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Visiting the US soon - do I really have to tip?
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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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That's all good in theory, but in practice? Look up statistics on wage theft in the restaurant industry (hell, look up wage theft as whole in the US), and you'll see that many, many workers go under paid.
And even if employers always met the minimum wage, the minimum wage is far less than a "living wage," in this country.
Again, I want to stress that the practice of tipping is absolutely outdated, and should be removed. My point is simply that not tipping your waiter does more harm to them than their employer.
We should be encouraging these places to unionize, and demand that their employers pay them fairly.
Totally agree that minimum wage is not as high as it should be. No disagreement there. My point is that workers in the restaurant industry are not uniquely able to make below minimum wage. Any employer can break the law and pay under what they're legally required to, not just in the restaurant industry. And yet we're saying that the onus for making sure this doesn't happen in the restaurant industry uniquely falls on the customers. That's just not a reasonable argument to make.
It's identical to shifting the blame for climate change from corporations to individuals. It's not a customer's fault for not tipping any more than it's Joe Schmo's fault for having a gas heater, poorly insulated house, and having to commute an hour every day in a gas car. Both can only effectively be solved through regulation.
Totally agree.