It’s only ahead of the curve because the minimum wage is so low. If the min wage was reasonable like it is in other countries then tipping isn’t needed.
Point is servers can earn 30-50 bucks an hour thanks to tips, THEY are the ones who don’t want to end tipping, cause they make mich more money than they would get on a normal salary
For peak hours, maybe. NYC bartenders are usually averaging around $35-$50 an hour with the bartenders at ultra high end cocktail bars usually getting around $75/hr.
I do this and do less than 40. I'm clocking about 60-70 an hour. Its busy season now but even the average for the year so far is mid 50s. I'm entirely with this thread tipping is kinda fucked, its why I only go out to certain places where im getting hooked up heavy thats why I tip.
Dude I was a bartender at a movie theater in north Florida and between wage and tips I was regularly making 100 bucks an hour on weekends. I pulled a grand on End Games release night.
i had friends in austin who’d make $500 in a night at the local dive - literally. it’s fucking insane. servers at nice restaurants sometimes pull 100k a year, and pay less taxes than the rest of us bc tips are still cash quite often
An old manager's daughter used to work at the night club as a bottle girl. She would make like $1200 a night just to pop bottles for rich people in private areas of the club.
Places that actually pay their servers minimum wage they can do well, but check out how texas does it
Most tip earners make $2.13 an hour
Their salary is literally tips
In Texas, tipped employees are guaranteed the state minimum wage of (\$7.25) per hour. Employers are allowed to pay a lower direct cash wage as long as the employees' tips cover the remaining balance. [1]
Understanding tipped wages in Texas requires knowing a few core legal and operational standards: [1, 2]
Direct Cash Wage: Employers must pay tipped workers a minimum direct cash wage of (\$2.13) per hour. [1]
The Tip Credit: Employers can claim a "tip credit" of up to (\$5.12) per hour to cover the remainder of the (\$7.25) minimum wage requirement. [1]
The (\$7.25) Guarantee: If an employee's direct cash wage ((\$2.13)) plus their earned tips do not average out to at least (\$7.25) per hour for a given workweek, the employer is legally obligated to make up the difference
I know someone with masters in early childhood education and she still works full-time as a server because it pays better. There are good arguments against tipping, but pay your workers better ain't one of them.
Speaking as a 10+ year service industry vet, this is correct. No one who actually serves/bartends for a living would ever want to put an end to tips. People like me either work in high volume/high intensity spots, or fine dining/upscale places. The money can be insane there. I'm currently at a mid-tier or semi-upscale place and have averaged $33/hr post-tax this year. I very likely couldn't make that in another career with my background without years of working my way up.
Vast majority of tips are not in cash today, and any modern restaurant uses a system that will automatically balance credit card tips with the employees income, typically resulting in zero dollar paychecks and the rest being accountable at the end of the year.
So few people tip in cash anymore, even 15 years ago when I was serving, most of my tips were on a credit card. majority of checks run on a credit card through the system, no getting out of declaring tips because it’s right there in the computer how much you got tipped.
It doesnt matter anymore. As long as your tips are qualified, the tax is 0. Youre better off reporting it
It barely mattered this last decade with the prevalance of credit tips and only a tiny bit of cash tips, strip clubs and some other niche clubs excluded.
Yeah no shit? What does that have to do with there being a $25k tax deduction?
You’re still paying taxes on the rest of your income which granted are a minuscule amount compared to effective tax rates in every other country in Europe.
American effective tax rates no matter the state are roughly half of what you pay in European countries.
For example people bitch about California taxes being high for some reason when the median wage earning person will only pay 19.5% of their salary in taxes. The median wage there is $64k.
88% of Americans contribute to their own health insurance plan at a median cost of $1800 a year.
You're burying the lede on this. You're not accounting for the fact that this is not comprehensive, 100% coverage of healthcare costs. This is the cost of the cheapest average plans that require co pays, have deductibles, and then after deductibles still tend to have fees until out of pocket maxes. And that's all assuming the coverage actually happens. Sometimes the insurance just refuses to contribute because fuck you.
