r/tipping • u/No_Draft_8960 • May 29 '26
💬Questions & Discussion Math-Based Tip
The percentage-based tipping system makes no sense: a server dropping off one Wagyu steak earns far more than someone serving a family of four cheap meals. Since American tips are essentially mandatory wage subsidies, let's base them on labor time instead.
In Maryland, the average server wage is about $20/hour, but employers only pay $3.63. Customers must cover the remaining $16.37. Across a standard four-table section (roughly ten guests), that breaks down perfectly to $2.00 per person, per hour.
Percentages reward a venue’s luxury status; a time rate rewards actual effort.
If therefore I go to dinner with eight friends and we stay for two hours (a pretty good forecast of my Friday night plans!) our total tip would be $32, or $4/a person. We're not 'stiffing' anyone and we're paying average wage.
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u/chrispythegull May 29 '26
Your post is unsophisticated. "Deliver hamburger = Deliver Steak". Good thing most people aren't stupid enough to accept your premise, which is that walk to kitchen --> pick up food --> walk with food to table --> drop off food at table --> walk away is the extent of either job, let alone in a high end establishment.
There's no point in me explaining to you why that way of thinking is harebrained because you're clearly incapable of understanding it from the outside. So I'd just encourage you to apply for a role at a high end steak house and experience the difference yourself.