 54m ago
Not in all states. California does not have a lower tipped minimum wage. It's at least $16 here last I checked (except $20 for fast food because "reasons")
aidenn0 · 46m ago
Ah yes; for a bit my wife was making less as a preschool teacher than the minimum wage at McDonalds. I understand it caused a bit of turnover at the local public schools, since cafeteria workers and aides were making less than $20/hr in 2024 as well (I don't know if they still are).
assword · 49s ago
Reminds me of when I was visiting family a few years ago in Kentucky. I kept seeing tons of ads everywhere about hiring for plumbers, and some warehouse roles.
The listed salaries were not that far off from what even the local McDonald’s was paying
amirhirsch · 55m ago
gotta charge less than the hourly cost of a B200 to remain employed
trial3 · 57m ago
let’s not get too lofty, the federal base tipped wage is $2.13
kingstnap · 1h ago
On delivery apps it should be called a "bid" and I think honestly it would be more ethical than the shady nonsense they do now if they went all in on that.
vladvasiliu · 1h ago
> It is a mechanism to move labor costs to the consumer.
How does this work? The corp already handles some form of payment to the worker, especially when you tip as part of a card payment. And in both cases, the consumer foots the bill.
How's it different from paying the worker more and asking for more money upfront?
xp84 · 49m ago
The gready sleazeballs who like the "tipping" system (mostly, restaurant owners) would prefer to pay all their employees $0 and have all diners/customers/etc pay 100% of the wages out of guilt.
While 10% was customary in the first half of the 20th century, the standard tip gradually increased to 15% by the 1980s.
In 2025 it's not uncommon to see little shortcut buttons for 20, 25, 30%. You can see where this is going. They want us to tip 50% and they pay $0, even though restaurant menu prices are one of the things that has experienced more inflation than other things.
mindcandy · 11m ago
> would prefer to pay all their employees $0 and have all diners/customers/etc pay 100% of the wages out of guilt.
It is my understanding that this is literally the origin of tipping.
After the abolition of slavery, there were many black people newly looking for work. And, there were employers looking for workers, but unwilling to pay money to black people.
So, someone got the idea to promote that tipping was something fancy European aristocrats did. And, you can be fancy like they were by tipping my workers (that I refuse to pay).
Tipping was previously seen as un-Americanly classist. And, most states tried to ban it when it started to pick up steam. But, it was too late. So many employers were enjoying unpaid labor that the bans were repealed.
Later, when Minimum Wage was established, workers who lived on tips alone were almost all black. So, unsurprisingly, tipped workers were excluded from the wage regulation. And, today they are only acknowledged as fractional minimum laborers.
cafard · 33m ago
When I first had the money to pay for restaurant food ca. 1975, 15% was standard. I think that the Waiter Rant guy considered anything under 20% an insult, about 30 years after that.
FeloniousHam · 15m ago
Ah yes, the greedy sleazeballs. If you knew that the total cost of the meal would be the same, say $20 for the meal, does it to you matter if:
1) you pay $20 "no tip" and the owner pays non-tip minimum wage, or
b) you pay $16.50 for the food and $3.50 separately to the server in the form of a tip
?
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 9m ago
The problem is that the customer does not know the cost of the meal; they typically rely on the business owner to be upfront about that. Tipping is guilt-motivated drip pricing. The only thing the commenter got wrong is that the restaurateur has to prime the customer with some cost so they can voluntarily add a percentage.
There is a very clear different from the consumer's point of view between paying a 20% delivery fee with no tip (and realistically having most drivers still expect an in-person tip) and a 5% delivery fee with a tip amount of your choosing (and maybe only 1/1000 drivers expecting/requesting yet more).
I have always been a generous tipper and I try to always put myself in that person's shoes when deciding how much to tip but even I notice the psychological difference. If you don't ever think about it, have never had a job waiting tables or dealing with the public, it'd almost be a nonstarter to have a higher delivery fee regardless of tip expectation.
gmadsen · 1h ago
psychologically they are very different. Framing the wages as a "tip" moves the conversation to the drivers and users, where users think tips are an out of hand culture problem and drivers view the users as stingy. Then the company sits out of the spotlight collecting their absurd rents
shit_game · 1h ago
It moves the real cost of the additional labor from the prices displayed for items (like you would see in a B&M grocery store) to some tertiary part of the purchase process that is displayed 1) after the used has gone through the effort of app navigation and selecting their purchases and 2) has been through the majority of the purchase funnel and self-selected as a high-prospect sale. This helps keep the listed prices for items in these apps relatively comparable to their in-store listed prices, acting to convince the user the sale is reasonable (similar to online sellers making up for low listed prices with high shipping prices). Moving this additional cost to some tertiary step lessens the impact of goods pricing seeming too high by adding a "small optional fee" at the end of the purchase process that the user is expected to subconciously understand is effectively a bid on labor. I'd imagine the psychology behind it is depressing.
Eisenstein · 1h ago
That is true. What is also true is that having things delivered to you is not free, and the prices of the goods cannot be same for delivery vs warehousing in a store.
pc86 · 54m ago
Sure it can.
I'm not saying it's free but it's not a foregone conclusion that 100% (or any percent) of that cost must be passed on to the consumer.
If a manufacturer/distributor/restaurant is willing to accept lower margins for the increased reach and market access, they will.
logifail · 3h ago
> when you are given the option to give a tip before any service has been given [...] why would I give a reward for good service
Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
I'm trying to imagine a curve representing the distribution of "quality of service".
What shape is the curve, and where on it would a 20% tip and a 0% tip be?
LeafItAlone · 1h ago
>Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
As in any tip at all? No, from me. I don’t think I’ve never _not_ tipped when the situation expects it (sit down restaurant being served). I know the person there is being paid less than minimum wage (where I live), which is already too low in my opinion, so they get something.
The amount of the tip certainly is highly dependent on level of service. That could be a significant difference at the end. I’ve tipped over 100% when the staff has done someone that stood out to me.
(Having been a server in the past and now in tech, I feel guilty about the work-level/salary imbalance, so I am generally generous with my tips.)
tsimionescu · 2h ago
In my country, which does have a tipping culture, the norm is to give a 10% tip in restaurants as a default, for competent service, decent food, etc. If the service is worse than normal (rude server, cold food, huge wait times, mistaken orders etc) you'd live a lower tip, possibly none at all. If the service is great, you might leave a higher tip - though 20% would be considered huge, 12-15% might be quite normal for very good service.
froddd · 3h ago
> Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
Sad if this is no longer the case.
In the UK at least (and the rest of Europe too, as far as I can tell), this is still very much the case. The curve varies with the individuals tipping. I would be quite happy to give 20% if the service was outstanding. I’m equally happy to not tip at all if the service was very poor.
liotier · 2h ago
France here - no tip is the norm, tip is for service above & beyond... But, contrary to the USA, everyone gets a proper living wage !
vladvasiliu · 1h ago
Depends on when you are. Making minimum wage while living in Paris isn't exactly a "proper living wage".
coldtea · 1h ago
Still it's not the scam that passes for wage in the US (especially considering cost of living and other expenses). And Paris can be anything, from expensive neighborhoods to project suburbs.
nobleach · 2h ago
In France, I always thought it was customary to leave the change from l'addition. (I'm not French though, so perhaps I was commiting a faux pas)
I can confirm in Italy almost no one will even accept a tip. (Taxi drivers, wait-staff, hotel staff)
lesser-shadow · 2h ago
The only issue with restaurants in France is that they close up early, or only open within strict lunch hours.
sokoloff · 1h ago
If you're paying a relatively high hourly wage to all of the staff, it seems unsurprising that you'd not want to be open during times of low customer traffic.
Honestly, this seems good overall; there's no more sense in having low-paid waitstaff hanging around hoping to get a customer table that will tip than in having a restaurant owner keep the restaurant open while paying the staff a reasonable hourly wage.
grues-dinner · 2h ago
> In the UK at least this is still very much the case.
Except for the very pervasive 12.5% "discretionary" service charge the you would have to request to be removed. Which is a genius piece of social engineering.
voidUpdate · 2h ago
I live in the UK, and I personally have never given a tip, I don't think I've even seen it as an option other than physically giving the other person some cash, but AFAIK its generally seen as something you do if the service was excellent, but as I say I've never done it myself. I'm not generally in situations where it could be warranted, like I don't really eat out much or anything like that
pc86 · 46m ago
You've never had excellent service for something?
joebe89 · 2h ago
As someone who also lives in the UK this surprises me. Almost every restaurant I eat at now takes the liberty of adding a 10% service charge onto every bill. I assume the idea of which is to make it awkward/embarrassing for you to request to have it taken off.
voidUpdate · 2h ago
I may have had this happen without realising, but in my head, a tip is something you choose to add on extra, whether for good service or because the workers aren't getting paid properly. If I get a service charge, that's more like just part of the bill that I would pay, though I've only really noticed it as part of online stuff, for example my bank has a £25 service change to send money overseas (for some reason, I can't imagine that the process isn't fully automatic by now)
coldtea · 1h ago
>Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
That's the only way people give tips here (not US tho)
walterbell · 2h ago
> Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
Are there customers giving tips for other reasons? Any examples?
afthonos · 2h ago
In the US, the tip is an expected part of the expense of eating out (and increasingly having any human in the loop). I hate it, and I really wish it wasn’t the case, but it pretty much is. If you say “I didn’t tip because the service was what I expected”, you’re pretty much considered an asshole.
(Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons why the costs of eating out in the US and seem so much lower. Most people who come from non-tipping cultures don’t understand that Americans actually tend to pay significantly more than sticker price, especially after you include taxes, which are also often excluded).
rtp4me · 23m ago
>If you say “I didn’t tip because the service was what I expected”, you’re pretty much considered an asshole
Sorry, this is definitely not the case. Many times the worker is doing exactly what is needed and nothing more (eg: pour a beer in a glass, handing me a pizza). Why would I be considered an asshole if I didn't tip? That is ridiculous.
As other people have said, tipping in the US has really become obnoxious. I definitely tip while seated for a meal, but asking for a tip to hand me a cup of coffee, pour a beer, etc only makes the system worse.
afthonos · 15m ago
I 100% agree with your value judgement. Nevertheless, the social pressure exists.
walterbell · 1h ago
Relative numbers (e.g. 1% above or below an average) can ferry signals to both humans and data mining algorithms.
> Shannon wanted to measure the amount of information you could transmit via various media. There are many ways of sending messages: you could produce smoke signals, use Morse code, the telephone, or (in today's world) send an email. To treat them all on equal terms, Shannon decided to forget about exactly how each of these methods transmits a message and simply thought of them as ways of producing strings of symbols. How do you measure the information contained in such a string?
arealaccount · 2h ago
If you’re asked for a 20/25/30% tip before they even start preparing your food, and you need to make extra clicks while the tip recipient is looking at you if you want to tip lower, theres a small fear that the food you ordered wont be prepared as well as someone who left the tip
nemomarx · 2h ago
On a gig delivery app, you give a tip so that someone will be happy to deliver it and not mess up your food, I think. a 0% tip is risking stuff. You can't really say it's a reward for the service though, more of a payment to secure better service?
Lots of places will now ask for tips before the food comes out even in person now - lunch sandwich shops, etc. I don't think they'd be unprofessional enough to mess up your order if you didn't tip, but maybe they'll be happier with you or be more generous if you tip now too.
walterbell · 1h ago
On some delivery apps, tips can be increased after service delivery, e.g. baseline at time of order, bonus after good service.
> 0% tip is risking stuff
There are more numbers between zero and good! Markets depend on information. Price has been information for centuries.
The insurance industry has actuarial lessons for managing risk. The delivery app industry has a range of policy measures for managing delivery performance, including but not limited to refunds and blacklisting workers from serving specific clients.
jon-wood · 37m ago
That's traditionally what's called a protection racket rather than a tip.
eloisant · 1h ago
I don't think they know you tipped until the delivery is complete, to avoid that precisely.
GiorgioG · 2h ago
In 30+ years I’ve given exactly two restaurant servers 0% tip - it takes a lot for me to give someone nothing, but somehow they met the challenge.
SirFatty · 2h ago
Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
Yes.
rayiner · 12m ago
Tipping is more like a form of price discrimination. It allows restaurants to indirectly charge different customers different amounts based on ability to pay.
huvarda · 4h ago
In a Louis Rossmann video (i think it was the one on food delivery guys on e-bikes) he mentions never tipping in app but leaving a note that says he will give a cash tip if the driver brings the food straight to his door. That seems like a decent compromise as it doesn't let the app take a cut from the tip and makes so the driver actually goes the extra mile to 'deserve' the tip.
alexriddle · 1h ago
Weirdly on Reddit I keep getting the doordash and ubereats communities pushed at me - there is a very strong view amongst people using these apps that anyone who says they will "give a cash tip" will not actually do it, so it's probably not as beneficial as you might think.
The tips on the apps nominally do go entirely to the driver.
coldtea · 1h ago
>* but leaving a note that says he will give a cash tip if the driver brings the food straight to his door.*
Why, where else would they take the food? Leave in at the patio? Drop it on the lawn?
nemomarx · 1h ago
Leaving it on the porch, on the street closest to their car, with the front lobby in an apartment building...
There's quite a lot of places people will think to leave food if they're rushing to pick up another job.
walterbell · 1h ago
Thank you for this tip on analog defense against digital dark patterns!
xiphias2 · 5h ago
It might be a way for them to prioritize your order before others as they see how much money they earn, so actually it's a bidding process disguised as tipping. I'm not sure if it's shown in the backend though, but I have seen things like this in other delivery apps.
technothrasher · 3h ago
Why would they prioritize you when you've already paid? Wouldn't they first go after the possibility of more tip money on jobs that haven't yet paid it? I mean, if I was a driver, unless there are more high tip jobs than I could handle, I'd take those and fill in with low tip jobs, and I'd deliver the low tip jobs first in a hope of getting an after the fact tip.
ldoughty · 3h ago
Delivery drivers on some apps are told the expected pay for a trip. If you don't tip, they might decline the job because it costs them more to deliver then they make.
This makes your order sit longer until someone decides to do it, perhaps because there's a penalty from the company for declining jobs, and the driver is willing to lose money to remain in good standing
taneq · 2h ago
So it’s hiding behind social pressure to externalise costs? Which I guess is tipping in general.
taneq · 2h ago
Ooh that’s actually a really interesting question. Because you’ve retroactively signaled that you will pay more for priority service? Or that you’re dumb. Needs to be iterated. Incentives depend strongly on population of both drivers and customers.
cons0le · 3h ago
A lot of times, that makes the order come slower. A higher tip means the app will pair your order with someone else that didn't tip or tipped smaller, using your money to make up the difference. I consistently get faster deliveries when I tip towards "the average" instead of over tipping
taneq · 2h ago
Why would you keep using an app that you suspect was cynically exploiting your generosity like that? I’d drive every time rather than encourage such behaviour.
jasode · 1h ago
>Why would you keep using an app that you suspect was cynically exploiting your generosity like that? I’d drive every time rather than encourage such behaviour.
Surely you already know that choosing things doesn't always simplify down to a single dimension. Instead, there are multiple factors that lead people to deliberately choose options that have negatives.
E.g. Why do people continue to use Ryanair airlines if they always nickel & dime customers and treat them like shit?!? Because the mistreatment by Ryanair is still better than driving for 6 hours or paying more $$$ for Air France or KLM.
Likewise, why do customers continue playing along with the tips/bribery/ransom game in the delivery app?!? Because the user-hostile app is still better than rounding up the small toddlers and infant into the car, fasten the car seat, and drive to the restaurant.
Life doesn't always provide unambiguous good options. Instead, you choose the "least bad" from the list of bad options.
NullifyNAN · 4h ago
You’re not paying for a service, you’re bidding in an open market. They don’t tell you this but it’s the reality.
Drivers can tell if you don’t tip and all of the experienced ones will decline your order.
Though these apps have done a lot of work to conceal the amount the driver actually gets until delivery is completed.
okr · 4h ago
Hm. If it is an open market, the consumer should also be able to decline/filter drivers, that take tips. Maybe it is a market, but sadly not open.
brendanjbond · 3h ago
You can already filter out drivers that don't take tips (so, filter to zero) by just not placing the order.
chii · 3h ago
But that filter is at best inaccurate then isnt it? Surely there exists a driver which would accept a tipless delivery, but you cannot find them because all you can do is decline to do business.
Americans need to remove the idea of tipping. It's archaic, because it was originally there for an aristocratic/wealthy patron to show off their status to the lowly servants of an establishment.
Just charge a price, and have it include the full service fee required for providing the service.
incone123 · 1h ago
If you enter zero tip then you will find drivers who accept that because the rest won't accept.
walterbell · 2h ago
> bidding in an open market.. they don't tell you... apps done a lot of work to conceal
Markets have prices.
Open markets have transparent pricing for efficient discovery.
Concealed prices in deniable auctions are closer to dark pools than open markets.
fatnoah · 3h ago
> You’re not paying for a service, you’re bidding in an open market.
IMHO, this isn't a new phenomenon. Close to 18 years ago, I lived in a city with a popular pizza spot that was about a 10 minute walk away. Normally I'd walk, but having a newborn make that challenging, so I'd get delivery.
Typically, the delivery would take 60+ minutes on a busy night, but after a few consecutive Fridays of a decent tip for the order, the pizza would arrive "burn your fingers" in about 20 minutes.
rhplus · 3h ago
Surely most customers would benefit from knowing that they’re bidding for service? Don’t call it a tip, but a bid or priority fee.
lithos · 3h ago
You already are able to pay more for 5-20 minutes of "priority".
alexriddle · 1h ago
All that this does is ensure you don't get stacked with another order ahead of you (so the delivery is direct from the restaurant to the person who ordered) in theory.