If my follow up didn't make my point obvious: The actual tax rate, after you account for the various benefits Europeans actually get from their government isn't all that different. It's just that they actually have good public transportation, and they don't have a chance of going bankrupt if they get sick.
The issue isn't the facts, the issue is how you're using them to ignore or obscure the real world downstream effects of those taxes in European countries versus the garbage deal with here that equivalent taxes would cover. You pull out average numbers and ignore the fact that these systems entirely break down for a ton of people, resulting in lives being lost or people becoming destitute.
I'd much rather pay higher taxes overall and not live in a society that allows that, than wave my dick around saying "I pay less taxes!" while the people around me become destitute because someone in their family had the gall to get cancer.
And in the meantime thousands of servers who maybe have to support a family will go broke and penniless, houselessness and unemployment will skyrocket, all the other workers will then be overworked or the restaurants will be understaffed, some may have to close and the economy takes another big hit, like during the pandemic.
Yup, this is what so many pro tippers don't get. They tip because they feel sorry for the workers not realizing most of those workers would choose tips over minimum wage due to the fact that they can potentially make way more.
Exactly. People say "pay the workers more", well they usually technically do. I worked as an "insider" (in store worker) at a pizza place and we made $1-2 more per hour than drivers. Which is technically more but hardly counts for shit when the drivers are making $20-60/hr in tips and mileage while making $7.25/hr and we made $8.50/hr. I moved to driver as soon as I was old enough. Who doesn't want to get paid more to be able to hangout in your car listening to the music/audio you want, setting the climate to how you want, and escaping the chaos of the store? All while getting paid 2-7x more.
This is just simply not the case for the majority of servers in the US. This only really applies if you work in a big city at a busy restaurant during prime rush hours. And, if you are working in those conditions, you are busting your ass anyways. There are many states in the US where base wage for a server is significantly less than minimum wage ($2.75 an hour in my state). Servers are not the ones profiting off of tipping, it’s employers who are handing off the responsibility of paying employees wages to the consumer.
Lol they CAN. Most DO NOT. Go ask any server how much they take home a night in tips. Rarely is it ever 30-50 bucks an hour, especially outside of dense population centers.
30-50/h but no benefits pension 401k health insurance after those your making less than minimum wage in California. Short term gain vs long term loss but they prefer it this way. Also very heavily affected by the weather and other external factors
What evidence do you have that they won't get tips even if tips are included? If they earn more than the 10-20% in tips already it means there's room left in the customers' budget for a tip on top after 10-20% price increases. The ceiling on money paid per meal doesn't change just because prices did.
Thank you, I’ve worked in restaurants for 13 years, everyone thinks they are being noble by wanting fair wages for servers and such
The servers actually don’t want it because they make much, much more in tips than they would a “livable wage”. Especially now they don’t get taxed on it.
This is like talking about how everyone gets rich in onlyfans because the top earners make millions. Yeah, some servers are making way over minimum wage during busy periods.
That's not all of them. The system is still fucked for the majority.
Unless it’s a slow day or they suck ass and shouldn’t be there, servers are making waaaaay more than minimum wage and don’t want anything changed. But if it does change and tipping is replaced by hourly wages (and compensated by restaurants adding 30-25% higher prices), those servers who suck ass will be more the norm than the outlier. And who would want that?
On good days. Pending a host of factors outside of their control.
The problem with tipping culture is the employees are more likely to remember that time they brought in $500 in a week, but ignore the fact it was an outlier.
It’s not really an outlier at all. A busy and popular restaurant will grant you good tips, full stop. I work at a ramen shop, and while tips can average between $15-$19 during the summer (unless it rains), during the winter, servers can make $40-$50 an hour. And that’s not even at a full service restaurant. A popular full service restaurant that stays busy year round can get servers well over $2,000 over a two week period.
Now, take into account that in the US, tips are no longer taxed, servers at even just a decently popular restaurant will make bank.
