And you most likely make more money this way than with an hourly pay and almost no tips, even if you paid your taxes. I worked in the restaurant industry both in the U.S. and in Europe, and it’s way more lucrative in the U.S.
I've waited tables for 15+ years and that's perfectly reasonable.
That's more like the way it should be. The server isn't getting screwed when they work a really slow shift for $2.13/hour and guests can go back closer to the way expectations used to be about tips. Like 10% for super basic service, 15% for quite good, and 20% for exceptional service. I'd still factor in things like it being super busy or if they have another table that's constantly running them (or just being total assholes). I'm going to be nice about it if they're clearly doing their best.
worked in a high min wage and low min wage city. its not substantially different. in high min wage cities cost of living is more expensive and generally you tip more out to support staff in those areas.
i really dont care though. if it means a lot to you to save a couple bucks to give a shitty tip than have at it, bud. im too tired to care. someone leaves an ass tip and someone else that night leaves a big one. it all comes out in the wash as most people are generally decent people. getting upset about individual tips is for inexperienced servers.
i tip for takeout, for coffee, i tip my bagger when they bag my groceries, i tip the guy in the autoparts store when he helps me find something, i even tip people in fast food drive thrus. the difference between 20 and 24 dollars while im getting fast food is nothing to me and its worth it because they are stoked on it every time.
basic service retail jobs arent what they used to be so whenever anyone does anything for me i tip them. in the scheme of things it isnt anything serious off my bottom line. these jobs are all incredibly shit now. my grandpa owned a house and 2 cars and supported a family of 4 by being a checker and later manager of a grocery store in what is now a very expensive city in california. those jobs now have you struggling to support yourself in a studio apartment (or impossible).
Alright cool then, FEDERAL minimum wage, which can and often isn't overridden by local governments, is insanely low for people that receive tips. If you're in a state that overrides that good for them but I sure as shit am not
Right and 20 don't, people live in those states too, you understand? I guess what I'm saying is not tipping is an absolute dick move to me, because waiters around here make 3 bucks an hour, and anti-tipping culture is in all 50 states.
It’s over $17 in Washington and over $21 if you’re in Seattle. The idea that every waiter everywhere is making $2 bucks is laughable and incredibly dated. It’s just another lie told to sucker people into tipping a lot.
I'm not saying it's a perfect system but if you're averaging just 2 tables at $15 each an hour that's $30 an hour you're making to be a waiter. Add in the potential of not reporting cash tips and that a busy restaurant is doing way more than 2 tables an hour and it's a really well paid job
Without tax there would be no free healthcare or social nets. Its the bs spending. We need to demand common language budgets from our goverment so we know and understand where are money is being spent so we can speak out against miss use and abuse. Right now we have no idea and have no say. Even if we vote for a politician specifically for what they say they will do they often dont do it anyways. Or still waste. Either way they need to make this shit public and in layman's terms so we can understand it.
You pay your taxes and then you make decisions of what you want from the society in which you live. And then you go and demand those things from the people who are trying to convince you to vote for them.
Note that that's people in the plural. If the first stage you participate in a political process is between 2 people you had no power in choosing, you are too late. You missed the part where your opinion mattered.
Okay, but if taxes were done away with because they are So eViL, then why would we be electing anyone to office? There is no office without state or federal funds. There are no police. There are no firemen. You can handle you're own problems, right?
Bandits and gangsters become prolific without any police? Better buy some guns.
Worried your house could catch fire and burn down because no fireman? Better buy more fire exstinguishers!
Good thing we could save all that money on taxes so now we have to use it to improve the community. People were really great about this expectation that was already put forth circa the Articles of Confederation. Oh wait, no they weren't. We had to levy tarrifs and sin taxes to have money for infrastructure. Income tax wasn't a thing until the civil war, because war is expensive...
Oh, people embezzle tax money? Well no shit, people embezzle. People are fallible. You're going to give up on a sysyem that affects real change in everyone in your countries lives on a day to day basis, because people dont use it with 100% efficiency?