It doesn't help with situations where drivers are multi-apping (accepting orders across multiple apps and juggling them). The drivers don't even know you have priority.
edit: and in the US where you can definitely see the tip up front, you will almost always find that the order will get picked up quicker if you increase the tip by the equivalent of the priority fee. But you may well get stuck with a delivery before yours.
sjsdaiuasgdia · 4m ago
In my experience, choosing the priority option is nearly a guarantee that I will get a driver who makes extra stops while delivering my order.
It's wild because this happens maybe 10-15% of the time for me when I don't choose priority, but it's around 80% when I do.
I ignore the option now and just bump the tip if I want a chance of better service.
stefs · 2h ago
this feels weird to me because i always thought i already paid for the service as part of my order. having to go into a open, blind bidding war with other customers to gett my order processed ...
kawsper · 4h ago
With Wolt the rider can’t see tips until after delivery.
ramon156 · 3h ago
... Which they can still use against you
theshackleford · 3h ago
Doesn’t affect anything in my country using the same apps. I’ve always gotten fast delivery, as does everyone I know and nobody tips. Tipping is for yanks.
sharperguy · 2h ago
It's mostly a convenience, so that you don't have to look for coins or remember to tip online later. Uber here even tells you that the driver doesn't get informed about the tip until an hour after delivery, so you can still edit it in case you change your mind.
viraptor · 5h ago
That's bad, but even worse is the Bluetti website, which asks you for a service tip FOR AN ONLINE ORDER!
gosub100 · 3h ago
I started using Fiverr for outsourcing some tasks and they push you to tip after the transaction.
f1shy · 3h ago
Is almost like a bribe I guess?
jama211 · 5h ago
They’re just saying the quiet part out loud, the tip isn’t for service, it’s for their basic wage.
yieldcrv · 4h ago
we can regulate the intermediary
we can literally get the state to say it is illegal for the point of sale system to have that or sell that to merchants
we can tie it to business codes that dictate which type of business it is to payment processors
control behavior by regulating the intermediary
the beauty of this philosophy is that it works under any system of government: don’t worry about the rights afforded to merchants or individuals, don’t burden them with the law at all, only intermediaries!
poof, tips at the point of sale system before receiving service disappears as fast as it came, short Square (now Block)
we can go deeper too
quickthrowman · 2h ago
A delivery app tip is a way to influence drivers to pick your order, they can see what the expected value of a delivery is and if your tip is too low, your order will take a while.
Consider it a premium that prioritizes your order, that’s what it actually is.
oellegaard · 9h ago
It’s crazy that this still happens in the US.
Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.
pc86 · 42m ago
What's crazy is that you can so confidently claim "tipping is a thing of the past" when it's... not? You can think tipping should go away, that's a completely valid viewpoint. But your statement is just objectively wrong.
I see this a lot (not specific to HN) - some person doesn't like $THING, so they just declare that that thing is bad, or "a thing of the past," or whatever.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 5m ago
Saying something is a “thing of the past” is the same as saying that something that is archaic and should go away. It’s not a declaration of fact.
asats · 10m ago
Or confidently declaring the _true_ motivations of companies/people, like they, the random internet person, for sure know why some company or a famous person are doing something, and express it as a statement of fact and an agreed upon common sense and not a speculation based on nothing.
Most seen on reddit but seems to be becoming commonplace on here as well.
miltonlost · 24m ago
"Horse riding is a thing of the past" is both clearly true and also wrong if you are being incredibly obtuse. The average person is not riding a horse, but there are still horse riders.
I see this a lot - some person doesn't like a phrase ("a thing of the past"), so they just misread it and take it clearly the wrong way.
pc86 · 19m ago
Even among the incredibly predictable "omg USA so backward tipping lol" comments here, there are a lot admitting that tipping still exists for exceptional service in certain industries.
You won't find a single non-barista in the US who thinks it's reasonable for Starbucks to solicit 20% for someone pouring your coffee into a cup. But restaurants have tried the "don't tip our waiters" thing in the US and it doesn't work.
bapak · 8h ago
The crazier part is that it's spreading to more industries and more countries thanks to Americans thinking they should tip everyone everywhere. Thanks.
TrackerFF · 3h ago
My take is that it is spreading not due to culture, but due to how all new point of sale systems / card terminals come with a "tip" feature implemented.
I'm from Europe, and have traveled here extensively. Tipping is pretty rare, but for the past maybe 5 years, almost all new payment terminals have the tipping option.
Lord-Jobo · 1h ago
This is absolutely true, but that is exactly how culture spreads now. Through products/software/media.
American business software, American movies, American YouTube channels. They will inject American problems and solutions into your country, like it or not.
Microsoft may treat your privacy slightly better because of the GDPR, but those invasive systems are still there, toggled off. Waiting for Microsofts lobbying to chip away at the privacy laws until they can turn them on.
rdm_blackhole · 13m ago
Microsoft doesn't need to chip at the privacy laws of the EU, the EU is doing that itself by introducing massive state surveillance laws every 6 months.
Mudbugs · 1h ago
Because they know they can get away with it.
It is also not "tip" anymore, it is just "whatever pays the most" gets the service. It is just to maximise profit out of suckers, something US have perfected (from insurance to fast passes).
KennyBlanken · 6h ago
No, it's spreading because corporations are waking up to what an insanely good deal "pay my employees for me" is.
In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't.
You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner because it's $100 they don't have to pay in wages. Once the waiter has met minimum wage, then the money actually goes to them.
Noumenon72 · 7m ago
I'm guessing this barely applies in practice, since only 1% of hourly employees make minimum wage. A tipped employee who doesn't reach minimum wage is probably getting fired regardless.
tombert · 3h ago
In a sense this policy has kind of saved me money, because I have simply been avoiding restaurants that expect me to tip and cook at home more often.
I hate pretty much everything about tipping. The onus shouldn’t be on some fucking customer to determine if a server makes rent this month.
I really hate that pretty much every payment terminal asks for a tip now.
rtp4me · 18m ago
Same here. We have really cut down on the amount of "out for lunch/dinner" activities we plan. One reason is the tip situation; the other is because we can cook as well at home than out of the house. In the past (80s), going out to dinner was considered a real treat. In the 2000s, it was commonplace. Now, I think we are back to the 80s mentality (cost, tipping, food quality, etc)
kelnos · 5h ago
In California we've set the tipped minimum wage to the same as the non-tipped minimum wage (so employers have to pay their employees the same regular minimum wage regardless of whether or not it's a tipped job). Unfortunately, that hasn't fixed the tipping problem.
Of course, a living wage in California is quite a bit higher then even our above-average minimum wage, so that's a big part of it.
xp84 · 39m ago
I'd argue that (our socially-obligatory form of) tipping is a deceptive pricing practice (not really any better than a store labeling shelves with a giant $4 and a .99 written so small you need a magnifying glass to perceive it). As such, if banning it is too impractical, they should disincentivize it with the tax system. I can't figure out the best way, but it's disappointing that our government is obviously not trying to.
Note: I don't care one bit if someone wants to recognize an exceptional act by handing $20 to a worker -- that's great. That's not the same as giving a bartender $4 for spending 12 seconds pouring vodka and redbull into a glass or tipping $3 when I stood in line to order at a counter and came to fetch my food when my number is called.
my wife worked under this regime of we-pay-below-minimum and you make it up with tips, when she was a student. it’s illegal in multiple states. including the state where it was done to her. but if you need that sort of job you’re typically probably not in a position to go after your employer…
newsclues · 3h ago
And yet tipped servers often earn more that the cooks who make the food.
CalRobert · 6h ago
Living in Ireland from 2013-2023 I saw tipping get _much_ more common, sadly.
bilekas · 6h ago
I don't mind tipping for exceptional service, I do however have a major issue with the obligation of tipping. It really should not be on the customers to pay the employees salaries directly.
kelnos · 5h ago
I don't think we should be tipping at all, even for exceptional service. The job is the job, and the employer should be paying the full amount that job is worth. If the employee is doing it exceptionally well, going above and beyond, the employer should reward them with a raise, same as for salaried positions.
That's assuming the employer values that above-and-beyond-ness, of course. If not, they won't give that raise, and employees will eventually settle on a level of service that the employer is paying for. If that's good enough for the customers, that's fine. If not, that's an opportunity for a competitor to pay employees more so they'll serve customers better.
Customers should not be put in the awkward position of feeling like they should be augmenting people's wages, even if it's on top of an already-sufficient living wage. Wages paid is a negotiation between employer and employee. Customers should not be involved, beyond paying the listed or contracted/agreed-upon price.
scyzoryk_xyz · 4h ago
I live in a country with near zero tipping culture.
For the most part I find the food gets to my table at some point but I'm rarely particularly happy with customer service. It's sometimes an awkward negotiation to get their attention or to ask something. The opposite was true in my time living in the US - soft skills, fast response, engagement are standard. And I've been on both sides of that in food service.
Now, the logic of what youre talking about makes perfect sense and I agree with that in principle. And yet there is something about dining that is somehow different. Escapes that definition.
There are also times I find that exchanging money is more honest. I want you to serve me, I'm paying you, I don't have to keep at the back of my mind a question whether I'm asking something beyond what your boss expects/pays you. I like that about the US - it's brutal but that's reality.
Don't get me wrong, I live in EU for a reason, but some things here are made unnecessarily complicated and oblique too.
xp84 · 29m ago
I haven't spent almost any time in Europe, but in the US at some point it seems to have gone from a setup to incentivize that "soft skills, fast response, engagement" to one that I don't feel does that much due to the social obligation. When your worst case scenario is 18% and your best case is likely 20% + rounded up, who bothers to change their behavior? In my experience it's more like a commission than a tip, and that's because the only real impact is it encourages the waiters to remember to promote expensive alcoholic drinks before and during the meal, since you can earn way more money getting 18% from a table who orders 2 drinks than you do by earning 21% from a table drinking water. As a commission, it should be paid by the employer.
I call tipping the "A*hole discount" because only someone who is comfortable being seen as one would consider tipping 0% or even 10%. And servers will tell you that if you receive terrible, horrible, very bad service you should never tip zero, you should speak to the manager instead (since yadda yadda, the tips are for everyone, you don't know whose fault it is, etc). So instead of tips being a way to reward good service, it's actually just a discount reserved for people who are so uncouth that (A) they don't care if everyone at their table thinks they're an ass, and (B) they don't mind taking food off the table of low-wage workers (very low in states that have the horrible policy of a lower "tipped" min wage). Do those people really deserve a discount?
squigz · 3h ago
> There are also times I find that exchanging money is more honest. I want you to serve me, I'm paying you, I don't have to keep at the back of my mind a question whether I'm asking something beyond what your boss expects/pays you. I like that about the US - it's brutal but that's reality.
But isn't this describing tipping? You're having to ask yourself, "Is this service good enough for a tip? How much of a tip?" instead of just exchanging money for the service and that's it.
scyzoryk_xyz · 1h ago
It is and that's why my point is that there is nuance here.
I had more fun and more satisfaction working in food service in the US than in the EU. There was also more real opportunity right there on the spot to do the thing and get more.
Like yeah, you're having to ask yourself and that's friction. But shouldn't there be a friction when you're being served by someone who is an equal? I've seen folks treat service like garbage in the EU because that exchange obscures the fact that there is an exchange of money. And I've seen service fall back on apathy.
But this is just one way to look at it - ideally it should be exactly as you describe - good service, simple exchange at specified price and confidence that the service is adequately paid for the job.
Only issue is that even in the EU this is often not the truth and restaurants would never ever afford to actually hire full-time employment contracts.
kalaksi · 2h ago
Yes, I have also been thinking how a similar reward system would work without tipping. Just use a bonus system based on customer feedback. And the flow could be very similar to how it is with tipping.
xp84 · 20m ago
It's not worse than tipping, but we've already normalized the obnoxious idea that every transaction needs to earn five stars. You know the places. The ones where they warn you "You're going to get a survey, if there is any reason why you don't feel like you can give us a 5 please tell me" (unsaid: Please sir -- they flog us for 4 star ratings). I can't imagine anyone I know not rating an Uber 5 stars, unless they were say, called a slur or the driver caused an accident.
So, I'm not sure how to best construct a system not open to "guilt gaming" in this way, but I would like to see one.
ffsm8 · 6h ago
I do, it creates perverse incentives and dehumanizes people.
Imagine yourself catering someone and then having them talk about how great that is and wanting to pay you for that. Not in abstract but actually, in practice. It nails down the servant role, frankly. It feels abhorrent to me, even if you get numb to it over time.
From my perspective, tipping is a socially acceptable way to establish classes. Which itself is a terrible practice and the people catering you aren't your servants.
I used "catering" in this comment as a placeholder for any job that receives tips.
Wololooo · 5h ago
It really depends on the amount. In Belgium for instance there would be no tipping, but rounding up or adding one or two spare coins of change you still have on you in case the service was excellent.
It is like any job where people get a bonus because they have gone above and beyond.
ImJamal · 2m ago
Giving extra money is literally tipping?
kelnos · 5h ago
Why can't the employer give that bonus? In non-service jobs employees don't get tips for going above and beyond; they get raises or bonuses.
CalRobert · 5h ago
Is this changing as cash gets less common?
Cthulhu_ · 5h ago
What's worse, it adds "emotional labor" (if I may borrow that term) to a staffer's job; while it's expected for staff to be representative of their company, it really feels like staff in tipping establishments have to put on a show and fake persona to optimize the tipping. But likewise, if you don't tip or don't do enough you (as a customer) are treated like shit.
I'm too autistic to be playing these games and figuring this shit out. I'm glad I don't live in the US.
gwd · 6h ago
> It really should not be on random strangers to determine the employees salaries directly
FTFY
(I mean, actually I agree with your point too; but personally I think tipping is much more unfair to the employees than to the customers.)
closewith · 6h ago
Americans really do love living up to the stereotype about making ignorant comments about other cultures. Tipping in Ireland exploded in the '99 to '08 in the Celtic Tiger era, and never returned to those levels.
CalRobert · 6h ago
I spent half my adult life in Ireland, had kids there, built a house there, etc and like to think that during said time I learned a few things and noticed changes. I do think part of it related to POS systems normalizing it. But it is certainly possible that our experiences differed. It was more common in Dublin 2 than in Offaly I'd say...
Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up. And I spent much more of my time extolling Ireland's virtues than complaining about it! It was surreal to be chatting with taxi drivers and trying to make the point that Ireland wasn't an utter kip.
rambambram · 3h ago
Very off-topic: but the RSS icon on your website still(?) points to feedly and doesn't give your latest blogpost but some feedly crap.
CalRobert · 1h ago
Thanks, I should take it down, really…
Al-Khwarizmi · 5h ago
> Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up.
In Spain we tend to have a similar attitude. Not really telling people to shut up, but if foreigners criticize our country we tend to get defensive, even if they are saying things we would agree with or say in a conversation between locals.
For me it's like common sense, just like you don't acknowledge family problems when you talk to people outside close family and friends, but it's probably just the culture I've been raised in.
CalRobert · 5h ago
Yeah, but when immigrants to my home country complained we generally agreed. I mean, why wouldn’t people experiencing the same system have similar complaints?
Al-Khwarizmi · 5h ago
Oh, OK. I was thinking about foreigners that are here just for a visit. Immigrants get treated like one of us in this respect. In fact immigrants soon experience the horrors of our bureaucracy when they need to obtain their papers, and this typically creates opportunities to bond with the locals by venting about it :)
No comments yet
circlefavshape · 3h ago
> Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up
Haha nail on head here. On behalf of my fellow Irish people - sorry!
drawfloat · 3h ago
America has spent the last century proclaiming itself the greatest country on earth, whilst simultaneously causing untold political and social problems in "lesser countries" to its own benefit.
Some deep rooted resentment when an American criticises a place is natural.
CalRobert · 2h ago
Fair! I left America in part due to disgust with the place so I likely share many sentiments.
closewith · 6h ago
> Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up.
Not to be rude, but have you considered this may have been an issue with you and your attitude, rather than everyone you met, if even people who you seemed to think liked you couldn't stand you.
CalRobert · 6h ago
No, not really. My experience there was generally positive and I met lots of great people. That being said it’s fair to observe that different cultures have different traits. I have a friend here in the Netherlands from Roscommon and he gives out about Ireland -much- more than me, and when I mentioned we’d lived in Offaly he described it as “the beating heart of Irish begrudgery”, which checks out.
Anyway this conversation is a net negative to my day and I’m bowing out.
circlefavshape · 3h ago
"Not to be rude" my hole. What @CalRobert said is 100% accurate - only we are allowed to criticise Ireland, and criticism is especially unwelcome from Brits and Yanks
closewith · 3h ago
I disagree. Irish are _much more_ receptive to criticism of the country from immigrants than most countries.
In my experience, the United States and England (not the entire UK) have the thinnest skin and some people will straight-up tell you to f-off home on the slightest criticism, especially on the subject of human rights or the expeditionary wars.
There are of course the usual suspects, the racists and "Pro-Irish" crowd, who will blame everything on immigrants and accept no criticism of their imagined Ireland, but this isn't true in general.
However, if you make grand pronouncements from a position of profound ignorance and overtly judge the life choices of your new compatriots - a speciality of the GP - you will find yourself alienated at best. This is true everywhere, not just Ireland.
marcusb · 2h ago
> I disagree. Irish are _much more_ receptive to criticism of the country from immigrants than most countries.
Unless, of course, the criticism is someone making a personal observation about how they saw tipping culture expand during their time in Ireland, right? Then the appropriate response is to generalize that Americans love making ignorant comments about other cultures.