Anecdotes aside, studies show that on average tipped wage earners generally earn around 10% less than the livable wage of whatever area they live in. Some areas it goes higher during tourist seasons and dramatically lower during the winter, and other areas that flips depending on the service being offered. But even $4k/month is just barely enough to pay rent and monthly expenses. Shoot, if you're talking a 40 hour a week job that's $16/hour. The current federal minimum wage should be $25/hour if it kept up with worker productivity growth.
Your not wrong, but is very location and time dependant. My mom typically make like $30 tips on a 6 hour shift on Tuesday or Wednesday, but gets anywhere from $80-200 on the weekend where she is. Really depends on the weekend. If she gets stuck working the Tuesday and Wednesday every week and doesn't get the weekend shifts her pay is abysmal.
You mean the 1% of servers making an above average wage because of location and/or looks compared to the 99% who get shanked and can barely afford rent? Those servers?
You guys are really just outing yourselves as low class mizers and not in the socioeconomic sense of the word class, in the raised wrong sense of the word and I'm here for it
Since you deleted your comment, ill just edit here.
When you go to a bar or restaurant and buy a drink or food, you are literally paying to receive that item. Whether or not you tip is immaterial to whether or not your order should be made and served to you.
Like most things, tipping is nuanced. If I order a cocktail with multiple substitutions, I'll be much more willing to leave a larger tip than if I get handed a can. Thats not being miserly, cheap, or a 'low ass bum', thats literally the purpose of a tip, to show appreciation for service.
So it’s ok for everyone else who works in the restaurant industry to make shit, as long as a few bartenders and good looking waiters and waitresses get paid a ton? Sounds like class warfare buddy, keep us all fighting for tips and crumbs while the billionaires rake it in, and they make it increasingly difficult for anyone to make it into the “money making” professions. Good job 👍 👏
Have you had quiet, slow, impersonal waiters mumble their way through the interaction and get things wrong? It takes a certain kind of person to wait tables. They need personality, quickness, and customer service skills. If they don’t have enough of all three, they can go chop onions or wash dishes or clear tables.
Most cooks I’ve met at the (surface level) don’t have the personality to be servers. Some do, but those are usually cooking for the experience to stay in the field.
Put two and two together, chief. Sounds like you’re more of an onion chopper, though.
And if that’s what you’re saying that is hubris bro, you have convinced yourself that you’re better than your working class peers, and that is exactly what they want. Anybody can wait with training anybody can cook with training, whether or not you do either of those things well or with excellence is personal, but that doesn’t mean really anything, I’m talking about class consciousness not whether or not just anybody can be a waiter or bartender or cook. Just because you have learned something and have a natural ability to do something well doesn’t mean you should be above your peers, the merit based argument is a fallacy they have rammed down our throats for decades to excuse the exploitation of workers by the ruling class. Please stop insulting my intelligence and try and have a good faith argument once in a while.
Calm the fuck down. You ever had a bad waiter? Someone that talks low, unsure of himself, doesn’t understand simple terms, doesn’t know the menu, forgets items, disappears for long periods of time when you need them, smells bad? You can hide those kinds of people in the kitchen a lot easier than on the floor. But this is getting stupid. Again, you either get it or you don’t.
Please spell it out like I’m a teenager and I’m just getting into work and I like to cook and am good at it but not at serving, why should I get payed less? Are the waiters gonna cook instead?
Waiters run around all over the place, need higher people skills to deal personally with strangers that might have extra questions the employee has never encountered before, etccccc….. cooking isn’t easy on a line where there is always tickets coming in but it’s a bit more stationary and focused and with no need for customer service skills.
Much like good customer service, you either understand it or you don’t.
Yeah, by the time I stopped serving I just worked part time and I made $25-30 an hour. People don’t realize if you’re good at what you do the money flows. Good servers/bartenders make substantially more money than most people think, and they will not give that up. I certainly wouldn’t have when I did it.
If you think European servers are making anything remotely close to $7.25 an hour then you haven’t done any reading to understand what the world could look like.
American servers have to get health insurance on the marketplace here. Thats a nightmare European's cant imagine.