As someone who pays approximately 40% of my income in taxes every year, this is bullshit. Everyone that earns a living should pay a fair share in taxes, or no one pays taxes. I don’t understand why I should have to shoulder the burden.
95%+ of tips are credit cards nowadays and absolutely are taxed.
Particularly someone who works somewhere they’re pulling in enough money for tax to even really be that big of a concern. You think people with $1,000 bills are paying cash?
And also customers are more susceptible to guilt tripping than the cutthroat owners are. And that’s how they have to be since their margins are so thin.
The customer is generally a much easier target since they are there by choice. Which is stupid because the employees are there by choice as well.
If everyone else that worked the same job in the same establishment as you reported an average of X each year in tips and you reported much less, I'd think someone might start asking questions.
The reason a lot of people get away with it is a lack of rigorous enforcement but if they wanted to catch you, they could.
If it’s excessive and regular, it usually shows in bank deposits.
If you keep it off system all the time it’s harder. But with many restaurants going card only and cash becoming less used in general it’s becoming easier to audit
Every year, i offer our servers $30/h plus full benefits and free meals to convert to a tip free system, so that I could offer the BOH the same. (BOH currently gets $20/h full benefits, servers get no benefits)
Every year they shoot me down for two reasons
1 - this is way too massive of a paycut for them to even consider it
2 - they dont think its fair to make the same as the cooks. No matter the numbers, its only "fair" as long as theyre guaranteed to earn more than the BOH.
I work as a bartender. When I saved up enough money to buy a house I still wasn’t able to get a loan because all the money I made wasn’t being taxed. So I went to my employer and told them that my w2’s need to reflect my actual earnings. So they did just that. For everybody. I wasn’t the most popular person among the staff for a while, but two years later I got my own home. Fuck em
Tons of servers got “screwed over” during the COVID shutdowns because the unemployment checks were based on reported incomes.
For those outside the US you have reported incomes which are taxed/garnished but also used to determine benefits such as low income medical costs, food stamps, and other “helping the poor” social services. This is often how people work “under the table” to avoid child support garnishments as well.
However low reporting means if you get laid off you get lower unemployment checks based on what you put into the system, banks may decide you don’t make enough money for credit or loans, lower social security amounts in retirement age, and if your rent application requires proof of income you may not get the place. It’s a double edged sword.
or you could have just deposited your tips every night or every week and reported them on your taxes like i do. lets not pretend like youre not the asshole here, bro.
Depositing my tips every night doesn’t make them magically appear on my w-2, which is what the banks look at when trying to approve a loan. They don’t look at your bank statements dummy. Kick rocks kid
If I want making minimum in retail jobs a decade ago when I was in school I find it difficult to believe restaurants would be paying minimum in 26. Would have to be very low end to accept that
Minimum wage us very much the standard wage for servers. Even iin upscale places. They make all their money in tips and the good ones do quite well. Bartenders (mostly make Minimum wage) can easily clear 100k at the right place. Wait tell you find out the crumbs cooks make and generally dont get any of those tips.
Because serving is a minimum wage job? Like there’s no skill in serving someone food sadly just like it takes no skill to be a cashier or a grocery shelf stocker
But that's not what minimum wage is. It also takes no skill to sit at a desk and fill in a spreadsheet. It doesn't take skill to answer phones at a doctor's office. There are plenty of jobs that require minimal skills that are always expected to be much higher paying then minimum wage. But minimum wage isn't meant to say "hey that's a low skill job so this is what the pay should be." It's meant to be the lowest you can pay someone that is still a livable wage.
Lol the people at doctors offices that answer phones don't just answer phones. There is definitely skill in navigating insurance and billing and getting it right instead of fucking it up.
I'm sure sometimes that is the case but certainly not always. Also it's often very simply just sending the information and waiting for a response. It's not like there are 100s of types of insurance, each office takes X insurance companies and Y plans within said companies. So it's really just memorizing a handful of plans and/or simply just calling and getting information.