Macha · 2h ago
Nah, born and lived here my whole life and requests for tips are way up, from just eat to payment terminals asking for 10% for things that maybe would have been untipped in the past.
ecb_penguin · 8h ago
Yep. It's wonderful throwing a few extra bucks to some euro waiter and watching them treat you better than everyone else.
preommr · 6h ago
> "treat you better than everyone else."
People say this, but what is better service?
It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen that isn't getting tipped directly.
It's pretty much them coming to your table to take your order. I'd much rather have a free burger or drink (the equivalent of what I could get instead of tipping) with the slow service than get my water refilled every 5 minutes.
TylerE · 2h ago
> It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen
Oh, trust me, go to a decent place, be a regular, tip decently (not even extravagantly), you absolutely get looked after. For instance, several of my usual lunch spots my usual fountain drink is often "water" on the bill.
fireflash38 · 2h ago
Isn't that then stealing from the owner?
I just don't think of a way you can have tipping and it not create perverse incentives like that.
tarentel · 8m ago
It's likely not like this everywhere but I've become a regular at a few places over my life time and asked about this. At least where I've been, it is actually all tracked. Generally, at least at bars, the people coming in and tipping well, are people who come in often and spend a lot to begin with so over the long run they end up making it back anyway. And honestly, when you're new to a city/place and don't have a lot of friends/are single, and you walk in somewhere and are greeted by name and served your usual without asking it's a nice retreat.
vel0city · 22m ago
I've had similar experiences in all-inclusive resorts in Mexico and the Carribean where they stock your fridge. Leave a few bucks in the door of the fridge, it'll be overflowing. If you don't tip, you get the minimum. Tip the bell man well at the beginning of the trip, and every time you call the front desk things show up at your room real quick.
exe34 · 6h ago
It means the pretty girl flirts with him. Otherwise why would she?
omnimus · 7h ago
When they treat you better? In the last 2 minutes after you payed just before you leave?
JumpCrisscross · 7h ago
> In the last 2 minutes after you payed just before you leave?
Definitely the next time I come back.
Restaurant workers should earn a good wage. Tipping should not be mandatory. But tips, in particular large tips, are fine and work globally.
kergonath · 6h ago
You know what works even better? Being a friendly and nice person. It has the added bonus that when they greet you and "treat you better" (whatever you mean by that) next time you’ll know it’s not just because of your wallet.
- Tipping results in lower pay for certain genders and races.
- laws that protect employees don't apply to customers. Your boss can't make inappropriate comments and pay you less if you complain. But if a customer makes inappropriate comments, its perfectly legal for the customer to pay you less if you reject their advances.
Gud · 6h ago
Why?
iammrpayments · 6h ago
When I visited the US I’ve noticed some waiters would treat you worse or just ignore if they found out you were a tourist, so when I could I would order something small and pay right away with tip, just to get basic service. So your comment makes 0 sense.
Ballas · 6h ago
In my experience they are often confused and sometimes insulted. Generally I found tipping to add friction to the transaction.
kelnos · 4h ago
That feels disturbingly like a lite version of paying someone to be your friend. Maybe we should just all treat each other well (in both directions) and not reduce manners and social graces to a financial transaction.
maxbond · 7h ago
I'm curious whether you have ever worked in the service industry?
happymellon · 6h ago
I have, in the UK. Probably 95% of customers didn't tip. I didn't have any problems with this.
Why?
I was nice to people because that was my job, but when I've travelled to the US I have definitely seen entitled customers treat staff like shit and claiming it's their right because they were tipping.
Tipping as standard should go out the window, it just drives customers to be assholes.
maxbond · 5h ago
I worked in a fast food restaurant here in the States, people tipped but usually not well. I wasn't pressed about it, I was getting a full minimum wage. Entitled customers didn't give me trouble for whatever reason, they seemed to size up my coworkers as softer targets.
> Why?
I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.
happymellon · 3h ago
When visiting the States I have observed on a couple of occasions where a customer shouted at staff and used the threat of withholding a tip as leverage to be unreasonably nasty to wait staff.
The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.
Panoramix · 5h ago
That sounds a lot like bribing
closewith · 6h ago
I think most of the time this happens, you just don't realise the wait staff is patronising you. You certainly aren't buying better service.
efitz · 8h ago
There’s very little empirical evidence correlating tipping with better service.
CalRobert · 6h ago
There is evidence correlating being attractive to getting better tips, interestingly.
tombert · 3h ago
Anecdata, but I go to Taco Bell way more often than I should. There’s no tipping culture at Taco Bell, but the staff, at least at the one near my house, are always very nice to me and as far as I can tell my food is made with a sufficient amount of care.
When I do go to a restaurant that has tipping, people are usually nice to me as well, but I don’t feel like they’re really any nicer or better at their job than my local Taco Bell workers.
jppope · 1h ago
Anyone who has worked in a restaurant or bar can provide plenty of observational data that if you provide better service you will be tipped better. I would recommend trying out working as a server/bartender you will understand tipping a lot better.
aprilthird2021 · 52m ago
Why should we tip restaurant workers but not janitors or phone customer service reps? Why are they better than other types of service workers?
lazide · 37m ago
Well, one does handle your food before you eat it - and before you’ve seen it.
frollogaston · 8h ago
No, they're definitely more attentive for the tip, I just don't like it. If they're going to be extra nice, I don't want it to be for money. Felt nice going to other countries like Australia where the customer isn't always right but they still do their jobs.
ecb_penguin · 8h ago
Bud, literally nobody gives a shit about waiting on you. They are literally only doing it for the money.
People in Australia are still doing it for the money, even if you don't realize it.
ENGNR · 7h ago
Restaurant staff are still nice in Australia, and friendly.
They don't HAVE to be, but they also don't have to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff to play the tips game, like fill up water that's barely empty or check in on how you're going all the time.
Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
bnralt · 4h ago
> Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
Interestingly enough, I find the service worse in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the tip system leads to waiters wasting time talking about a table, and waiters who aren't your own feeling like they don't have to do anything for you. It usually takes me 5-10 times longer to pay the check in the U.S. than it does in some other countries.
I wish restaurants started offering self service sections where you could order by phone and pick up the food yourself. Having to use waiters gives me the same feeling as when I drive through New Jersey and I'm not allowed to pump my own gas.
ricardobeat · 5h ago
I think that’s pretty much the gist of it. People enjoy the diner-style pampering, and the only way to get that kind of service is if the employees are coerced to do it in order to get a living wage.
Happy employees who earn good salaries would not submit to ass-kissing and degrading work.
Knowing this is what makes the often terrible service in the Netherlands a bit more tolerable :)
retsibsi · 2h ago
They're doing the job for the money. They're relating to the customer both as part of their job, and as an actual human interaction. (Obviously the extent to which this is true varies a lot depending on the individuals involved and the context.) Believe it or not, sometimes people are genuinely friendly, even at work, and even when they're not receiving any extra compensation for going beyond the required level of politeness. Those interactions are, IMO, worth more than forced "friendliness" from someone who is simply looking to get as much money as they can out of me.
Cthulhu_ · 5h ago
I don't fully believe this. There will be a category of staff for who the job is just a way to make money, sure, usually while they're also going to college/uni. But plenty are in the industry because it's their vocation, because they enjoy it, because they're people-persons, because they're good at it.
closewith · 6h ago
People who are not under constant existential stress are generally friendly and nice to other people, even when there's no direct financial benefit.
If you need to pay people to be pleasant to you, that's a moment for introspection.
ghiculescu · 8h ago
As an Australian who lived in America for 5 years - it’s bonkers to claim the service is better (or even as good) in Aus. It’s clearly more attentive in the states, anyone who says otherwise has an agenda.
Sometimes you don’t want good service - as in, you don’t want a server to talk to you. That’s a lot easier to find here.
frollogaston · 8h ago
Yeah, this exactly matches my experience visiting Sydney from the US, it was great. I'm not antisocial, in fact I enjoy talking to strangers, but it feels very wrong to pay them for it.
freehorse · 6h ago
They are still paid to be polite and friendly, just not directly from you. It can also be a selection process because the ppl who do not smile enough have been fired or not taken for the job in the first place. Having a boss in these industries “encouraging“ employees to smile more is not unheard of. It makes sense that it feels better than paying directly to produce this outcome, but in a last analysis it is not very different.
skissane · 6h ago
It isn’t just employees. The manager/owner of the coffee shop I buy coffee from most mornings is very friendly - I’m sure part of this is just her personality, but it is also good business sense - there are lots of other places people can buy coffee instead, and no doubt her friendliness is one of the factors that keeps many of her regular customers coming back. And this is Australia, so no tips involved-it would feel weird and embarrassing even to offer one.
jumpkick · 2h ago
As an American, having traveled in Europe a few times and dined out a lot, I much prefer the culture of just leaving me alone and letting me signal the waiter to come over when I need something.
closewith · 6h ago
Or they may have different values to you. I find American style surveillance services and false smiles pushing upsells to be the worst restaurant experience globally. I'd take any abrupt waiter over that.
JasonBorne · 8h ago
There is definitely a huge difference in countries where they tip and countries where they don't tip.
TFYS · 5h ago
Coming from a country with no tipping at all, it was somewhat creepy how the people expecting tips acted when I visited the US for the first time. You can tell when friendliness is fake/forced, and living in a country without tipping you don't see it nearly as much. I felt a bit uncomfortable.
No comments yet
raincole · 7h ago
Yeah, the huge difference is that in the US waiters or even managers might confront you if you choose to not tip.
alkonaut · 6h ago
There’s tipping everywhere (more or less, there are some exceptions). But there’s just one country that I know of where 15% is ”no tip” because it’s the expected baseline, and 25% is a small tip because it’s 5-10% over the expected minimum so the actual ”tip” part of a 25% tip is actually less.
I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.
olalonde · 6h ago
What do you mean? Service is usually far better in Asia than in Western countries and there's no tipping.
Balinares · 7h ago
I've been to both, a lot, and I've not noticed any difference whatsoever. Good service is the norm everywhere, honestly, and the odd instance of bad service happens everywhere too.
Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.
ponector · 4h ago
Also a tip goes to the pretty face who bring you plates.
However, the whole restaurant experience is made by many people: dishwasher boy, prep boy, shef, cleaning lady, etc.
They should tip to cleaning lady as dirty toilet can ruin whole "experience".
flanked-evergl · 4h ago
> Tipping is a thing of the past.
This statement is just not factual without some qualification. Where I live, and in the US in general, tipping is not a thing of the past. You can say you wish it was, you can say it should be, but what you said is not factual.
petercooper · 4h ago
I agree with your post. But..
I'm from the UK and travel in the US a lot and US service is much better. I've never had to chase up the check or had to go and search for staff to serve me after sitting there for ten minutes. These are common occurrences in the UK for me.
Ideally, tipping wouldn't exist and everything would be priced in, but pragmatically, incentives grant extra benefits to both parties. Potential for more money for the server, better service (and the ability to punish bad service) for the customer.
(I know everyone making similar observations is getting voted down, so I appreciate I may simply be far off the bell curve on this and the majority experience the total opposite. But it's my reality.)
VBprogrammer · 4h ago
> I'm from the UK and travel in the US a lot and US service is much better. I've never had to chase up the check or had to go and search for staff to serve me after sitting there for ten minutes. These are common occurrences in the UK for me.
I've had these things in the US. In fact the service generally I've had is all for show, people being really "fake nice" and / or overbearing but then forgetting drinks or food items you ordered.
At least in the UK you can genuinely not tip someone without worrying about them being unable make rent..
olddustytrail · 2h ago
But people do tip at restaurants in the UK. So what are you saying is the difference?
NicuCalcea · 1h ago
Some people do, but it's not necessary. I rarely tip, and if I do, it won't be the 20% that is customary in the US.
wat10000 · 4h ago
I’ve had fantastic service in countries where tipping is not the norm. I’ve had atrocious service in the US. UK service may be worse, but I doubt tipping is the reason for it.
Good service is common in industries where tipping doesn’t happen. What makes restaurants special that their workers can’t provide good service if all of their pay comes from their employer just like everyone else’s?
johnisgood · 6h ago
Tipping is a thing in Eastern (to be more accurate: Central) Europe too, but where I live, tipping is not taxed. Actually, let me be more accurate: people who pay with credit card always tip in cash, as there is no way to tip with a credit card[1]. :P If you buy anything with a credit card, the total amount must always be identical to the sum of the prices of the products, it can never be more, so cannot include tips[1], which forces people who tip to tip with cash.
Food deliveries (similar to Uber Eats in the US I suppose) have the option to tip, and 100% goes to the courier. 200 HUF (0.57 USD) is the most common amount (as per their website[2]). We do not use percentages.
"Cash is untaxed" is a universal rule; there's a food stall that only sells deep fried Vietnamese eggrolls (and has for decades), they prefer cash; in part because cash is untaxed and they may forget to document every sale on occasion, but also because they do relatively low amount transactions (<€10), the €0.25 transaction fee does add up for them.
It's also why "knowing a guy" can be useful, tradesmen coming in on their off hours to do a job for cash.
johnisgood · 5h ago
Yeah, "knowing a guy" is very common here, as in, hey, I know a plumber, I know an electrician, I know a painter, and this and that. It is always cash with them, of course.
gambiting · 5h ago
>>Actually, let me be more accurate: people who pay with credit card always tip in cash, as there is no way to tip with a credit card.
Eh? I don't know if you consider Poland eastern europe(I don't really), but I tip with a card all the time in Poland, you just ask "hey can I leave a tip on the card" and they bump up the amount by whatever you want to tip. And no, the amount doesn't then equal what's on the receipt - I don't know how they work it out internally, but frankly that's not my problem.
johnisgood · 5h ago
I tried tipping with card, and they told me that they can't "bump it up" (as in, they will get in trouble if they do). I suppose it depends on the place. I know for a fact that you can't tip with a credit card for parcel couriers. What I do not know for a fact is restaurants. So I suppose it varies. You tip doctors with cash, too. It is illegal to do so, but people do it and doctors expect it, it is just done more discretely.
I was not referring to Poland, but Hungary. What gave you the idea that I was referring to Poland? :P FWIW, I do speak Polish though, and I have many Polish friends.
gambiting · 4h ago
>>What gave you the idea that I was referring to Poland?
I didn't have that idea, I'm just saying that in Poland I've never had any issues tipping with card and since you said "eastern europe" I wondered if you consider Poland eastern europe. That's all.
johnisgood · 4h ago
Well, people consider Hungary to be in Eastern Europe, but it actually is in Central Europe, and so is Poland.
I use "Eastern Europe" when I am referring to Hungary only because people typically think that Hungary is in Eastern Europe. Perhaps I should stop doing that and just use "Central Europe", since it is them who are incorrectly believing it is in Eastern Europe.
incone123 · 1h ago
I think some people go on natural geography and others on 'east of the iron curtain'.
ourmandave · 3h ago
The Taco Johns near where I work has a tip jar outside the drive-thru window.
I don't know of any other fast food place that does that.
nozzlegear · 3h ago
In my experience as a former enjoyer, Taco John's needs all the help they can get =P
oulipo · 6h ago
That's why I never tip. Otherwise you're giving the perfect excuse to restaurant owners to lower wages.
- have a liveable minimum wage
- force restaurant owners to pay at least that
period
DoneWithAllThat · 3h ago
“Tipping is a thing of the past” is just a completely false statement, given it’s the norm in the most economically powerful country in the world and not at all u heard of elsewhere (food delivery in many countries, high end restaurants in the UK and elsewhere, etc.) If we’re being generous we can call the claim is vs. ought distinction, except the phrasing doesn’t even leave room for the ought interpretation. It’s just a falsehood (were it was true).
einpoklum · 3h ago
> and have the restaurant pay their people for their work.
For that, you need the restaurant employees to be organized in a strong, independent, non-corrupt union; or a highly-upstanding restaurant owner/manager.
The latter is sometimes the case, but often/usually - not.
So, former is rarely the case, I'm afraid, because working-class consciousness in many countries is lacking; and forming a union is hard; and restaurant staff have a lot of churn, so by the time you get the idea to do this, or have started work on it, you might be going elsewhere.
But regular restaurant clients taking owners to task about wages is definitely a thing to consider...
ecb_penguin · 8h ago
> Pay for your meal
Not sure you know what tipping is, but it's not paying for the meal. It's paying for the service.
1. I like being able to pay for better service
2. Despite what people like to think, everywhere in the world has appreciated tips. I've never had a waiter refuse extra money. Literally dozens of countries, you get better service if you tip.
63stack · 7h ago
Not sure you know, but in literally dozens of countries, waiters get a proper salary.
charcircuit · 6h ago
Having a proper salary doesn't mean they would not appreciate getting even more money.
alkonaut · 6h ago
The cost of a ”meal” in a restaurant is: rent, wages (for chefs, managers, wait staff, etc) ingredients, profit margin, taxes and likely a dozen other things.
Taking one of these items out of the cost and trying to charge it separately is a strange practice.
harshalizee · 7h ago
Japanese waiters will literally refuse your money of your try to tip. It's literally insulting to them if you offer more than asked for
beAbU · 8h ago
The tip is usually given at the end of the service. How does that ensure a better experience during?
quantummagic · 7h ago
You're asking how a tip can influence a server, if they don't know it's coming. But in America they do know it's coming, at least, there is a cultural norm of tipping being expected. So it makes sense that a server would do what it takes, to make sure that it happens.
kelnos · 4h ago
So in other words, you'd still get good service without tipping at all in places like the US. Granted, it might be awkward when it comes time to leave, and if they'd recognize you, you may not want to go back.
MH15 · 7h ago
That's what the money is for!
quantummagic · 7h ago
Huh? The OP asked how a tip could influence the service, if it came after the service was delivered. It's pretty easy to understand, when a tip is the cultural norm.
kelnos · 4h ago
Not sure where you have (or haven't been), but I've been to several countries where I've tried to tip, and it's confused or even embarrassed the staff. They insisted I take my change. Granted, this was 15-20 years ago, and unfortunately tipping has become more pervasive, not less, so maybe if I were to revisit those places, things would be different.