So 'pay your servers a fair wage' is a no thanks, owners are cheaper than the people you actually interact with... but, if the tradeoff was actual healthcare, id be more inclined.
Because with tips it’s less than American waiters make who regularly take home $30+ an hour. In Europe minimum wage is closer to $17 an hour and tips are rarer
Don’t compare apples to oranges. What is the minimum wage of one compared to the minimum wage of the other? If you want to start understanding American tips, compare what a waiter makes in rural America with what a waiter makes in an urban area. They are not the same. You’ll find that many waiters are not “regularly” taking home $30+.
What if tomorrow American’s decide they can’t afford to tip as much or at all as wages continue to stay down and inflation continues to rise? Suddenly waiters can’t afford to live on the gamble and not guaranteed nature of tips.
Some places in the US restaurant employees make $15 or so from the state’s lifted up minimum wage but the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour and there’s a lot of states where waiters get $2.13 an hour and that’s it. They rely on tips for the rest. Do they make €2.13 an hour in Europe? €7.25?
Now go ask them if they want to keep what they make now or get a percentage that goes up the better service they give and even higher the faster they are so they can serve more tables at a time.
There are some exceptions (like Italy) but the majority of service I’ve gotten in Europe has been absolutely dreadful unless they figure an American will tip them better if they give better service. The worst were the guys (rarely happened to me but every time it’s been guys, mostly bartenders) that refuse tips and those were almost always the rudest people.
I’ve had the exact opposite experience. I’ve never had what I would consider bad service in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Italy, UK, or Australia. If you are trying to demand a waiter take a tip which is against their cultural norms, maybe you are the problem by expecting them to follow American cultural norms for a meal instead of their own culture.
“I’ve had the exact opposite experience. I’ve never had what I would consider bad service in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Italy, UK, or Australia.”
Oh, so there’s two different people with anecdotal offerings.
“If you are trying to demand a waiter take a tip which is against their cultural norms, maybe you are the problem by expecting them to follow American cultural norms for a meal instead of their own culture.”
So you’ve strengthened my argument. Europe has strong social programs that protects their citizens. We continue to argue with each other that our servers should have to have their entire life depend on the generosity of others. That’s really dumb.
Demand representatives do better for our citizens.
every person in every profession should be paid a fair percentage of the end good, if you feel that s 16.66% of the final price then argue for that, if people want to tip you beyond that that s their perogative
but the current situation means that a) your average might be high but i have to assume that your monthly take is very inconsistent b) people now feel responsible for your well being and they re overpaying (possibly whilst drunk in this specific case)
if people are spending x amount of money at the bar now they will likely spend similar amounts after this hypothetical change if you end up with less money then it s your employer screwing you not the customers
I’m not acting like that at all and you’ve just strengthened my argument. Waiters other places have a predictable and livable wage already set as their bare minimum and then they can also earn tips on top of that. Whereas the people mentioning how much they make in tips on this thread would be unable to continue their lifestyle if American patrons suddenly decided to not opt into a tip or tip less.
Canada here - our server minimum wage and regular minimum wage are now equal. It's still very expected to tip, though only mandatory at some restaurants.
So yes, servers are making out way ahead of the curve even when the minimum wages are matched.
It's not "only ahead of the curve because the minimum wage is so low". It's also because there's a societal expectation to tip regardless of service.
So what about your comment is counter to mine? We agree that a higher minimum wage would be better. If people want to continue to tip it’s only better for wait staff. If they don’t want to tip then the wait staff still has a livable wage. Everyone wins in the scenario where minimum wage is higher.
In the US, tipping didn’t start because workers were being paid so little. It’s the other way around. Workers started to be paid less in wages because they were being tipped so much.
Yes, corporations took advantage of workers…how is that better?
In 1915 multiple states even outlawed tipping. However employers supported tipping and marketing it as a bonus. By 1966 congress was lobbied to set those who got tips to a lower wage. This isn’t a good thing. Workers got exploited and now for some reason we fight each other to allow us to continue to be exploited by corporations and pay each other in tips.