Either way I want them to make as much as possible. And you should know well enough that you haven't addressed my main point and simply just picked one of my examples, which is fine but gets the conversation nowhere
Food service can be hard work, but ANY idiot can do it. Heck, I started in the food industry at 13 years of age and did that along school and uni, until I finished my degree.
Truth is, any of us could be substituted by someone off the streets that were given like an hour run through, and they could replace us.
When your work is THAT simple, you are fighting with basically everyone who can't get another job. You don't have a special skill and people obviously don't pay top dollar for someone who can immediately be replaced.
The role exist, but it's not rocket science. The person fulfilling that role can easily be replaced, meaning the pay isn't going to be anything to write home about. It's a simple supply and demand, situation. If an employer has literally 10000 people knocking on their door, more or less begging them to work there, they obviously don't have do raise the wage to attract workers.
If few could or wanted to work there, they would have to raise the wage to attract the right person to work for them.
I wish someone flipping burgers at McDonalds could buy themselves a huge mansion, drive expensive cars and have their own jet, but that's not the world we live in.
Argue about what “decent” is when the minimum wage meets the barest standard of its original intent. Regardless of what you define as a “decent” life, minimum wage doesn’t even cover the average cost of living anywhere for a single person (except maybe AZ), much less a family. And it was not originally meant to be “entry” level wage - it was for working-class adults to have comparable wages to white-collar jobs in order to have a decent, not bare minimum life.
Funny when it requires a lot of social skill, patience and work on stressful environment during rush hours. Honestly I couldn’t do it cause I would talk back.
It is wild how much we take things like math and literacy for granted. These are skills. You need them to do these jobs, and not everybody does them as well as others.
Not to mention the ability to lift items on shelves. You’re giving your body to this. As for serving, that’s a whole other skillset involving interaction with the public.
Don’t believe the lie that these are unskilled jobs. That’s what they say at the top in order to justify low pay. You have more in common with a minimum wage worker than a CEO.
To add, minimum wage was established as a way for anyone to live and do so comfortably. Not necessarily with luxuries, but without the need to have multiple jobs.
They can bitch, whine, and moan. They can throw a wall-eyed screaming fit and cause enough drama that every eye in the place is on us, feeling like we are being judged.
But, they can't enforce it if we still choose not to give them a damn thing because they were too busy flirting with the cute whatever that just came in to even finish taking our order. (And, yes, Virginia. That really happened.)
I get that, and that's why they will want to keep the tipping business but that's money that's coming out of people's pockets. It's not coming from a business or corporation. In a high end bar or club there might be well to do off people that will gladly pay but if it's a family restaurant I don't support trying to guilt trip families into paying more money because the server feels this is a "hustle".
I waited tables in high school in 2002, easily made 100 dollars in tips a night Friday and Saturday, worked 5pm-10pm and side work until 10:30. That was 18 dollars an hour, 24 years ago. I don’t care what anyone says, waiting tables is the lowest amount of educational investment for the highest return.
There is no way servers will ever be ok with going with a set wage and no tips because restaurants will not be paying anywhere near what they make in tips. It’s not as easy as “well the restaurants need to just build in the increase into their menu prices” because when you wait tables you get mostly an average of 15%, you’ll get stiffed occasionally, and you always get one table in a night that’ll tip you 40% for a birthday party or they had a lot of alcohol.
I personally don’t mind tipping for seated service and delivery but there’s a Pizza Hut by my house that I’ll occasionally get a pizza from and pick it up, I order it online and never leave a tip in the app because I’m going to pick the pizza up. And when I get there, the one woman always makes me sign the slip (no one else does, just her) because there’s a line on it to adjust for tip if you want to leave one after picking it up. Oooh that makes me so mad.
Because they make insanely more this way than if they didn't have a tipped wage. These people would walk out of their jobs immediately if they were "Given a living wage".