But I do know this is still the case in Japan. Some Japanese service workers or small business owners will even be insulted if you try to tip.
freehorse · 6h ago
There are 3 types of countries x industries (because even within a country different cultures may apply)
1. Places where service workers are paid peanuts or nothing and tipping is considered mandatory
2. Places where workers get a basic actual salary and tipping is rather voluntary (and can be more or less expected)
3. Places where tipping is not an actual practice and can make things awkward even, depending the amount.
In reality, 2 is a spectrum between 1 and 3.
reissbaker · 5h ago
Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good.
Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the tax on their menus either, and yet no one tears their hair out over having to pay sales tax, and various city taxes, etc etc.
The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping. Tipping culture is good.
skeletal88 · 5h ago
Maybe you went to mediocre restaurants?
Tipping sucks and your taxes suck too. When I see that something costs 15€ on the menu then I expect to pay 15€ and nothing more. How can you be happy about surprise taxes? How can you plan your spending when you don't see how much something costs and you still think this is superior?
kelnos · 4h ago
I dunno, I was in Europe (Belgium and France) last summer, and I thought the service was generally excellent. A bit slower in France, perhaps, than in the US, but I chalked that up to people just generally not being in as much of a hurry as they can be in the US. (And hell, there are plenty of places in the US where service is slower than I'd like.)
We tend to avoid touristy areas, though, when we travel, so maybe that explains the better service. If I had to work in a service job that caters to tourists, I'd probably be less happy too.
explodes · 5h ago
Having been to Europe multiple times, hard disagree. I don't know why you had bad experiences everywhere, but I have hardly had any.
yxhuvud · 3h ago
I'd expect all prices to include taxes, be it restaurants or other shops. Everything else is just making it harder for the customer for no reason at all. What you see is what you pay.
paganel · 5h ago
Service is quite good in Europe if you ignore the touristy areas. We’re also not into that fake-smiling thing, so maybe that can be seen by an American as “bad service”.
reissbaker · 5h ago
I don't care about smiling. I care that when I want to leave, I can pay quickly. In Europe, it's incredibly slow, pretty much everywhere, including random rural towns in the middle of nowhere, including for random other patrons who are locals. The best service I ever witnessed in Europe was like, maybe mid-tier American fast casual level: aka, mediocre.
kelnos · 4h ago
Ah that's the difference, then. You equate good service with bringing the check immediately. I'm afraid not doing that isn't bad service, it's just a cultural difference that you have to get used to when you travel sometimes.
Having said that, on the occasion when I've been in places like that and I really was in a hurry, no one has looked at my funny or seem put out when I've flagged someone down to ask for the check.
Panoramix · 5h ago
The fact that you say "Europe" like it's not a block of 40+ countries each with its own language and culture is telling.
Second, what you and me consider to be good service is probably quite different.
No comments yet
pornel · 3h ago
Bringing the check immediately is associated with fast food, and overcrowded touristy places that are rushing customers to leave. Places that want to be fancy act like you're there to hang out, not to just eat and leave.
It is sometimes absurd. In the UK there's an often an extra step of "oh, you're paying by card? let me go back and bring the card reader". Some places have just one reader shared among all waiting staff, so you're not going to get it faster unless you tip enough to make the staff wrestle for it.
I like the Japanese style the best — there's a cashier by the exit.
Barrin92 · 18m ago
> I care that when I want to leave, I can pay quickly. In Europe, it's incredibly slow
Maybe when you come to Europe adjust to the culture. In Europe you don't eat with the clock in your hand so you can run off too the next meeting while you're still chewing. This isn't bad service, it's part of eating out that you don't storm off and take your time.
An ordinary European restaurant doesn't work with the tempo of a McDonalds, that's a feature and not a bug.
gambiting · 5h ago
On the other hand, when I visited US on a work trip we've had an absolutely awful service at a restaurant, like the waiter was genuienly rude to us, and at the end I said ok, well, this was awful, I guess we're not leaving a tip then - and our American host laughed and said no, you still have to leave a tip. Why? Because it would be rude not to. And these people earn very little so you have to leave a tip. But.....the service was bad? Why would we tip? "because you have to".
That's nonsense. In the UK if the service is good I leave a tip. If it isn't then I don't. From my (limited) experience in the US it looks like you have to tip regardless. If that's the tipping culture then that culture is rotten.
>>The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping.
Honest question - do you consider waiters who ask you if you need anything every 2 minutes "good"?
>> The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre
What's your opinion on restaurants in Poland? Was the service better or worse than in Spain? How was it compared to Czechia and Slovakia?
> At the outset of the Amazon Flex program, from 2015 through late 2016, Amazon paid drivers at least $18 per hour plus 100% of customer tips
> Beginning in late 2016 ... Amazon secretly reduced its own contribution to drivers’ pay to an algorithmically set, internal “base rate” using data it collected about average tips in the area ...
> For example, for a one-hour block offering $18-$25, if Amazon’s base rate in the particular location was $12, and the customer left a $6 tip for the driver, then Amazon paid the driver only $12 and used the full customer tip of $6 to reach its minimum payment of $18 to the driver.
And their punishment was just to pay back what had been taken: I can't imagine there are many other opportunities to steal $61m with the only punishment when you're caught is having to pay it back.
Lord-Jobo · 30m ago
The largest type theft done in the United States, by far, for decades, is wage theft. In terms of dollars stolen.
All other forms of serious crime have dramatically fallen since the 90's per Capita. Some are at 1/3 the rate they were then. (FBI UCR)
remember that next time you see a headline or politician speak about crime.
We are safer, doing less crime to each other, and seeing more prison population than ever before.
While corporations crush us illegally and face no consequences.
genericuser256 · 42m ago
In this case[0] the CEO (Chris Kirchner) stole ~20M$ from the company causing employees to go unpaid for months, and outside of California all they got was owed wages (no interest or anything). While mentioned in the article, what he was mainly convicted of was defrauding investors rather than stealing from employees.
> Apparently, projecting personal prosperity was more important to him than making payroll
He actually had the temerity early on in the debacle when he was still pretending there was money to tell us that they had decided to not pay us that week because it would be bad for the companies investments to withdraw funds then.
> I can't imagine there are many other opportunities to steal $61m with the only punishment when you're caught is having to pay it back.
There was a very famous viral video of a woman stealing offering to just pay for the goods when she was caught, but we all understood why that was a ridiculous idea. Maybe she was just an Amazon VP, so she didn't know any better
littlexsparkee · 15h ago
Some interesting points: ~40% of tipped workers don't make enough to get taxed anyway, no tax on tips would actually advantage better paid workers like casino dealers who don't need the help. NToT is described as a campaign to distract from minimum wage increase initiatives.
chriscrisby · 15h ago
That’s a weird way to say a sizable majority of tipped workers do pay taxes and will benefit from this.
aaplok · 12h ago
Beware the logical fallacy. "A implies B" does not mean that "not A implies not B".
Workers who earn too little to pay taxes (A) will not benefit from a tax cut (B).
But workers who earn enough (not A) may still not benefit (not B), for example because their employer indirectly pockets the difference. That is actually being argued in the article.
So this is indeed the appropriate way of formulating the statement: at least 40% of workers will demonstrably not benefit from this.
swagmoney1606 · 8h ago
But it would be true to say not B implies not A right? (contrapositive?)
delusional · 7h ago
In that case B would be "is not taxed on the income" and A is "part of the 40%" making the statement not B implies no A: "If you are taxed on your tips that implies you are not part of the 40%".
That seems correct. It's a pretty useless statement, but it is true.
wakawaka28 · 10h ago
I can't read this article because of the paywall. Are they saying that taxable tips are subject to payroll taxes (which employers pay out of pocket)? That would actually benefit both employers and employees in some sense.
Some tipped workers, like bartenders, can make more in tips than a junior software engineer lol. Less taxes definitely helps their cause.
If you are concerned with indirect effects, there's quite a few pros and cons that you could extrapolate from the no tax on tips policy. These arguments are far less compelling in general.
> Some tipped workers, like bartenders, can make more in tips than a junior software engineer lol. Less taxes definitely helps their cause.
neat, but you can only deduct up to $25k and the benefits phase out if you earn more than $150k (single filers).
reissbaker · 5h ago
I think most bartenders would appreciate an extra $25k.
itake · 5h ago
I am sure they would! but that isn't what the law says. Its a $25k DEDUCTION.
If someone earned $125k salary + $25k in tips. Their taxable income would decrease by about $6k (or $500/mo, 4% overall).
shazbotter · 5h ago
Deducting 25k does not mean taking home an extra 25k. It means, probably, somewhere around $1-3k, depending on their tax bracket.
graton · 8h ago
> I can't read this article because of the paywall
I just turned on reader mode in Firefox and then refreshed the page and got the article. I'm surprised how often it works. It often doesn't but sometimes it does.
lawlessone · 14h ago
it's indirect tax credits for businesses that don't want to pay workers.
reissbaker · 5h ago
No, it isn't. It doesn't affect the wage they have to pay them. It just affects whether the employees need to pay taxes on tips.
potato3732842 · 3h ago
There is no useful point to saying what you just said.
You can make that argument about literally anything that reduces the tax burden on people who's primary income is useful income.
potato3732842 · 34m ago
Correction: primary income is earned income
FireBeyond · 6h ago
Well, to be fair, the IRS considers the average tip to be 8% for taxation purposes.
The whole "I get taxed whether you tip me or not", "I have to pay to serve you if you don't tip"? No, not so much. If you can show (there's even a hugely burdensome IRS form that might take as much as 3-4 minutes a month for cash tips) that you earned less than that 8% average, then that's what you get taxed. But most servers don't want to fill that form out, because they get ... rather more than that, and are being undertaxed already.
spondylosaurus · 14h ago
Sure, but TFA makes clear that any benefit to workers from tax-free tips is laughable compared to the numbers of times the restaurant lobby has fucked them over, by repeatedly killing attempts to keep wages low. It's not even throwing workers scraps, it's more like throwing them crumbs.
nickthegreek · 13h ago
and it’s a not even a forever thing like the rich guys got. this thing sunsets.
limagnolia · 14h ago
They may not pay any income taxes, but they almost certainly pay FICA taxes. If the NToT includes FICA, they would be better off. However, I still think it is terrible idea to advantage some employment classes and means of compensation over others like that.
I live in California and this isn't true here. All restaurant workers receive at least minimum wage before tips. In my city, that's $19/hour with health insurance.
Of course, you're still expected to leave a tip and suggested minimum is now 20%, plus even McDonalds is charging $15 for a 4 oz burger, so I rarely go out to eat at places that expect a tip anymore.
I'm not sure why they specifically should be tax exempt though. Cash tips often were, practically speaking, so a lot of tax evasion was happening, but it still seems odd to single them out.
jrockway · 14h ago
Yeah, there is a lot of shadiness going on these days. I don't think tips should be requested in any sort of transaction where the employee gets paid more than minimum wage. Restaurants always had this weird system where you could avoid paying your employees if they were tipped, so it was drilled into everyone's head "you're stealing from poor innocent workers if you don't tip 20%". But this is not the case for most workers, and so tips should be truly for exceptional service in cases where the job position is on a normal pay scale.
This isn't to say that I don't tip when not required to or that I only tip people I think are being underpaid, but ... things have gotten a little out of control. If I feel like tipping, I'll tip. I do not need a prompt suggesting anything when it's not coming out of the employee's takehome pay.
I hate to say it but I think some government regulation is required here.
atmavatar · 14h ago
Peak tip cynicism is when you're at an upscale restaurant where the wait staff are obviously being paid more than minimum wage, the bill automatically includes a gratuity (often 18% or more), and then on top of that, there's a line to include another tip.
the_snooze · 12h ago
Any fee or surcharge beyond the listed menu prices and associated taxes are a tip as far as I'm concerned.
If the restaurant is going to be shady and unilaterally introduce confusion to an already confusing norm, then I consider that norm voided and fair game for any interpretation.
8n4vidtmkvmk · 13h ago
It's not a "tip" if it's included. Biggest scam ever.
TylerE · 6h ago
Upscale restaurants that tip is often being split 5 or 6 ways... not just the primary server, but also the bartender, sommelier, food runners, etc.
Aunche · 40m ago
It's actually even worse than that. The $19/hr and health insurance comes from increasing menu prices, so flat percentage tips, you're paying more for the privilege of paying more.
toomuchtodo · 14h ago
Seven states do not have a separate, lower minimum wage for tipped employees. Instead, they require employers to pay tipped employees the full state minimum wage, regardless of tips received. These states are Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Sixteen states use the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13:
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
> Seven states do not have a separate, lower minimum wage for tipped employees
All workers, in every state, must be paid at least minimum wage.
There's a subtle but important difference in wording. There is no "lower minimum wage" for any employee anywhere. The rule is that employers may credit tips towards pay, up to a certain amount. And they can never credit 100% of pay.
So tipped employees should always earn: minimum_wage + stochastic_number
"lower minimum wage for tipped employees" is incorrect and is just the interpretation of "minimum employer must pay after applying tip credits". Subtle, but very different things! If you aren't earning at least minimum wage (tips inclusive), then your experiencing wage theft.
The DOL page[0] specifically says "Maximum Tip Credit Against Minimum Wage" and that's how the column "Minimum Cash Wage" is calculated, but under no circumstances[1] can the employer pay less than "Minimum Cash Wage". Anything less is illegal. ALSO under no circumstances[1] may an employee earn less than minimum wage.
[1] We're ignoring allowed deductions like lodging and meal
kelnos · 4h ago
Right, but if a tipped employee in a lower-tipped-minimum state doesn't make the full minimum wage when their tips are included, it's a lot easier in a place like that for a shady employer to fail to top up their wage. Yes, in theory there are ways for employees to get this enforced, but in practice they are very reasonably and understandably wary about making use of those legal avenues.
Not to mention that in a state where there is no lower tipped-wage minimum, all tips go to the employees directly. In a state where the tipped minimum is lower, tips effectively go to the employer for the amount between the tipped minimum and regular minimum, as that's a cost the employer would otherwise have to pay.
shazbotter · 5h ago
This is a lot of words for a distinction without a difference.
godelski · 14h ago
> I live in California and this isn't true here
I made a longer comment in the main thread[0] because I think there's a tendency for conversations about tipping to degrade as people are making different assumptions based on the different laws of where they're from or grew up.
To be clear:
- Any worker that is not making *at least the state's minimum wage* (including tips) is suffering from wage theft. (with the exception of Georgia (WTF))
- Any worker not receiving a positive valued check are suffering from wage theft
- Tips only count as a credit and no state lets tips act as a 100% credit to the wage[1]. Credits may be amortized across "workweek" pay.
We always need to make sure we distinguish a conversation about wage theft and a conversation about tipping. I think they are unknowingly being used interchangeably (or as an assumption in a conversation)
[1] Federal only lets max credit of 70% of min wage. Some states go up to ~75% of min wage, but their minimum wage is higher than federal.
FireBeyond · 6h ago
Servers, often, seem to think it's our (the customer's) obligation to compensate for the sins of their employer.
"Many restaurant owners illegally don't actually follow this law". "Report them to the DOL". "I don't want to do that. You should tip me to make sure I have a livable wage instead."
godelski · 5h ago
Perhaps this would happen less often if people didn't just spread hopelessness
kelnos · 4h ago
Or maybe that's a logical reaction to the situation these people live in.
kelnos · 4h ago
I'm happy that CA doesn't set a lower min wage for tipped workers, but the problem is that in many/most places in CA, $19/hr is still not a living wage, so the tips are more or less required to keep those workers housed and eating.
A living wage in most population centers in CA is nearly $30/hr.
radpanda · 13h ago
> even McDonalds is charging $15 for a 4 oz burger
Jeez, where is this? According to the famous McCheapest map the most expensive Big Mac in America is about 8 bucks. Have prices really shot up that much recently?
What got lost in an edit was that's for the combo with a bag ($0.25 extra).
No comments yet
msikora · 14h ago
California doesn't have a special minimum wage for tipped professions? When I was waiting tables a long time ago I think my pay was $1.95 an hour. It was usually just enough to cover tax on tips (the ones we admitted).
godelski · 13h ago
> California doesn't have a special minimum wage for tipped professions?
NO STATE has a "special minimum wage for tipped professionals". MOST STATES allow tips to be *credited* towards wage, but NO STATE allows an employee to be paid less than minimum wage. There's a "special minimum wage THAT EMPLOYERS MUST CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS a tipped professional'S WAGE", but that's a very different thing than "the minimal amount of pay an employee may receive."
The difference is where the money comes from: directly from employer vs directly from customer. But in all cases *the sum of these sources* must equal the minimum wage.
If the employee is not taking home at least minimum wage, then the employer is guilty of wage theft.
If the employer does not make at least $x towards an employee's wage, the employer is guilty of wage theft.
So instead, read the CA's (and AK, MN, MT, NV, OR, WA) rule as "tips may not be credited towards an employee's salary".
You keep posting this over and over as if states with a lower tipped minimum are equivalent to states with the same minimum, regardless of tips.
You're not wrong that, in states with a lower tipped minimum, the tips act as a credit. But you're ignoring what the power imbalance in those situations can do to an employee, and you're ignoring the fact that in states like that, tips paid by customers are effectively subsidizing the employer out of paying minimum wage.
And I don't think that it would be surprising that wage theft is more common in places where the tipped minimum is set lower than the general minimum.
As a customer, I would much rather know that the employer is paying the full fair minimum wage regardless, and any tip I leave will always be on top of that. I don't want to be paying a part of the employee's wage that the employer would otherwise be paying.