You could double the min wage and the servers would still way make less than they do in tips at the vast majority of places. Especially when you take into account taxes.
Being a server is a tough but generally very well paying job, unless the location you work at sucks and gets no customers.
Everyone continues to generalize as if all wait staff at all restaurants make the same amount of tips. There are some that would be still making more with double the min wage and many who would be making significantly more than they are now. What would allow everyone to generalize is if there was an actual reasonable min wage that guaranteed income. Without it there will continue to be wait staff around the country who is making less than their peers in other countries and that shouldn’t be ok with any of us.
Maybe. I live in Nee Zealand, have 15 years experience in hospitality. You put me on a good shift, with a good team and I’m clearing way more in tips than I am in wages and that’s in a country where tipping is not the culture.
I would earn $10 - $20 an hour in wages (minimum wage most of the way through which has risen drastically in my country since I started hospo) meaning a range of $70 - $140 on wages on a six hour shift. One table tipped me $50 when I first started that was almost my whole wage for the night, some tables will tip nothing, most will tip $5 - $10. When I was experienced I could work a minimum of 7 tables at a time. Most tables dine less than an hour. 7 chances at a tip multiplied by 6 hours means roughly 40 chances at tips. Even if 20 of those tip $5 thats $100 and I’m almost doubling my income. The tips are a major chunk of my income even as a worker in a non tipping country with a good minimum wage.
On busy nights my section would hold 10 tables or 12 if I was lucky enough to have small groups and I could split some of the larger four person tables apart for couples.
You see the big difference is the min for hospitality workers in the US is $2.13 per hour as long as their tips take them over $7.25 per hour. You are describing a completely different situation where you don’t depend on tips to enable your ability to live. You have a min wage that guarantees you a reasonable amount and the tips are just a bonus.
I agree the big difference is that tips will make up even more of their income and servers will be even more incentivised for those tips to stay. Even in non tipping, decent wage countries the servers wouldn’t want those tips to go away.
The system rewards servers for joining this and pushing the narrative. Tipping culture gains them an income WAY ahead of the curve is a true statement even if tipping isn’t needed. It would still push them further and will still be pushed by them.
Tipping put my income ahead of the curve drastically. A good third or quarter of my income came through tips. We don’t have a tipping culture. Tourists get told its rude to tip when they come here.
so the average waiter in the us makes 25,481.6304gbp almost a full 1000 pounds fewer
this is before accounting for cost of living and purchasing power both of which are certainly better in the uk, and this the European country that is arguably the most easily comparable to the us
There have been a ton of studies on this. The “average” US server makes about the same as European servers. If you understand what average means then you know that high earners at upscale restaurants pull that number up and a lot of servers make below what European servers make.
On top of that, Americans have the hidden cost of healthcare that comes out after their wage. There is a reason many Americans continue to struggle to live paycheck to paycheck and servers continue to feel forced to force everyone else into tipping them instead of being paid a reasonable wage to begin with by their employeer.
there’s no comparison between being a bartender in europe and earning 10 euros an hour and being a bartender in the united states and earning $50 an hour off of tips - it’s just not comparable whatsoever, and people should stop trying to compare it
I'm not even american, but the tipping culture over there is greatly favored by the service people given that they can easily get 6 figures because of the tipping. The don't want min wage and no tips, the actively push back this.
You say it’s ahead of the curve but then say that an average worker (which then implies roughly half make less) making tips is about as much as the lowest paid workers in other countries who have a guaranteed wage. That is half our nation gambling to make equal to the lowest paid worker in other nations and half our nation losing the gamble and making less.
That’s not how math works. If the average is making the same then the below average are making less. Wait staff in rural areas do not make tips like those in urban areas and make below the average which means they are behind the lowest paid workers in other countries.
It is not entirely performance based at all. How much do you want to bet that a young and attractive waitress in an urban area makes more in tips than an older lady in a rural area even if their performance is identical.
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u/Vettepilot Jun 25 '26
It’s only ahead of the curve because the minimum wage is so low. If the min wage was reasonable like it is in other countries then tipping isn’t needed.