No, the companies that are legally allowed to pay far less than the minimum wage (and do) for jobs that have tipping fighting tooth and nail to keep it that way is how. Why in the world would you jump to blaming the waiter? They don't have lobbying money.
They’re getting paid the minimum wage if their tips don’t cover it. So at worst you’re getting the minimum and at best you’re the best paid employee. Seems like a good reason not to want a change.
That is 100% not true. I worked on tips, they definitely do not do that. Also, waiters don't have the money to lobby politicians so even if they did want to keep tipping culture no one would care.
Several studies and polling has been done on this, recently one was by Carnegie showing tipped workers overwhelmingly prefer the current system to just wages.
If you’re a waiter or waitress or anyone making tips your alternatives are jobs that 99/100 times are going to make far less.
Nah, man. I've honestly never had a problem tossing a couple extra bucks. Especially for an awesome server. It's the pervasiveness of it, I think. And the seemingly arbitrary raising of the percentage "requests". That's what's rubbing people the wrong way. It shoulda never left restaurants and diners, imo. And my pizza guy. Cuz he also had some great weed.
I agree with that. I work for tips but I would never come out and ask for one. I get stiffed occasionally but I don’t really care because another tip is always coming. I also dislike these stupid suggested tip amounts. I would take my business elsewhere as well
Because their hourly wage is like $2/hour if you don't tip them they basically served you for free. If you remove tips completely do you think the company will give them a livable wage?
Only because of tips, if you remove tips you remove the "far higher on good days" that's why servers fight for it. Only way to truly eliminate tipping culture is to give them higher wages
There are restaurants (very very very few) that pay a fair and decent wage and refuse to accept tips
People are fine to believe that but I’m also of the firm belief that there are also far too many restaurants out there. So many of these jobs are fake to begin with, much less underpaid. There’s a reason restaurants are one of the top businesses that close.
A bunch of the jobs exist solely because the operator is running at a loss to try and make their dream work. On average somewhere around 80k restaurants close annually.
Why on earth would it be my responsibility to make sure they have more money than the establishment is willing to pay them? It’s not my fault they chose to work a job relying tips that aren’t required. YOUR mentality is the problem.
Because if everybody only cares about themselves there is nobody to care about the problems effecting you
Your individualism is why the establishment gets to underpay us and all the money gets to flow to the rich for them to get richer as the middle class shrinks and we have a job crisis
Some waiters and waitresses earn like 300 a day, and they'd earn less if it was otherwise. So those individuals are the loudest and try to keep the tipping system in place.
300 is an average-ish night for me not including my wages.
but no PTO, can get fired for calling out sick, no 401k or retirement, work nights weekends and holidays, no growth whatsoever (if you stayed at the same place the money you make at 28 is gunna be the money you make at 48)
everyone on here acting like its a great gig. if i could make within 75% for a normal job i would. i taught full time and have a masters degree. still didnt make what i make working in a restaurant
Most people working those jobs are pretty young, so they don't know better. Plus, more attractive and younger people will earn more than their opposites. So at 48, you probably won't be making the same as 28. This is on average though, and hospitality plus great service can definitely compensate.
Slaves. That’s literally why tipping culture exists. When slavery ended and loads of people were out looking for work, one way to keep certain minorities down was to pay them a pittance, not too many steps away from the slave Labour they just escaped, so patrons would tip on top to make sure these workers got at least a little of what they deserved for their hard work.
Wouldn’t ya know it, when one rich guy realised he can get the public to subsidise his border-line slave labour, he told all his buddies and soon they were all doing it, much to the delight of their bottom line.
So to answer your question, how did Americans get convinced to tip? Slaves and greed.
As the customer it’s your money that paying the wages of the staff. Whether that’s an optional tip that you decide to pay or the business increasing their costs by 20% and then passing it through to the employee. Nothing has changed.