FireBeyond · 6h ago
> If the employer does not make at least $x towards an employee's wage, the employer is guilty of wage theft.
See what your server's reaction is if you tell them to report this wage theft.
They won't. They'll just suggest you tip them to compensate.
godelski · 5h ago
They should. It's easy to report. Doesn't matter if nothing happens right away, because the more reports that accumulate the higher priority it becomes.
So instead of trying to tell me how fruitless this is and just give up to endless arguments, maybe report wage theft if you know about it. You can do it anonymously. You can do it for people that tell you. It's not a hopeless situation. Hell, lawyers take payment after the case is won, and you know if your wage is being stolen then others are too
kelnos · 4h ago
It's easy to report, but retaliation is a thing, and is hard -- and expensive -- to prove. Someone subject to wage theft is not the kind of person who can afford that trouble.
And it's not like restaurant owners don't talk among themselves. Getting blackballed isn't great.
Bottom line is that you seem to think that there's zero reason why people are shy about reporting wage theft. And yet so many people don't want to do it. Maybe try a little humility on and accept that maybe there are reasons you don't know about or don't understand. It's very easy to tell people what they should be doing when you don't have to walk in their shoes.
rconti · 14h ago
Looks like it changed in 1988 due to a state supreme court ruling about a 1975 law. The law said the tips were the "sole property" of the employee and couldn't be counted by the employer as wages.
They eliminated the special minimum wage for tipped professions in Seattle too, which is currently $20.76 per hour.
Aloisius · 14h ago
Nope. Tipped workers are paid full minimum wage in California.
sundaeofshock · 14h ago
California has not had a tipped minimum wage since at least the early 2000s, and I can’t seem to find any information on what is in the 1900s.
wakawaka28 · 10h ago
>Of course, you're still expected to leave a tip and suggested minimum is now 20%, plus even McDonalds is charging $15 for a 4 oz burger, so I rarely go out to eat at places that expect a tip anymore.
Don't tip, especially 20%, for over the counter service. That is ridiculous.
>I'm not sure why they specifically should be tax exempt though. Cash tips often were, practically speaking, so a lot of tax evasion was happening, but it still seems odd to single them out.
It's just a gimmick to get votes. The theory is that poor people tend to be the ones that work these jobs, they need a break, and it's not a policy that would cost very much anyway. There is a cap on the tips and most cash tips were going unreported anyway.
thuridas · 7h ago
Aren't we creating incentives for workers abuse:
- No tax on overtime: so now making them work 60 hours a week is cheaper for the employer
- No tax on tips: so the tip based payment model is cheaper
entropi · 7h ago
Yes, and my understanding is that this is precisely the point.
flanked-evergl · 4h ago
Income tax is paid from employee salaries/wages, not by employers.
wat10000 · 3h ago
Doesn’t matter, money is fungible.
flanked-evergl · 3h ago
My money is not fungible with my employer's money. Money being fungible does not mean I get to use your money.
wat10000 · 3h ago
It means that you paying taxes on your pay is equivalent to your employer paying taxes on your pay. If you shift taxes to the employer, then they will reduce your pay accordingly.
flanked-evergl · 2h ago
Never ever once has an employer given me a pay raise when they got a tax cut or a pay cut when they got a tax hike.
Taxes do not feature into salary negotiation. Employers pay as little as they can get away with, while employees want to get as much money as they can.
If you need theoretical worlds with no correspondence to anything ever in actual history to justify your claim, then maybe there is not that much to it.
wat10000 · 22m ago
Where do you live that employer-paid taxes on employee pay have been cut during your career?
flanked-evergl · 15m ago
I have never lived anywhere where there are employer-paid taxes on employee pay. Have you? Do you even know of a country like that?
wat10000 · 12m ago
The United States has federal payroll taxes of which half are paid by the employer.
flanked-evergl · 5m ago
Social Security and Medicare (FICA) is not exactly a tax, if that is what you are talking about. There is FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax) paid by employers, but this is quite low, certainly not a significant portion of tax revenue.
ghiculescu · 6h ago
How is it cheaper for the employer?
IshKebab · 6h ago
They can pay lower wages because the employee is losing less of their income to tax. Supply and demand.
gog · 6h ago
For the same amount of money employee gets it requires employer to pay out less.
ghiculescu · 6h ago
That’s not how income tax works, particularly for minimum wage workers.
RobinL · 6h ago
It's just supply and demand. It makes working in these industries relatively more attractive, increasing supply of labour and therefore reducing price of labour. So restaurant owners capture some of the benefits
ghiculescu · 6h ago
So employees earn more, and restaurants spend less. And this is bad because?
pnt12 · 6h ago
Well, the money doesn't appear with magic, so someone is paying: the government (forfeiting taxes) or the consumer (more pressure to tip).
To me, the bad part is the tax reductions only appear in behavior I don't agree with: high overtime and tipping (when it's semi mandatory).
I'm not American, but this is also showing up in my country.
fireflash38 · 2h ago
Aren't we already in a manufacturing hole and we're incentivizing more service industries over them?
RobinL · 6h ago
Because you're artificially favouring one specific industry, at a cost to all other industries.
And because the implication of your argument is we should never tax anything because that's a benefit to both the consumer and the business
gchamonlive · 47m ago
Tips are the most cynical thing I've ever seen.
Tips are supposed to be "in return for a service, beyond the compensation agreed on" (WordsAPI).
If tips instead mean "it's something you have to give when you had no problems with the service provided", and you expect routinely not to have problems with such service providers, then it's implicitly agreed that tips are required, so they are not tips anymore.
Larrikin · 14h ago
Don't forget to reduce your tips by the percentage they were previously being taxed, since it is all charity anyway.
Hopefully this becomes another straw that will eventually break the camels back and we get rid of tipping all together. Every restaurant in the world does not need tips to survive, except for the ones in the US.
toomuchtodo · 14h ago
Tips subsidize profits, plain and simple. But, America runs on poverty, so this is in line with the broader socioeconomic strategy.
9rx · 8h ago
> Tips subsidize profits, plain and simple.
Nah. Profitability for the business would be higher without tips. I take x% of gross income as profit. No tips means I can charge the customer more, which means a higher gross income, which means more profit. When tipping is involved, the money slips through without allowing the business to take its cut. Good for the server, but not good for the business.
However, as theoretically great as it sounds, you are ultimately beholden to what the customer wants. There is good reason why every restaurant that has tried a "no tips" policy has failed. Nobody shows up to dine. They go somewhere else where they can tip instead. Regular people actually enjoy tipping, as hard as it may be to believe for those who are staring at screens rather than enjoying the ambiance of a restaurant.
kelnos · 4h ago
It's not that simple. Restaurant owners don't pay payroll taxes on tips, but they do pay it on regular wages. Raising restaurant menu prices by 20% (or the average tip amount) will not result in 20% (or the average tip amount) more going to the workers. Some restaurants have tried this out, and it's backfired. Restaurants already run on very thin margins; a loss of a few percent can kill them.
Also consider that customers will get sticker shock: even though they are ultimately paying the same price, seeing 20% higher prices on the menu will make them spend less. Yes, it's dumb, but human psychology is dumb, so there we are.
(Folks in Europe are used to the listed price being what they pay. In the US businesses don't generally list tax-included prices, but businesses that do include tax in their prices end up looking -- in the eyes of customers -- as more expensive than those that don't, even when the final prices are identical.)
9rx · 16m ago
> Restaurant owners don't pay payroll taxes on tips, but they do pay it on regular wages.
Payroll taxes are based on the wage, not profitability of the business. A non-issue, well, except maybe for the server who has grown accustomed to making $50/hr — no tips and those days are gone.
> Some restaurants have tried this out, and it's backfired.
Yup. Hard to win consumers when tipping is part of the experience. I mean, it can be done where it isn't part of the experience — McDonalds survives, thrives even, without tips — but where the customer comes to tip it doesn't fly. You have to give the customer what they want at the end of the day, else you'll never see them.
> Restaurants already run on very thin margins
Exactly, but if you increase the volume then the product of the margin gets bigger. Remember, Walmart and your average restaurant have the same profit margin! Walmart's advantage is that they handle way more money, so the total amount that margin represents is huge. If a restaurant can also handle more money...
> seeing 20% higher prices on the menu will make them spend less.
Even just, say, 1% higher still means more cashflow through the business, which means more cash to take a cut from. You are right that the full 20% would unlikely ever be realized, but it doesn't need to be to still be advantageous.
squigz · 3h ago
> Also consider that customers will get sticker shock: even though they are ultimately paying the same price, seeing 20% higher prices on the menu will make them spend less. Yes, it's dumb, but human psychology is dumb, so there we are.
It's not dumb; it's just that paying that 20% to the waiter is a lot easier to stomach than a 20% increase to the restaurant owner.
Why do you take a fixed profit. Why don’t you charge the amount which maximises profit?
9rx · 43m ago
Because x% is the maximum profit.
frollogaston · 8h ago
I've already been doing that because I tip with cash. Credit card tip is self-contradictory.
jollyllama · 16m ago
Tax on real tips i.e. cash was already unenforceable, but perhaps it's nice to codify it. Then again, it feels like just another step to shift transactions away from cash.
SSchick · 6h ago
My tips have been going down progressively, when I moved to the US I was taught 20% is "normal", now I tip 15% at MOST at restaurants and at MOST 5% on take out.
I'm tired of being shamed to pay more for less.
Also whoever was in charge of teaching staff to "turn away in shame" when the tipping screen is shown needs to go to some sort of gulag.
rayiner · 17m ago
It’s simpler than that. It’s gross vote buying and political patronage. Nevada has a large population of tipped service workers. Trump won the state by the largest margin for a Republican since W. Bush in 2000 (back when the state was 65% non-hispanic white versus 45% today). It was probably instrumental in Trump winning hispanic men nationally.
shazbotter · 5h ago
You know what would actually help workers in tipped positions? Going after wage theft. Taxes on tips are a drop in the bucket compared to wage theft.
augment_me · 7h ago
I can kind of see the average traditional service work position to shift into a Uber-esque model where you are a essentially a gig contractor. The worker takes the full risk for slow days, and the business owner does not have to pay you a salary, as everything comes from the customer.
alkonaut · 6h ago
That’s exactly what US waiter employment is. And it needs to die.
paulwilsondev · 21m ago
I never put a tip in at a kiosk.
steveBK123 · 14h ago
All bonuses soon to be labelled as tips.
limagnolia · 14h ago
This is unlikely to be allowed, the last I checked, the law explicitly only allows "traditionally tipped jobs". How it gets interpreted and implemented in IRS Tax Code isn't clear yet, but they will probably have rules in place to prevent this.
Doesn't change the fact that it is a terrible idea.
hirvi74 · 13h ago
Hmm, this makes me wonder though -- I have noticed various projects on Github and various other sites allow for users and fans of projects to donate to the developers and maintainers. Who hasn't seen the "wanna buy me a coffee?" button on a site before?
I am not sure if the money from such sources was ever taxed as income, but if so, then I wonder if such will be non-taxable now? Considering donation and tip buttons have some history behind them, perhaps such "jobs" could be considered "traditionally tipped jobs?"
dml2135 · 2h ago
They will publish a list
> (h) Published List of Occupations Traditionally Receiving Tips.--
Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
Secretary of the Treasury (or the Secretary's delegate) shall publish a
list of occupations which customarily and regularly received tips on or
before December 31, 2024, for purposes of section 224(d)(1) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (as added by subsection (a)).
atomicnumber3 · 9h ago
Technically that money should be reported on a 1099 misc. but is it generally enough to even have an auditor look at it? I'd guess not. But you do technically need to.
onlyrealcuzzo · 14h ago
At least the current version of the code has a ton of limits on what can be labeled tips, and the benefit phases out completely around $150k, and is only applicable to professional that traditionally receive a significant portion of income from tips - so it's not like you're going to have billionaires and PE fund managers paying themselves from their companies tens of millions in bonuses labeled as "Tips" and not paying any tax.
~90% of tipped workers REPORT less than $61k in income already. At that income, you're barely paying much income tax anyway.
This is just a trick to make people think they wouldn't have to pay social security and Medicare - which is the main tax they're paying - when in reality, ~90% of tipped workers will get next to nothing.
steveBK123 · 14h ago
Plenty of early stage PMC jobs make under $150k, pay bonuses and CEOs would gladly be able to pay a little less if they can finagle it to be tax free.
Do they have a list of professions and industries eligible or are they going with weak “traditionally tipped “ language?
And we expect the DOGEd and defanged IRS to vigorously enforce?
cherryteastain · 5h ago
Doesn't this also open a huge opportunity for tax evasion?
Say I am a small business owner selling a $90 item which is $100 with state sales taxes. I say if you are willing to tip me at least $90, the item is $1. The buyer saves $9 from state sales taxes, and I save on income taxes because tips are exempt from tax.
codegrappler · 3h ago
The law accounts for this. Jobs and industries that previously and traditionally don’t work on tips cannot convert to a method you describe.
wat10000 · 3h ago
I’m not sure if this is meaningfully different from offering a cash discount because you evade taxes on cash transactions.
trhway · 3h ago
It is interesting that the no tax on tips would expire in 2028, while the tax breaks, most affecting the wealthy, were made permanent in the same bill. A bit of political game i'd say.
ajsnigrutin · 4h ago
I never understood tips...
You have a farmer that grows/raises food, butchers and others that 'process' it, you have a team of cooks who prepare/cook the food, and you're supposed to tip the the person who just brings the foor from the kitchen to your table, maybe 20, 30 meters away?!
Sadly, tipping is sprading all over europe too with POS terminals bothering you more and more often for tips.
rkomorn · 3h ago
I grew up in France and tipping in restaurants was definitely a thing, albeit on an entirely different scale than in the US.
Leaving a few francs (I'm not young) was common practice.
With cash payments growing more rare, and without the ability to tip easily with cards, maybe it became much less common.
That said, I don't disagree with your comment on how it's spreading. What I don't love about the terminals asking for tips is that, IMO, it creates an expectation of tipping that wasn't there before.
Now, in Portugal, we're starting to see cases of "here's the price with a 3€ tip (for example), if you want to pay that", and you awkwardly get to say "no thanks I want to pay the actual price", which I find very unpleasant.
On the other hand, we regularly eat out at a place near us that only takes cash. We usually spend about 18€ and I always leave the extra 2€ as a tip.
tiagod · 1h ago
>Now, in Portugal, we're starting to see cases of "here's the price with a 3€ tip (for example), if you want to pay that", and you awkwardly get to say "no thanks I want to pay the actual price", which I find very unpleasant.
I've lived in Portugal for 30 years and I never had that happen to me. Where are you seeing this? I could only imagine it in a place that only serves tourists and foreigners.
rkomorn · 53m ago
> I could only imagine it in a place that only serves tourists and foreigners.
Maybe not "only", but yes, they're typically Americanized brunch places, or other "trendy" places. And some of those places have good food worth eating.
It's still a pretty rare thing, fortunately. Something less offensive that I'm running into more often is to be asked if we want to leave a tip. And more common still are PoS systems that give you the option on checkout.
Probably not the thread to digress into what's happening to dining in Lisbon (eg the rameniffication of everything) but it's definitely bringing in a more tip-forward mindset.
paulwilsondev · 22m ago
this is why we need to end this ridiculous tipping culture
siliconc0w · 14h ago
"No tax of tips" is one of the most brilliant political ploys ever. You really gotta give Trump credit. It doesn't really cost anything, businesses love it, and you can trot it out as a victory for the working class while you screw them on their health care or energy costs.
frollogaston · 8h ago
Idk, tipping expectation is really unpopular, and anyone can see how this feeds it.
Bukhmanizer · 9h ago
It’s not really, it’s the kind of thing that only a populist could do. If a Democrat did this, people would hate it for this very reason. This would just another “NeoLib” concoction to screw the working class.
Workaccount2 · 14h ago
Trump is a populist president.
People just don't recognize it because right-wing populism is a different breed than left-wing populism (the only one they have had exposure to).
Tariffs are a populist move as well. If you go look at Bernie's old website (pre-trump) he has a whole section about the importance of tariffs.
KurSix · 6h ago
The most galling part is how the industry manages to manufacture worker consent through PR spin and management plants in hearings
hnarn · 3h ago
I’d honestly like to hear from someone who is a proponent of tipping how they think it makes any sense. By that I don’t mean I need the reason for tipping explained to my, everybody understands the argument for why you should tip: but how does it make sense when you consider who you tip and who you don’t?
ojbyrne · 8h ago
“No Tax on Overtime” ditto. As I understand it if it’s overtime negotiated through a union contract, you’re out of luck.
imchillyb · 1h ago
Bribing a driver in order to receive an order accurately seems archaic.
I’ll drive there myself, thanks. My pup gets a ride. The apps get the finger. The drivers get what they deserve.
Wins all around.
deadbabe · 1h ago
I’ve finally eliminated all tipping in my life for anything that isn’t sit down restaurant service or an uber ride, and I’ve stopped using delivery apps to instead just pick up food myself.
At first it feels shitty hitting 0 or “no tip” on a payment machine but after the first several times it feels empowering and I doubt employees give a shit anyway. Just do it.
bigyabai · 16h ago
It's also a joke, because anyone who's worked a service job knows there is no tax on cash tips (wink!)
crazygringo · 14h ago
Which made a difference 2 or 3 decades ago.
But today, who's getting tips in cash? Not many. Customers are paying for everything with credit cards or contactless, save for the occasional cash-only coffee shop or restaurant.
JumpCrisscross · 7h ago
> who's getting tips in cash?
