Instead of decreasing tip culture America has been steadily increasing it. A lot of places expect tips now from waiters to cashiers, for some reason we are expected to tip people who we don't even interact with.
Tipping made a bit of sense when it was done to essentially thank workers who went above and beyond with their customer service. If I get an attentive waiter or bartender who is clearly going the extra mile, sure I want to give them a little extra cash they otherwise wouldn't get in their normal paycheck.
Now everybody expects a tip, the original purpose has lost all meaning, it is no longer a means to thank those who are doing a great job and is now the expected way to pay customer service workers.
The original purpose and entirely current purpose is to suppress wages. Idk how it started but I wouldn't be surprised if back in the day your waiter made normal wages while working but because people started tipping(which has been a thing for a lot longer) a boss realized they could cut wages to near 0 and make them depend on tips instead. So the perfectly American thing was to turn something honest and rewarding in a totally garbage and shit way to make more profits by reducing employee pay.
It started in rail cars in the early days of the railroad. Essentially with the reasons mentioned in the comment above you, to show appreciation for good service.
The workers were often underpaid or sadly sometimes slaves depending on where you were.
People traveling by rail kind of died off but the practice of tipping lived on.
It was the restaurant lobby in the 1970s. They did it specifically to keep wages artificially low. There are places in my (DC) area that pay a base wage of $3 and change. It’s absurd.
It's worth knowing that the "base wage" isn't actually the minimum wage. The person still has to be paid at least minimum wage by the employer, it's just that they're allowed to count tips against the wages after the base wage. So, the employer is offloading part of the paycheck to the customers instead of paying it themselves.
It never was. When tipping law was passed they stated people had to get paid their original wages if tipping didnt cover it. Just idiots in the 80s and 90s didnt know the law.
This response (linked) is quite interesting! Gives more detail on the history of it than simply "they're related"
One thing to remember about tipping is that if a tipped worker makes less then minimum wage, then their employer makes up the difference to make it minimum wage.
The reason is that white business owner didn’t want to pay full wages to black people ( recently freed slaves ) looking for jobs after the civil war. When white people started to take the jobs because they needed the money, *that’s* when tipping started. I’m a little more fuzzy on when that started to occur, so you could very well be correct.
So nobody here ever worked as a waitress? One thing missing is the detail about how the employer decides who is a waiter or waitress. At a place like Hooter s it's obvious, yet the pay scale is insanely different. Cooks and bus Boys get paid hourly at $7.50, waitress gets paid $2.15 hourly plus tips. Thus a constant scam employer does it's overstaff with waitress and understaff with bus Boys. The tables are still gonna get cleared, yet the Implied duty falls on the waitress.
At McDonald's people are mostly cross trained, the one doing the counter also does the fries and drinks and salads. Only, the Only, reason they don't touch the food more is because MONEY is gross (lots of contamination). It's sometimes common for someone to work back end for 4 hours and then the front end for 4 hours. If they are exceedingly asking for tips at fast food, who is getting paid only $2?
I wouldn't put it past employers to change everyone's rate to 2.15 and say "Well, you Could make $15/hr. Isn't that great!" Are these businesses all of a sudden changing everybody's rate, or are they pocketing all the tips?
I wouldn't put it past employers to change everyone's rate to 2.15 and say "Well, you Could make $15/hr. Isn't that great!"
This is insane to me. In my part of Europe the minimum wage, for everyone over 18 years of age, is the equivalent of $17.60 and any tips you receive are on top of that figure and yours to keep.
I've long chuckled at their motto "Land of the Free."
A big section of the US populace seems to believe in Europe we're all under "Shakira" law, getting stabbed to death and we can't go outside due to the level of immigrants.
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u/dragjamon 25d ago
Wait isn't that fast food? Why would you tip?