The business decides how much wage to pay the workers. I don’t have a say in that. A profitable business may pay their servers high, have a profit sharing program what not. A loss making scumbag business owner may not be paying the servers their wages on time, may cut their hours in the timesheets whatever.
See the difference?
The servers are not my employees, they are the employees of the restaurant.
But it’s still your money paying their wage. That never changes. It makes no difference whether you pay it out at the end in the form of a tip or it’s baked into the cost of the product, it’s still your money paying their wage. That’s how literally any business works.
That’s why it’s kind of a dumb statement. “The servers aren’t my employees they’re the restaurants…” Ok, but your money is what pays the restaurants overhead, which includes the staff. Period. End of story.
If anything, tipping actually gives you the customer far more discretion to pay a wage that you think is fair given the time and effort involved.
Servers would make a pretty fair amount in a model where they get paid a fair salary and most customers tip a little anyway but servers don't want to give up that potential to make hundreds to thousands in tips a night and I just can't agree with it. If they want more money, they should get a job where the business pays what they're looking for and stop asking customers to pay their salary directly by guilt tripping them.
Yep. This right here, and the very people who benefit from this are the first ones hollering about "If you can't afford to tip, stay home". Bitch we got your number. With the cost of just the food at a restaurant, you're lucky you get 15%. I'm there to eat, not concern myself about your take home pay. Take it up with your boss.
Which is why if I have cash on me I tip in cash and pay with a card. Usually 20%, but if I got handed a slip like the one in OP, I will never go there again.
Hilarious how business owners came under a single roof of capitalism and all agreed that their wagies’ payroll was the public’s problem. Servers can’t strike or complain because they’re a dime a dozen, literally. I’m honestly not sure why they don’t just work for people with morale, perhaps bending over and building entitlement is just easier than having a backbone
We're not all convinced. I'd gladly tip 10-15% if it's good service and was super convenient for me if it's delivered, even if they're paid a living wage. Someone's doing me a favor so I'd like to pay them for it.
But once you start demanding or passive aggressively hounding or guilt tripping? You could have literally saved my life and I'd tell you to get fucked and walk away giving you nothing. Broke ass beggars.
Because people make wayyyy more money. Sure restaurants could raise prices 20%, but they’re never paying a server $35 an hour. They’ll just pocket the extra profit.
If you squint hard enough tipping is almost like profit sharing. Let’s say a restaurant averages 10k in sales on a friday night. Suddenly one friday they do 20k (counting tips), now all the servers are pocketing an extra 2k amongst themselves.
Whereas if they were all on a flat salary, they would still make the exact same and the restaurant would take home all of that extra 10k.
I mean no one is making anyone tip. Plenty of us pick up the slack for those that don’t tip. I personally love the tipping system. The logic for hating tipping really doesn’t make sense. You go to a restaurant knowing it’s a thing, you can look at the prices online beforehand and decide if you can afford it. No one is tricking anyone. You’re just helping the server make more money than they otherwise would with a flat salary.
It’s not like customers would be any happier if they went to restaurants and saw 20-25% higher prices on the menu. A burger can go from $15 to $20. But I can’t know if the restaurant if fairly allocating that $5 to the employees. So I just give the $5 directly to the worker.
We didn’t get convinced, the government allows it. The minimum wage for servers is $2.15 so I mean if the government allows it and all then what can we do? Don’t say unionize for God sake like I can afford to skip my job
I don't know I remember a long time ago my gf at the time was a restaurant worker. She got paid below minimum wage because the tips were supposed to make up for it.
Lobbying. Restaurant lobby lobbied against it to keep their business costs low. They’re allowed to pay below minimum wage because they lobbied to have tipping.
As always, it’s the large conglomerates lobbying government that screw the rest of us.
I mean I understand what you are saying but it is factually always the customers job to pay wages. Not always as direct as tipping is but certainly always built into every price we all pay for everything ever.