About half of the large tips at high end restaurants in my town are cash. Sounds like it is about a third in New York. Especially if it is folks who work at a restaurant.
alkonaut · 6h ago
How is the trend? I imagine it’s already possible to estimate what year it will be almost zero from that trend. It also tends to accelerate: once a restaurant has very few cash customers they tend to become no-cash because the cost of cash handling is more than the potential loss of business. I’m unsure if there are any legal obstacles to going cashless in the US however. But where I live no one uses cash and more and more places are cash free (a chicken and egg problem).
johnisgood · 6h ago
Exactly. My girlfriend who works in sales (sells food) in LA barely gets tips in cash. Most people use their cards. And thus, her tips are tax deductible.
lawlessone · 14h ago
tbf it's one of the few times i try to carry cash.
I just don't trust management of places not to take a cut if it's done digitally.
bsder · 14h ago
> But today, who's getting tips in cash?
Every server who waits on me.
I make it a point to carry cash and tip the waitstaff in cash even if I pay the bill on my credit card.
1) Tips on credit cards are a "dark pattern" meant to increase the house rake of the credit card handling companies.
2) Tips on credit cards are controlled by the owner and often never make it to the waitstaff.
I can short circuit this by giving my servers tips in cash.
kelnos · 4h ago
Sure, but I think you have to admit that tips have been moving more and more to credit cards, and fewer and fewer people tip with cash. You can keep doing what you do (and good on you for doing it), but at least acknowledge that the norm has been shifting for a while now.
godelski · 13h ago
This is easier to understand when you actually understand what the tipping law is. That tips may act as a credit towards an employee's wage (up to a max that's < 100%). How is the credit calculated? Besides video, the only hard proof is by whatever you write on that receipt.
So like you, I carry cash for tipping. I leave the tip section blank and write the provided total in the "total" line. Then I leave cash. Employee gets to decide if they declare or not (or in other words, if my tip may be credited towards their wage).
frollogaston · 8h ago
Same, but gotta acknowledge that few people do this still. A lot of businesses were even cash-only before coronavirus, now I see 0, at most they do a CC surcharge.
bigyabai · 14h ago
I should have specified that I live in the east-coast United States. Tap-to-pay is almost as common as someone writing you a paper check or an IOU, out here.
kccqzy · 14h ago
Saying east coast is too vague to be useful. I live on the east coast too and there are entire weeks where leave all my credit cards at home and only pay via tap-to-pay.
hdgvhicv · 6h ago
Contactless is basically non existent in America?
I know America has always been backwards (cheques were still in use well into the 21st century, card pins didn’t seem to catch on before contactless became a thing about a decade ago), but I thought contactless was quite high nowadays, especiallly with phones and watches.
Certainly I’ve had no problem paying contactless in the cities I’ve been to recently - New York, DC and Miami.
the__alchemist · 2h ago
Table-service restaurants always take your card (Not sure if they support chip and/or contactless), but most other services support chip and contactless. (2025, NC). This wasn't true in my experience until a few years ago. We lag Europe by 5+ years on payment techs. E.g. chip, contactless. There's a coffee shop holdout near me that was magstrip only until a few weeks ago.
crazygringo · 1h ago
This was true five years ago, not true now.
When I eat out in NYC now they almost always bring the machine to your table so you can use contactless and you select the tip amount on the screen.
The other week I went to a place that asked for my card and brought out the receipt for me to sign and I had to manually calculate the tip and was struck by how long it's been since I had to do that.
the__alchemist · 57m ago
Interesting! That was my experience in Europe even 10 years ago, but they haven't caught up in NC, Vegas, and the other US cities I've been to lately. Interesting hearing the NYC takes in this thread! Both cash, and modern chip/tap readers at restaurants, neither of which I see.
I heard this mess has to due to banks and CC companies (Visa etc) fighting over who implements the changes, while the system in Europe (and Asia, and South America...) doesn't have that division, so they get the tech mainstream fast.
tallanvor · 4h ago
Keep in mind that inertia is a thing. Businesses used to have to make an impression on your card on carbon copy paper and physically send the slips in to be processed. When they started swiping cards, restaurants would only have one terminal and it had to be connected to a phone line to work. Both of these situations made it common for you to hand your card to the waiter (usually in the book they brought the check) because they couldn't do it at the table.
Credit cards caught on later in other parts of the world, and they benefited from having more modern options with regards to the equipment used. Governments and banks also did more to mandate the use of security features (chip & pin) than in the US - American banks like people using credit cards - it makes them a lot of money and they're incentivized to keep the barriers low as long as the amount of fraud is manageable to them.
kelnos · 4h ago
Contactless is pervasive when there's counter service, but most POS systems in the US are still at a fixed staff station, and not one of the portable readers that the waiter can bring to the table. It's super weird, I agree (I was just in Guatemala, for example, and every restaurant had a portable reader they'd bring to the table), but I would imagine replacing POS systems again -- remember, we got chip card readers later than a lot of the rest of the world -- is annoying.
JamesSwift · 1h ago
Haha, I had the same thought but now basically everyone is digital so I think its a different ball game than we are used to. At least as a restaurant server/bartender.
garciasn · 15h ago
I have an honest question: what's the cash vs card tip ratio? 99.999% of the time I am not carrying cash and I don't see many (any?) people paying with cash ANYWHERE in the last 10+ years.
Workaccount2 · 14h ago
At this point you are litterally a sucker to pay for anything in cash, because everything is marked-up to cover CC fees, which you get a portion of back in the form of rewards.
Yes, I know some places give cash discounts. Most do not.
frollogaston · 8h ago
Not everything is marked up to cover CC fees, and any time there's a CC surcharge, it's more than the points you get. That and the tip is separate.
kelnos · 4h ago
As the GP said, most places do not give a cash discount (the equivalent of a CC surcharge), though that practice is indeed a bit more common than it was a decade ago. Interestingly, I've see this practice in odd places like my utility and phone bills (they don't charge an extra fee if you instead link your bank account or use a debit card, which I don't love, but... here we are).
And even if things aren't marked up to cover CC fees, if you have a rewards card, you're effectively paying more if you pay in cash.
godelski · 13h ago
I pay tips in cash. There's technically no CC fees on that.
joshstrange · 15h ago
Almost no one can give you a good answer because it varies by business type and location.
My business does not involve tips (exactly) but I can tell you that I’ve seen anywhere from 20-40% of money run through my system being in cash, depending on where I am in the country.
littlexsparkee · 10h ago
in SF I only carry cash for dive bars and the occasional mom n pop diner
lelandfe · 14h ago
NYC here, whole lot of cash still showing up in tip jars - there are still and loads of cash-only places around, from bars, restaurants, to street carts, you name it. JG Melon, for instance, is famously cash only. But so too is the bar around the corner from my apartment (Dynaco, do recommend).
...So people often tend to be carrying cash still.
kelnos · 4h ago
Sure, but more places take card, and fewer people carry as much cash. Or rather, people carry less cash.
The fact that a business "famously" is cash only seems to support this, as that implies that it's becoming more unusual.
lelandfe · 2h ago
It’s certainly unusual for a famous restaurant to not accept cards.
Everything else is a crapshoot. If you don’t have cash you aren’t getting dumplings in Chinatown. And that’s just a bummer!
WorkerBee28474 · 15h ago
Sounds like those Americans aren't paying their fair share.
bigyabai · 15h ago
The negligence of their national responsibility will be felt like an earthquake by millions of Americans. It's hard to imagine how they live with themselves.
We had to declare our tips at the end of the night, and 10% was the lowest you could claim without needing manager approval. You can guess what everyone declared.
blitzar · 3h ago
Stonk grants and options are tips too - no tax thanks.
david38 · 14h ago
How is an expected tip different from a commission other than who pays?
This is rather brilliant.
* make it look like the government is stealing “gifted” money
* stop taxing it
* turn as many jobs as possible into tipped jobs supposedly for the person’s benefit
* really the employer wins since they’ll pay less and claim “tips”
analog31 · 15h ago
How about the tips that I get as a musician?
Workaccount2 · 14h ago
The IRS is going to publish a list of eligible occupations by years end.
beefnugs · 9h ago
like being president, and getting crypto tips from supportersuckers
ourmandave · 3h ago
It's amazing how the Saudis managed to fit a 747 into a tip jar.
optimalsolver · 2h ago
I think that was Qatar.
analog31 · 2h ago
There will be a separate bill for emoluments.
cammikebrown · 15h ago
Do you report them?
analog31 · 14h ago
Of course.
neuroelectron · 5h ago
Trump is clearly the most powerful president of all time, and he basically controls everything.
Simulacra · 13h ago
I worked as a server for about a year in college, and when we would check out at the end of the night, literally, everyone would just put zero. As in they didn't earn anything. Every time. I'm sure it mess with the taxes in someway or another.
godelski · 14h ago
I think with any conversation about tips it is really important to recognize that laws vary dramatically across states[0]. I think talking about this can really drive at the real underlying issues with tipping.
IMO most discussions about tipping are a distraction. "Divide and rule" if you will.
== THE LAW ==
(or my best understanding. IANAL)
For most of the west coast (AK, CA, OR, WA): there is no separate "tipping wage". Tips are *always* on top of *at least* state minimum wage. There is only one minimum wage, so tipping is always a "bonus".
Other places, there are two "minimum wages", but that's confusing because at the end every employee has to make at least the normal minimum wage. The difference is that employers can use tips as credit against this. So, with the exception of Georgia (WTF GA!), employees *must* make the state's minimum wage (default federal). Using federal (min wage = $7.25) an employer *MUST* pay you *no less than* $2.13/hr. This is conditioned that you have made *at least* $5.12/hr in tips. The problem here is what tips count to what wages. Per day? Per week? Per paycheck? DOL says "workweek"[1]
============
So the real (main) problem is actually just straight up good old wage theft. Anyone who is not getting at least minimum wage is suffering from wage theft.
I've heard stories of employees not getting a paycheck "because employer thought it was all tips" (illegal b/c they credited too much) or very small paychecks with the explanation that the employer over-credited tips. There's at least a decently straight-forward way to show what can be credited, and this is why there's the tip amount that you log. Ignoring cameras, the burden is on the employer to prove that they can make these credits, so that line-item on the bill is important (IANAL)
Personally:
I think the entire discussion of tipping often only serves as a distraction to wage. Like there's a lot of person to person fighting of how much we should tip (including not tipping) and frankly, doesn't this discussion often boil down to wage theft? I mean ignoring the already illegal problem of wage theft, what makes a server (who gets tipped) any different from a cashier (who doesn't get tipped) as an employee. Their jobs differ in duties, but we're talking about wage and *fair pay* here. If all the laws are followed, a tipped employee strictly benefits from tips. They have a statistical wage but that wage is max(base_pay, state_minimum) + random_value.
So I think 90% of discussions around tipping end up just being a distraction to create a fictitious divide of "minimum wage workers" vs "tipped workers"[2] who should instead be working as a coalition to increase the floor. They are both minimum wage earners! The main difference is primarily that tipped employees are just more likely to suffer from wage theft, due to how they are paid. But that's also something that both experience, just at different rates.
TLDR:
Getting rid of tips as a concept is a simple solution to the wage theft problem, but isn't the real problem just good old fashion wage theft? (second problem being "is minimum wage minimum"?)
[2] Simplifying by ignoring tipped earners with higher than min wage base pay (we can extend as needed)
floppiplopp · 7h ago
Another symptom, another op ed without any understanding. Usually I'd say something like: minimum wage equals minimum effort. Or: stealing from the corpos is morally justified. But in the light of things: GLORY TO CAPITALISM! You wanted it, you will get it, unlubed, long, and thick. So bend over, chumps, because you're in for a ride you're not ready for.
evo_9 · 9h ago
According to my accountant for my wife’s small business (nail and wax salon) this tax law change will have a significant positive impact on her staff. Not sure what to make of this article, it seems pretty disingenuous.
kelnos · 4h ago
N=1. Just because your wife's business doesn't fall under the conditions that the article is talking about, it doesn't mean that her business is the norm.
aprilthird2021 · 43m ago
I'm just planning on tipping less to make up for it. In California minimum wages are already $20/hr, and on top of that so many places expect a higher %ge, tip, just cutting my tip by the 10% they pay in tax and being done with it. I pay taxes on my wages. They should too
bearl · 2h ago
Two steps short of legal prostitution. Maybe the worst idea from the administration so far. Time to build the app…
photios · 8h ago
I don't like tipping as much as the next guy, but this isn't about that. It's about government overreach and privacy.
Governments tracking small transactions like tips and taxing them should bother everyone. That rag, the New Yorker, knows that of course.
The listed salaries were not that far off from what even the local McDonald’s was paying
How does this work? The corp already handles some form of payment to the worker, especially when you tip as part of a card payment. And in both cases, the consumer foots the bill.
How's it different from paying the worker more and asking for more money upfront?
While 10% was customary in the first half of the 20th century, the standard tip gradually increased to 15% by the 1980s.
In 2025 it's not uncommon to see little shortcut buttons for 20, 25, 30%. You can see where this is going. They want us to tip 50% and they pay $0, even though restaurant menu prices are one of the things that has experienced more inflation than other things.
It is my understanding that this is literally the origin of tipping.
After the abolition of slavery, there were many black people newly looking for work. And, there were employers looking for workers, but unwilling to pay money to black people.
So, someone got the idea to promote that tipping was something fancy European aristocrats did. And, you can be fancy like they were by tipping my workers (that I refuse to pay).
Tipping was previously seen as un-Americanly classist. And, most states tried to ban it when it started to pick up steam. But, it was too late. So many employers were enjoying unpaid labor that the bans were repealed.
Later, when Minimum Wage was established, workers who lived on tips alone were almost all black. So, unsurprisingly, tipped workers were excluded from the wage regulation. And, today they are only acknowledged as fractional minimum laborers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing
I have always been a generous tipper and I try to always put myself in that person's shoes when deciding how much to tip but even I notice the psychological difference. If you don't ever think about it, have never had a job waiting tables or dealing with the public, it'd almost be a nonstarter to have a higher delivery fee regardless of tip expectation.
I'm not saying it's free but it's not a foregone conclusion that 100% (or any percent) of that cost must be passed on to the consumer.
If a manufacturer/distributor/restaurant is willing to accept lower margins for the increased reach and market access, they will.
Are there still customers giving tips as "a reward for good service"?
I'm trying to imagine a curve representing the distribution of "quality of service".
What shape is the curve, and where on it would a 20% tip and a 0% tip be?
As in any tip at all? No, from me. I don’t think I’ve never _not_ tipped when the situation expects it (sit down restaurant being served). I know the person there is being paid less than minimum wage (where I live), which is already too low in my opinion, so they get something.
The amount of the tip certainly is highly dependent on level of service. That could be a significant difference at the end. I’ve tipped over 100% when the staff has done someone that stood out to me.
(Having been a server in the past and now in tech, I feel guilty about the work-level/salary imbalance, so I am generally generous with my tips.)
Sad if this is no longer the case.
In the UK at least (and the rest of Europe too, as far as I can tell), this is still very much the case. The curve varies with the individuals tipping. I would be quite happy to give 20% if the service was outstanding. I’m equally happy to not tip at all if the service was very poor.
I can confirm in Italy almost no one will even accept a tip. (Taxi drivers, wait-staff, hotel staff)
Honestly, this seems good overall; there's no more sense in having low-paid waitstaff hanging around hoping to get a customer table that will tip than in having a restaurant owner keep the restaurant open while paying the staff a reasonable hourly wage.
Except for the very pervasive 12.5% "discretionary" service charge the you would have to request to be removed. Which is a genius piece of social engineering.
That's the only way people give tips here (not US tho)
Are there customers giving tips for other reasons? Any examples?
(Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons why the costs of eating out in the US and seem so much lower. Most people who come from non-tipping cultures don’t understand that Americans actually tend to pay significantly more than sticker price, especially after you include taxes, which are also often excluded).
Sorry, this is definitely not the case. Many times the worker is doing exactly what is needed and nothing more (eg: pour a beer in a glass, handing me a pizza). Why would I be considered an asshole if I didn't tip? That is ridiculous.
As other people have said, tipping in the US has really become obnoxious. I definitely tip while seated for a meal, but asking for a tip to hand me a cup of coffee, pour a beer, etc only makes the system worse.
https://plus.maths.org/content/information-surprise
> Shannon wanted to measure the amount of information you could transmit via various media. There are many ways of sending messages: you could produce smoke signals, use Morse code, the telephone, or (in today's world) send an email. To treat them all on equal terms, Shannon decided to forget about exactly how each of these methods transmits a message and simply thought of them as ways of producing strings of symbols. How do you measure the information contained in such a string?
Lots of places will now ask for tips before the food comes out even in person now - lunch sandwich shops, etc. I don't think they'd be unprofessional enough to mess up your order if you didn't tip, but maybe they'll be happier with you or be more generous if you tip now too.
> 0% tip is risking stuff
There are more numbers between zero and good! Markets depend on information. Price has been information for centuries.
The insurance industry has actuarial lessons for managing risk. The delivery app industry has a range of policy measures for managing delivery performance, including but not limited to refunds and blacklisting workers from serving specific clients.
Yes.
The tips on the apps nominally do go entirely to the driver.
Why, where else would they take the food? Leave in at the patio? Drop it on the lawn?
There's quite a lot of places people will think to leave food if they're rushing to pick up another job.
This makes your order sit longer until someone decides to do it, perhaps because there's a penalty from the company for declining jobs, and the driver is willing to lose money to remain in good standing
Surely you already know that choosing things doesn't always simplify down to a single dimension. Instead, there are multiple factors that lead people to deliberately choose options that have negatives.
E.g. Why do people continue to use Ryanair airlines if they always nickel & dime customers and treat them like shit?!? Because the mistreatment by Ryanair is still better than driving for 6 hours or paying more $$$ for Air France or KLM.
Likewise, why do customers continue playing along with the tips/bribery/ransom game in the delivery app?!? Because the user-hostile app is still better than rounding up the small toddlers and infant into the car, fasten the car seat, and drive to the restaurant.
Life doesn't always provide unambiguous good options. Instead, you choose the "least bad" from the list of bad options.
Drivers can tell if you don’t tip and all of the experienced ones will decline your order.
Though these apps have done a lot of work to conceal the amount the driver actually gets until delivery is completed.
Americans need to remove the idea of tipping. It's archaic, because it was originally there for an aristocratic/wealthy patron to show off their status to the lowly servants of an establishment.
Just charge a price, and have it include the full service fee required for providing the service.
Markets have prices.
Open markets have transparent pricing for efficient discovery.
Concealed prices in deniable auctions are closer to dark pools than open markets.
IMHO, this isn't a new phenomenon. Close to 18 years ago, I lived in a city with a popular pizza spot that was about a 10 minute walk away. Normally I'd walk, but having a newborn make that challenging, so I'd get delivery.
Typically, the delivery would take 60+ minutes on a busy night, but after a few consecutive Fridays of a decent tip for the order, the pizza would arrive "burn your fingers" in about 20 minutes.
It doesn't help with situations where drivers are multi-apping (accepting orders across multiple apps and juggling them). The drivers don't even know you have priority.
edit: and in the US where you can definitely see the tip up front, you will almost always find that the order will get picked up quicker if you increase the tip by the equivalent of the priority fee. But you may well get stuck with a delivery before yours.
It's wild because this happens maybe 10-15% of the time for me when I don't choose priority, but it's around 80% when I do.
I ignore the option now and just bump the tip if I want a chance of better service.
we can literally get the state to say it is illegal for the point of sale system to have that or sell that to merchants
we can tie it to business codes that dictate which type of business it is to payment processors
control behavior by regulating the intermediary
the beauty of this philosophy is that it works under any system of government: don’t worry about the rights afforded to merchants or individuals, don’t burden them with the law at all, only intermediaries!
poof, tips at the point of sale system before receiving service disappears as fast as it came, short Square (now Block)
we can go deeper too
Consider it a premium that prioritizes your order, that’s what it actually is.
Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.
I see this a lot (not specific to HN) - some person doesn't like $THING, so they just declare that that thing is bad, or "a thing of the past," or whatever.
Most seen on reddit but seems to be becoming commonplace on here as well.
I see this a lot - some person doesn't like a phrase ("a thing of the past"), so they just misread it and take it clearly the wrong way.
You won't find a single non-barista in the US who thinks it's reasonable for Starbucks to solicit 20% for someone pouring your coffee into a cup. But restaurants have tried the "don't tip our waiters" thing in the US and it doesn't work.
I'm from Europe, and have traveled here extensively. Tipping is pretty rare, but for the past maybe 5 years, almost all new payment terminals have the tipping option.
American business software, American movies, American YouTube channels. They will inject American problems and solutions into your country, like it or not.
Microsoft may treat your privacy slightly better because of the GDPR, but those invasive systems are still there, toggled off. Waiting for Microsofts lobbying to chip away at the privacy laws until they can turn them on.
It is also not "tip" anymore, it is just "whatever pays the most" gets the service. It is just to maximise profit out of suckers, something US have perfected (from insurance to fast passes).
In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't.
You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner because it's $100 they don't have to pay in wages. Once the waiter has met minimum wage, then the money actually goes to them.
I hate pretty much everything about tipping. The onus shouldn’t be on some fucking customer to determine if a server makes rent this month.
I really hate that pretty much every payment terminal asks for a tip now.
Of course, a living wage in California is quite a bit higher then even our above-average minimum wage, so that's a big part of it.
Note: I don't care one bit if someone wants to recognize an exceptional act by handing $20 to a worker -- that's great. That's not the same as giving a bartender $4 for spending 12 seconds pouring vodka and redbull into a glass or tipping $3 when I stood in line to order at a counter and came to fetch my food when my number is called.
It even has a name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_pricing
That's assuming the employer values that above-and-beyond-ness, of course. If not, they won't give that raise, and employees will eventually settle on a level of service that the employer is paying for. If that's good enough for the customers, that's fine. If not, that's an opportunity for a competitor to pay employees more so they'll serve customers better.
Customers should not be put in the awkward position of feeling like they should be augmenting people's wages, even if it's on top of an already-sufficient living wage. Wages paid is a negotiation between employer and employee. Customers should not be involved, beyond paying the listed or contracted/agreed-upon price.
For the most part I find the food gets to my table at some point but I'm rarely particularly happy with customer service. It's sometimes an awkward negotiation to get their attention or to ask something. The opposite was true in my time living in the US - soft skills, fast response, engagement are standard. And I've been on both sides of that in food service.
Now, the logic of what youre talking about makes perfect sense and I agree with that in principle. And yet there is something about dining that is somehow different. Escapes that definition.
There are also times I find that exchanging money is more honest. I want you to serve me, I'm paying you, I don't have to keep at the back of my mind a question whether I'm asking something beyond what your boss expects/pays you. I like that about the US - it's brutal but that's reality.
Don't get me wrong, I live in EU for a reason, but some things here are made unnecessarily complicated and oblique too.
I call tipping the "A*hole discount" because only someone who is comfortable being seen as one would consider tipping 0% or even 10%. And servers will tell you that if you receive terrible, horrible, very bad service you should never tip zero, you should speak to the manager instead (since yadda yadda, the tips are for everyone, you don't know whose fault it is, etc). So instead of tips being a way to reward good service, it's actually just a discount reserved for people who are so uncouth that (A) they don't care if everyone at their table thinks they're an ass, and (B) they don't mind taking food off the table of low-wage workers (very low in states that have the horrible policy of a lower "tipped" min wage). Do those people really deserve a discount?
But isn't this describing tipping? You're having to ask yourself, "Is this service good enough for a tip? How much of a tip?" instead of just exchanging money for the service and that's it.
I had more fun and more satisfaction working in food service in the US than in the EU. There was also more real opportunity right there on the spot to do the thing and get more.
Like yeah, you're having to ask yourself and that's friction. But shouldn't there be a friction when you're being served by someone who is an equal? I've seen folks treat service like garbage in the EU because that exchange obscures the fact that there is an exchange of money. And I've seen service fall back on apathy.
But this is just one way to look at it - ideally it should be exactly as you describe - good service, simple exchange at specified price and confidence that the service is adequately paid for the job.
Only issue is that even in the EU this is often not the truth and restaurants would never ever afford to actually hire full-time employment contracts.
So, I'm not sure how to best construct a system not open to "guilt gaming" in this way, but I would like to see one.
Imagine yourself catering someone and then having them talk about how great that is and wanting to pay you for that. Not in abstract but actually, in practice. It nails down the servant role, frankly. It feels abhorrent to me, even if you get numb to it over time.
From my perspective, tipping is a socially acceptable way to establish classes. Which itself is a terrible practice and the people catering you aren't your servants.
I used "catering" in this comment as a placeholder for any job that receives tips.
It is like any job where people get a bonus because they have gone above and beyond.
I'm too autistic to be playing these games and figuring this shit out. I'm glad I don't live in the US.
FTFY
(I mean, actually I agree with your point too; but personally I think tipping is much more unfair to the employees than to the customers.)
Honestly something that was a bit galling was that the Irish would moan about Ireland morning day and night but the instant a foreigner made _any_ observation that wasn't rainbows and sunshine we were out of our lane and needed to shut up. And I spent much more of my time extolling Ireland's virtues than complaining about it! It was surreal to be chatting with taxi drivers and trying to make the point that Ireland wasn't an utter kip.
In Spain we tend to have a similar attitude. Not really telling people to shut up, but if foreigners criticize our country we tend to get defensive, even if they are saying things we would agree with or say in a conversation between locals.
For me it's like common sense, just like you don't acknowledge family problems when you talk to people outside close family and friends, but it's probably just the culture I've been raised in.
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Haha nail on head here. On behalf of my fellow Irish people - sorry!
Some deep rooted resentment when an American criticises a place is natural.
Not to be rude, but have you considered this may have been an issue with you and your attitude, rather than everyone you met, if even people who you seemed to think liked you couldn't stand you.
Anyway this conversation is a net negative to my day and I’m bowing out.
In my experience, the United States and England (not the entire UK) have the thinnest skin and some people will straight-up tell you to f-off home on the slightest criticism, especially on the subject of human rights or the expeditionary wars.
There are of course the usual suspects, the racists and "Pro-Irish" crowd, who will blame everything on immigrants and accept no criticism of their imagined Ireland, but this isn't true in general.
However, if you make grand pronouncements from a position of profound ignorance and overtly judge the life choices of your new compatriots - a speciality of the GP - you will find yourself alienated at best. This is true everywhere, not just Ireland.
Unless, of course, the criticism is someone making a personal observation about how they saw tipping culture expand during their time in Ireland, right? Then the appropriate response is to generalize that Americans love making ignorant comments about other cultures.
People say this, but what is better service?
It's not like you get better or more food, or get the food faster since all that depends on the kitchen that isn't getting tipped directly.
It's pretty much them coming to your table to take your order. I'd much rather have a free burger or drink (the equivalent of what I could get instead of tipping) with the slow service than get my water refilled every 5 minutes.
Oh, trust me, go to a decent place, be a regular, tip decently (not even extravagantly), you absolutely get looked after. For instance, several of my usual lunch spots my usual fountain drink is often "water" on the bill.
I just don't think of a way you can have tipping and it not create perverse incentives like that.
Definitely the next time I come back.
Restaurant workers should earn a good wage. Tipping should not be mandatory. But tips, in particular large tips, are fine and work globally.
Quick summary:
- Tipping results in lower pay for certain genders and races.
- laws that protect employees don't apply to customers. Your boss can't make inappropriate comments and pay you less if you complain. But if a customer makes inappropriate comments, its perfectly legal for the customer to pay you less if you reject their advances.
Why?
I was nice to people because that was my job, but when I've travelled to the US I have definitely seen entitled customers treat staff like shit and claiming it's their right because they were tipping.
Tipping as standard should go out the window, it just drives customers to be assholes.
> Why?
I was just curious about how OP's experience informed their perspective.
The service industry in the US is awful, and the tipping culture is really toxic. I don't understand those that defend the American approach.
When I do go to a restaurant that has tipping, people are usually nice to me as well, but I don’t feel like they’re really any nicer or better at their job than my local Taco Bell workers.
People in Australia are still doing it for the money, even if you don't realize it.
They don't HAVE to be, but they also don't have to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff to play the tips game, like fill up water that's barely empty or check in on how you're going all the time.
Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?
Interestingly enough, I find the service worse in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the tip system leads to waiters wasting time talking about a table, and waiters who aren't your own feeling like they don't have to do anything for you. It usually takes me 5-10 times longer to pay the check in the U.S. than it does in some other countries.
I wish restaurants started offering self service sections where you could order by phone and pick up the food yourself. Having to use waiters gives me the same feeling as when I drive through New Jersey and I'm not allowed to pump my own gas.
Happy employees who earn good salaries would not submit to ass-kissing and degrading work.
Knowing this is what makes the often terrible service in the Netherlands a bit more tolerable :)
If you need to pay people to be pleasant to you, that's a moment for introspection.
Sometimes you don’t want good service - as in, you don’t want a server to talk to you. That’s a lot easier to find here.
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I tip 0-10% where I live. Just like most Americans tip 15-25% but the first 15 are just eaten by expectation. There is zero difference except that 1) my menu shows actual prices 2) wait staff have a living wage regardless of tips or how busy the restaurant was that day.
Beyond that, I personally find that leveraging someone's economic desperation to coerce deference out of them is disgusting. Give me staff who have the option to walk out without material harm, and choose not to.
However, the whole restaurant experience is made by many people: dishwasher boy, prep boy, shef, cleaning lady, etc.
They should tip to cleaning lady as dirty toilet can ruin whole "experience".
This statement is just not factual without some qualification. Where I live, and in the US in general, tipping is not a thing of the past. You can say you wish it was, you can say it should be, but what you said is not factual.
I'm from the UK and travel in the US a lot and US service is much better. I've never had to chase up the check or had to go and search for staff to serve me after sitting there for ten minutes. These are common occurrences in the UK for me.
Ideally, tipping wouldn't exist and everything would be priced in, but pragmatically, incentives grant extra benefits to both parties. Potential for more money for the server, better service (and the ability to punish bad service) for the customer.
(I know everyone making similar observations is getting voted down, so I appreciate I may simply be far off the bell curve on this and the majority experience the total opposite. But it's my reality.)
I've had these things in the US. In fact the service generally I've had is all for show, people being really "fake nice" and / or overbearing but then forgetting drinks or food items you ordered.
At least in the UK you can genuinely not tip someone without worrying about them being unable make rent..
Good service is common in industries where tipping doesn’t happen. What makes restaurants special that their workers can’t provide good service if all of their pay comes from their employer just like everyone else’s?
Food deliveries (similar to Uber Eats in the US I suppose) have the option to tip, and 100% goes to the courier. 200 HUF (0.57 USD) is the most common amount (as per their website[2]). We do not use percentages.
[1] It varies and might not be universal.
[2] https://foodora.hu
It's also why "knowing a guy" can be useful, tradesmen coming in on their off hours to do a job for cash.
Eh? I don't know if you consider Poland eastern europe(I don't really), but I tip with a card all the time in Poland, you just ask "hey can I leave a tip on the card" and they bump up the amount by whatever you want to tip. And no, the amount doesn't then equal what's on the receipt - I don't know how they work it out internally, but frankly that's not my problem.
I was not referring to Poland, but Hungary. What gave you the idea that I was referring to Poland? :P FWIW, I do speak Polish though, and I have many Polish friends.
I didn't have that idea, I'm just saying that in Poland I've never had any issues tipping with card and since you said "eastern europe" I wondered if you consider Poland eastern europe. That's all.
I use "Eastern Europe" when I am referring to Hungary only because people typically think that Hungary is in Eastern Europe. Perhaps I should stop doing that and just use "Central Europe", since it is them who are incorrectly believing it is in Eastern Europe.
I don't know of any other fast food place that does that.
- have a liveable minimum wage - force restaurant owners to pay at least that
period
For that, you need the restaurant employees to be organized in a strong, independent, non-corrupt union; or a highly-upstanding restaurant owner/manager.
The latter is sometimes the case, but often/usually - not.
So, former is rarely the case, I'm afraid, because working-class consciousness in many countries is lacking; and forming a union is hard; and restaurant staff have a lot of churn, so by the time you get the idea to do this, or have started work on it, you might be going elsewhere.
But regular restaurant clients taking owners to task about wages is definitely a thing to consider...
Not sure you know what tipping is, but it's not paying for the meal. It's paying for the service.
1. I like being able to pay for better service
2. Despite what people like to think, everywhere in the world has appreciated tips. I've never had a waiter refuse extra money. Literally dozens of countries, you get better service if you tip.
Taking one of these items out of the cost and trying to charge it separately is a strange practice.
But I do know this is still the case in Japan. Some Japanese service workers or small business owners will even be insulted if you try to tip.
1. Places where service workers are paid peanuts or nothing and tipping is considered mandatory
2. Places where workers get a basic actual salary and tipping is rather voluntary (and can be more or less expected)
3. Places where tipping is not an actual practice and can make things awkward even, depending the amount.
In reality, 2 is a spectrum between 1 and 3.
Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the tax on their menus either, and yet no one tears their hair out over having to pay sales tax, and various city taxes, etc etc.
The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping. Tipping culture is good.
Tipping sucks and your taxes suck too. When I see that something costs 15€ on the menu then I expect to pay 15€ and nothing more. How can you be happy about surprise taxes? How can you plan your spending when you don't see how much something costs and you still think this is superior?
We tend to avoid touristy areas, though, when we travel, so maybe that explains the better service. If I had to work in a service job that caters to tourists, I'd probably be less happy too.
Having said that, on the occasion when I've been in places like that and I really was in a hurry, no one has looked at my funny or seem put out when I've flagged someone down to ask for the check.
Second, what you and me consider to be good service is probably quite different.
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It is sometimes absurd. In the UK there's an often an extra step of "oh, you're paying by card? let me go back and bring the card reader". Some places have just one reader shared among all waiting staff, so you're not going to get it faster unless you tip enough to make the staff wrestle for it.
I like the Japanese style the best — there's a cashier by the exit.
Maybe when you come to Europe adjust to the culture. In Europe you don't eat with the clock in your hand so you can run off too the next meeting while you're still chewing. This isn't bad service, it's part of eating out that you don't storm off and take your time.
An ordinary European restaurant doesn't work with the tempo of a McDonalds, that's a feature and not a bug.
That's nonsense. In the UK if the service is good I leave a tip. If it isn't then I don't. From my (limited) experience in the US it looks like you have to tip regardless. If that's the tipping culture then that culture is rotten.
>>The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping.
Honest question - do you consider waiters who ask you if you need anything every 2 minutes "good"?
>> The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre
What's your opinion on restaurants in Poland? Was the service better or worse than in Spain? How was it compared to Czechia and Slovakia?
I've got great and shit service in Europe.
I've got great and shit service in the US.
Tip/no-tip hasn't been a factor.
> At the outset of the Amazon Flex program, from 2015 through late 2016, Amazon paid drivers at least $18 per hour plus 100% of customer tips
> Beginning in late 2016 ... Amazon secretly reduced its own contribution to drivers’ pay to an algorithmically set, internal “base rate” using data it collected about average tips in the area ...
> For example, for a one-hour block offering $18-$25, if Amazon’s base rate in the particular location was $12, and the customer left a $6 tip for the driver, then Amazon paid the driver only $12 and used the full customer tip of $6 to reach its minimum payment of $18 to the driver.