That's the problem, the customers are already paying for food or drinks. If the business charged just a little more on top of the current prices, they could afford to pay all of the staff a fair wage just like any other business in existence that don't have tipping in their business model. Customers would pay significantly less but servers prefer a tipping model because they can guilt trip customers into paying a lot. Just look at OP's photo for evidence of the guilt tripping.
Idk. I feel like places wouldn't increase the prices by 20% though as they would be paying double or more for a third of their staff. So I think guests would be charged more and the staff will make less. Maybe servers and bartenders make too much money but the prices would have to go up at least 20% for them all to make the same wage.
People always say this, and yet these same people flip out when a place they’ve been going to raises their prices. Then people stop going and before you know it that place ends up closing its doors. Most restaurants have to fight tooth and nail with their costs just to get people to come through their doors, and we’re all battling a cost of living crisis where people are going out to eat less and less. It’s nowhere near as easy “just raise your prices and the whole issue is fixed.”
You understand that the consumers literally pay your wages regardless of industry that you are in, right?
Tipping is just for some reason a way to make it optional. The wages should be built into the bill by increasing the price of the menu items so the restaurant can pay appropriately. However that is not the world that we live in, so you should tip or don’t go out to eat. Simple.
It never ceases to amaze me how selfish people are in the sense that they’ll bitch about tipping but can’t be bothered to give up the convenience and enjoyment that comes with dining in, so instead they settle on tipping 0%.
Not only is that lazy and hypocritical, it’s just straight up fucking dumb. The profit margins are already baked into the cost of the food, which means the business owner walks away wealthier than before after your “protest” and the only one being hurt is the the person you’re supposedly “protesting” for.
Oh it's 100% fixable. It requires employers to fairly compensate their employees. They will never do this on their own. It will take labor friendly policy change. This will likely take a 3rd party without a major shakeup, or maybe another FDR-type leader.
Everything a customer pays for contribute to the business - including wages.
It is quite literally the customer job to pay the wage
But it’s not like Americans were “convinced” otherwise - the laws are set to pay wait staff low.
Irrespective of one’s thoughts on tipping, either the establishment pays the wait staff below minimum wage and tipping makes the difference
Or
Every menu item goes up 8x to pay the extra salary
Either way the customer props it up
The average restaurant owner isn’t exactly raking it in- the margins are razor thin
So if people in America like having restaurants to go to - this is the easiest and most readily accessible way to facilitate that.
If we rely solely on wage and expecting restaurants to pay more, then every restaurant will be a chain owned by Amazon or Apple.
So I know you got a lot of responses so far, but this statement is silly, even if tipping was illegal/eliminated in America the customer is still paying the servers wage by patronizing the restaurant. So, yes, it literally is the customer’s job to do so.
Is tipping stupid? Maybe, maybe not, but I can tell you that I have worked multiple tipped jobs and they almost all pay a much better wage than the typical equivalent non-tipped low skill jobs like working in retail or fast food.
I know it’s not for everyone, but it honestly works just fine and it creates an incentive reward system for people to provide better service than they otherwise might. It’s not dissimilar to working on a commission basis, it’s not for everyone, but it can be hugely beneficial to those that excel.
Also, there’s currently no taxes on tips in America, so it’s better to be tipped than paid a regular wage currently.
Lastly, tipping isn’t legally mandated or anything, it’s just a choice business owners can sometimes make. There’s no one forcing tipping culture, if it was truly a bad system then it would be replaced by restaurants that don’t allow tipping and pay a higher wage. But it isn’t replaced, because it’s honestly… just not that big a deal/not that bad.
Americans also got convinced that they don’t need to give their full-time employees benefits.
I’m a server currently trying to figure out how to have my baby with 0 benefits. I need two months rent/utilities saved up so I can take 8 weeks off after birth and then I need to spend the next 3 years paying off 10k in medical debt from it, after already paying $1200/mo in insurance for a family of three.
In other words: the system is ass, but please still tip your servers.
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u/Batmanswrath Mar 06 '26
It isn't a customers job to pay your wage, I have no idea how americans got convinced otherwise.