And their punishment was just to pay back what had been taken: I can't imagine there are many other opportunities to steal $61m with the only punishment when you're caught is having to pay it back.
All other forms of serious crime have dramatically fallen since the 90's per Capita. Some are at 1/3 the rate they were then. (FBI UCR)
remember that next time you see a headline or politician speak about crime.
We are safer, doing less crime to each other, and seeing more prison population than ever before.
While corporations crush us illegally and face no consequences.
> Apparently, projecting personal prosperity was more important to him than making payroll
He actually had the temerity early on in the debacle when he was still pretending there was money to tell us that they had decided to not pay us that week because it would be bad for the companies investments to withdraw funds then.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/slync-founder-sentenced...
There was a very famous viral video of a woman stealing offering to just pay for the goods when she was caught, but we all understood why that was a ridiculous idea. Maybe she was just an Amazon VP, so she didn't know any better
Workers who earn too little to pay taxes (A) will not benefit from a tax cut (B).
But workers who earn enough (not A) may still not benefit (not B), for example because their employer indirectly pockets the difference. That is actually being argued in the article.
So this is indeed the appropriate way of formulating the statement: at least 40% of workers will demonstrably not benefit from this.
That seems correct. It's a pretty useless statement, but it is true.
Some tipped workers, like bartenders, can make more in tips than a junior software engineer lol. Less taxes definitely helps their cause.
If you are concerned with indirect effects, there's quite a few pros and cons that you could extrapolate from the no tax on tips policy. These arguments are far less compelling in general.
> Some tipped workers, like bartenders, can make more in tips than a junior software engineer lol. Less taxes definitely helps their cause.
neat, but you can only deduct up to $25k and the benefits phase out if you earn more than $150k (single filers).
If someone earned $125k salary + $25k in tips. Their taxable income would decrease by about $6k (or $500/mo, 4% overall).
I just turned on reader mode in Firefox and then refreshed the page and got the article. I'm surprised how often it works. It often doesn't but sometimes it does.
You can make that argument about literally anything that reduces the tax burden on people who's primary income is useful income.
The whole "I get taxed whether you tip me or not", "I have to pay to serve you if you don't tip"? No, not so much. If you can show (there's even a hugely burdensome IRS form that might take as much as 3-4 minutes a month for cash tips) that you earned less than that 8% average, then that's what you get taxed. But most servers don't want to fill that form out, because they get ... rather more than that, and are being undertaxed already.
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https://jacobin.com/2020/10/tipped-restaurant-workers-waiter...
https://cepr.net/publications/customer-tips-are-providing-th...
Of course, you're still expected to leave a tip and suggested minimum is now 20%, plus even McDonalds is charging $15 for a 4 oz burger, so I rarely go out to eat at places that expect a tip anymore.
I'm not sure why they specifically should be tax exempt though. Cash tips often were, practically speaking, so a lot of tax evasion was happening, but it still seems odd to single them out.
This isn't to say that I don't tip when not required to or that I only tip people I think are being underpaid, but ... things have gotten a little out of control. If I feel like tipping, I'll tip. I do not need a prompt suggesting anything when it's not coming out of the employee's takehome pay.
I hate to say it but I think some government regulation is required here.
If the restaurant is going to be shady and unilaterally introduce confusion to an already confusing norm, then I consider that norm voided and fair game for any interpretation.
Sixteen states use the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/
There's a subtle but important difference in wording. There is no "lower minimum wage" for any employee anywhere. The rule is that employers may credit tips towards pay, up to a certain amount. And they can never credit 100% of pay.
So tipped employees should always earn: minimum_wage + stochastic_number
"lower minimum wage for tipped employees" is incorrect and is just the interpretation of "minimum employer must pay after applying tip credits". Subtle, but very different things! If you aren't earning at least minimum wage (tips inclusive), then your experiencing wage theft.
The DOL page[0] specifically says "Maximum Tip Credit Against Minimum Wage" and that's how the column "Minimum Cash Wage" is calculated, but under no circumstances[1] can the employer pay less than "Minimum Cash Wage". Anything less is illegal. ALSO under no circumstances[1] may an employee earn less than minimum wage.
[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
[1] We're ignoring allowed deductions like lodging and meal
Not to mention that in a state where there is no lower tipped-wage minimum, all tips go to the employees directly. In a state where the tipped minimum is lower, tips effectively go to the employer for the amount between the tipped minimum and regular minimum, as that's a cost the employer would otherwise have to pay.
To be clear:
We always need to make sure we distinguish a conversation about wage theft and a conversation about tipping. I think they are unknowingly being used interchangeably (or as an assumption in a conversation)[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44751537 (sources linked here)
[1] Federal only lets max credit of 70% of min wage. Some states go up to ~75% of min wage, but their minimum wage is higher than federal.
"Many restaurant owners illegally don't actually follow this law". "Report them to the DOL". "I don't want to do that. You should tip me to make sure I have a livable wage instead."
A living wage in most population centers in CA is nearly $30/hr.
Jeez, where is this? According to the famous McCheapest map the most expensive Big Mac in America is about 8 bucks. Have prices really shot up that much recently?
https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest
What got lost in an edit was that's for the combo with a bag ($0.25 extra).
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The difference is where the money comes from: directly from employer vs directly from customer. But in all cases *the sum of these sources* must equal the minimum wage.
If the employee is not taking home at least minimum wage, then the employer is guilty of wage theft.
If the employer does not make at least $x towards an employee's wage, the employer is guilty of wage theft.
So instead, read the CA's (and AK, MN, MT, NV, OR, WA) rule as "tips may not be credited towards an employee's salary".
[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
You're not wrong that, in states with a lower tipped minimum, the tips act as a credit. But you're ignoring what the power imbalance in those situations can do to an employee, and you're ignoring the fact that in states like that, tips paid by customers are effectively subsidizing the employer out of paying minimum wage.
And I don't think that it would be surprising that wage theft is more common in places where the tipped minimum is set lower than the general minimum.
As a customer, I would much rather know that the employer is paying the full fair minimum wage regardless, and any tip I leave will always be on top of that. I don't want to be paying a part of the employee's wage that the employer would otherwise be paying.
See what your server's reaction is if you tell them to report this wage theft.
They won't. They'll just suggest you tip them to compensate.
So instead of trying to tell me how fruitless this is and just give up to endless arguments, maybe report wage theft if you know about it. You can do it anonymously. You can do it for people that tell you. It's not a hopeless situation. Hell, lawyers take payment after the case is won, and you know if your wage is being stolen then others are too
And it's not like restaurant owners don't talk among themselves. Getting blackballed isn't great.
Bottom line is that you seem to think that there's zero reason why people are shy about reporting wage theft. And yet so many people don't want to do it. Maybe try a little humility on and accept that maybe there are reasons you don't know about or don't understand. It's very easy to tell people what they should be doing when you don't have to walk in their shoes.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-01-mn-628-st...
Don't tip, especially 20%, for over the counter service. That is ridiculous.
>I'm not sure why they specifically should be tax exempt though. Cash tips often were, practically speaking, so a lot of tax evasion was happening, but it still seems odd to single them out.
It's just a gimmick to get votes. The theory is that poor people tend to be the ones that work these jobs, they need a break, and it's not a policy that would cost very much anyway. There is a cap on the tips and most cash tips were going unreported anyway.
- No tax on overtime: so now making them work 60 hours a week is cheaper for the employer
- No tax on tips: so the tip based payment model is cheaper
Taxes do not feature into salary negotiation. Employers pay as little as they can get away with, while employees want to get as much money as they can.
If you need theoretical worlds with no correspondence to anything ever in actual history to justify your claim, then maybe there is not that much to it.
To me, the bad part is the tax reductions only appear in behavior I don't agree with: high overtime and tipping (when it's semi mandatory).
I'm not American, but this is also showing up in my country.
And because the implication of your argument is we should never tax anything because that's a benefit to both the consumer and the business
Tips are supposed to be "in return for a service, beyond the compensation agreed on" (WordsAPI).
If tips instead mean "it's something you have to give when you had no problems with the service provided", and you expect routinely not to have problems with such service providers, then it's implicitly agreed that tips are required, so they are not tips anymore.
Hopefully this becomes another straw that will eventually break the camels back and we get rid of tipping all together. Every restaurant in the world does not need tips to survive, except for the ones in the US.
Nah. Profitability for the business would be higher without tips. I take x% of gross income as profit. No tips means I can charge the customer more, which means a higher gross income, which means more profit. When tipping is involved, the money slips through without allowing the business to take its cut. Good for the server, but not good for the business.
However, as theoretically great as it sounds, you are ultimately beholden to what the customer wants. There is good reason why every restaurant that has tried a "no tips" policy has failed. Nobody shows up to dine. They go somewhere else where they can tip instead. Regular people actually enjoy tipping, as hard as it may be to believe for those who are staring at screens rather than enjoying the ambiance of a restaurant.
Also consider that customers will get sticker shock: even though they are ultimately paying the same price, seeing 20% higher prices on the menu will make them spend less. Yes, it's dumb, but human psychology is dumb, so there we are.
(Folks in Europe are used to the listed price being what they pay. In the US businesses don't generally list tax-included prices, but businesses that do include tax in their prices end up looking -- in the eyes of customers -- as more expensive than those that don't, even when the final prices are identical.)
Payroll taxes are based on the wage, not profitability of the business. A non-issue, well, except maybe for the server who has grown accustomed to making $50/hr — no tips and those days are gone.
> Some restaurants have tried this out, and it's backfired.
Yup. Hard to win consumers when tipping is part of the experience. I mean, it can be done where it isn't part of the experience — McDonalds survives, thrives even, without tips — but where the customer comes to tip it doesn't fly. You have to give the customer what they want at the end of the day, else you'll never see them.
> Restaurants already run on very thin margins
Exactly, but if you increase the volume then the product of the margin gets bigger. Remember, Walmart and your average restaurant have the same profit margin! Walmart's advantage is that they handle way more money, so the total amount that margin represents is huge. If a restaurant can also handle more money...
> seeing 20% higher prices on the menu will make them spend less.
Even just, say, 1% higher still means more cashflow through the business, which means more cash to take a cut from. You are right that the full 20% would unlikely ever be realized, but it doesn't need to be to still be advantageous.
It's not dumb; it's just that paying that 20% to the waiter is a lot easier to stomach than a 20% increase to the restaurant owner.
I'm tired of being shamed to pay more for less.
Also whoever was in charge of teaching staff to "turn away in shame" when the tipping screen is shown needs to go to some sort of gulag.
Doesn't change the fact that it is a terrible idea.
I am not sure if the money from such sources was ever taxed as income, but if so, then I wonder if such will be non-taxable now? Considering donation and tip buttons have some history behind them, perhaps such "jobs" could be considered "traditionally tipped jobs?"
> (h) Published List of Occupations Traditionally Receiving Tips.-- Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury (or the Secretary's delegate) shall publish a list of occupations which customarily and regularly received tips on or before December 31, 2024, for purposes of section 224(d)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (as added by subsection (a)).
~90% of tipped workers REPORT less than $61k in income already. At that income, you're barely paying much income tax anyway.
This is just a trick to make people think they wouldn't have to pay social security and Medicare - which is the main tax they're paying - when in reality, ~90% of tipped workers will get next to nothing.
Do they have a list of professions and industries eligible or are they going with weak “traditionally tipped “ language?
And we expect the DOGEd and defanged IRS to vigorously enforce?
Say I am a small business owner selling a $90 item which is $100 with state sales taxes. I say if you are willing to tip me at least $90, the item is $1. The buyer saves $9 from state sales taxes, and I save on income taxes because tips are exempt from tax.
You have a farmer that grows/raises food, butchers and others that 'process' it, you have a team of cooks who prepare/cook the food, and you're supposed to tip the the person who just brings the foor from the kitchen to your table, maybe 20, 30 meters away?!
Sadly, tipping is sprading all over europe too with POS terminals bothering you more and more often for tips.
Leaving a few francs (I'm not young) was common practice.
With cash payments growing more rare, and without the ability to tip easily with cards, maybe it became much less common.
That said, I don't disagree with your comment on how it's spreading. What I don't love about the terminals asking for tips is that, IMO, it creates an expectation of tipping that wasn't there before.
Now, in Portugal, we're starting to see cases of "here's the price with a 3€ tip (for example), if you want to pay that", and you awkwardly get to say "no thanks I want to pay the actual price", which I find very unpleasant.
On the other hand, we regularly eat out at a place near us that only takes cash. We usually spend about 18€ and I always leave the extra 2€ as a tip.
I've lived in Portugal for 30 years and I never had that happen to me. Where are you seeing this? I could only imagine it in a place that only serves tourists and foreigners.
Maybe not "only", but yes, they're typically Americanized brunch places, or other "trendy" places. And some of those places have good food worth eating.
It's still a pretty rare thing, fortunately. Something less offensive that I'm running into more often is to be asked if we want to leave a tip. And more common still are PoS systems that give you the option on checkout.
Probably not the thread to digress into what's happening to dining in Lisbon (eg the rameniffication of everything) but it's definitely bringing in a more tip-forward mindset.
People just don't recognize it because right-wing populism is a different breed than left-wing populism (the only one they have had exposure to).
Tariffs are a populist move as well. If you go look at Bernie's old website (pre-trump) he has a whole section about the importance of tariffs.
I’ll drive there myself, thanks. My pup gets a ride. The apps get the finger. The drivers get what they deserve.
Wins all around.
At first it feels shitty hitting 0 or “no tip” on a payment machine but after the first several times it feels empowering and I doubt employees give a shit anyway. Just do it.
But today, who's getting tips in cash? Not many. Customers are paying for everything with credit cards or contactless, save for the occasional cash-only coffee shop or restaurant.
About half of the large tips at high end restaurants in my town are cash. Sounds like it is about a third in New York. Especially if it is folks who work at a restaurant.
I just don't trust management of places not to take a cut if it's done digitally.
Every server who waits on me.
I make it a point to carry cash and tip the waitstaff in cash even if I pay the bill on my credit card.
1) Tips on credit cards are a "dark pattern" meant to increase the house rake of the credit card handling companies.
2) Tips on credit cards are controlled by the owner and often never make it to the waitstaff.
I can short circuit this by giving my servers tips in cash.
So like you, I carry cash for tipping. I leave the tip section blank and write the provided total in the "total" line. Then I leave cash. Employee gets to decide if they declare or not (or in other words, if my tip may be credited towards their wage).
I know America has always been backwards (cheques were still in use well into the 21st century, card pins didn’t seem to catch on before contactless became a thing about a decade ago), but I thought contactless was quite high nowadays, especiallly with phones and watches.
Certainly I’ve had no problem paying contactless in the cities I’ve been to recently - New York, DC and Miami.
When I eat out in NYC now they almost always bring the machine to your table so you can use contactless and you select the tip amount on the screen.
The other week I went to a place that asked for my card and brought out the receipt for me to sign and I had to manually calculate the tip and was struck by how long it's been since I had to do that.
I heard this mess has to due to banks and CC companies (Visa etc) fighting over who implements the changes, while the system in Europe (and Asia, and South America...) doesn't have that division, so they get the tech mainstream fast.
Credit cards caught on later in other parts of the world, and they benefited from having more modern options with regards to the equipment used. Governments and banks also did more to mandate the use of security features (chip & pin) than in the US - American banks like people using credit cards - it makes them a lot of money and they're incentivized to keep the barriers low as long as the amount of fraud is manageable to them.
Yes, I know some places give cash discounts. Most do not.
And even if things aren't marked up to cover CC fees, if you have a rewards card, you're effectively paying more if you pay in cash.
My business does not involve tips (exactly) but I can tell you that I’ve seen anywhere from 20-40% of money run through my system being in cash, depending on where I am in the country.
...So people often tend to be carrying cash still.
The fact that a business "famously" is cash only seems to support this, as that implies that it's becoming more unusual.
Everything else is a crapshoot. If you don’t have cash you aren’t getting dumplings in Chinatown. And that’s just a bummer!
This is rather brilliant. * make it look like the government is stealing “gifted” money * stop taxing it * turn as many jobs as possible into tipped jobs supposedly for the person’s benefit * really the employer wins since they’ll pay less and claim “tips”
IMO most discussions about tipping are a distraction. "Divide and rule" if you will.
So the real (main) problem is actually just straight up good old wage theft. Anyone who is not getting at least minimum wage is suffering from wage theft.I've heard stories of employees not getting a paycheck "because employer thought it was all tips" (illegal b/c they credited too much) or very small paychecks with the explanation that the employer over-credited tips. There's at least a decently straight-forward way to show what can be credited, and this is why there's the tip amount that you log. Ignoring cameras, the burden is on the employer to prove that they can make these credits, so that line-item on the bill is important (IANAL)
I think the entire discussion of tipping often only serves as a distraction to wage. Like there's a lot of person to person fighting of how much we should tip (including not tipping) and frankly, doesn't this discussion often boil down to wage theft? I mean ignoring the already illegal problem of wage theft, what makes a server (who gets tipped) any different from a cashier (who doesn't get tipped) as an employee. Their jobs differ in duties, but we're talking about wage and *fair pay* here. If all the laws are followed, a tipped employee strictly benefits from tips. They have a statistical wage but that wage is max(base_pay, state_minimum) + random_value.So I think 90% of discussions around tipping end up just being a distraction to create a fictitious divide of "minimum wage workers" vs "tipped workers"[2] who should instead be working as a coalition to increase the floor. They are both minimum wage earners! The main difference is primarily that tipped employees are just more likely to suffer from wage theft, due to how they are paid. But that's also something that both experience, just at different rates.
[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-emplo...
[2] Simplifying by ignoring tipped earners with higher than min wage base pay (we can extend as needed)
Governments tracking small transactions like tips and taxing them should bother everyone. That rag, the New Yorker, knows that of course.