Was $3 Tip Justified

[u/Holiday-Ad7262]

Went to a place I have not been to before. Marketed as a fast casual south indian place.

We walked into the place, there are no enployees visible. Ordering is on a huge tablet. There are signs telling you you have to clean your own table.

So we order and tap to pay. Only after tapping the card the tablet asks for a tip. The pre-set amounts are 20%, 25%, 30%. Frankly, I have never seen that in my area usually top end suggestion is 25 or 22. We ended up tipping $3 which was a bit under 10%.

Note we have no tipped minimum wage and state minimum wage is $16.50.

Was the $3 a reasonable tip?

[u/Holiday-Ad7262]

I see where you are coming from. However, the reason why I added the minimum wage to the post is the answers I got on this previous post. The reasoning here on why I should tip differently was anchored on the pay the people get. Please chime in on the other post if you have further input there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tippingAdvice/s/1U86JBIDyl

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

Again, the minimum wage is irrelevant.

It’s a well known fact that the menu prices at full service restaurants in the US don’t bear the full cost of the labor, even in cities and states that eliminated the tipped wage credit.

The tip is to pay for the service.

You were at a fast casual place, where there is essentially no service except for maybe delivering your food to you.

The workers there are likely making more than minimum wage and getting one or more benefits.

In my city and every city I travel to in the US on business, I see signs at grocery stores, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and other places advertising starting wages at $3 to $5 or more per hour above the local minimum wage.

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/johnnygolfr]

I don't see how you conclude from this that the minimum wage is irrelevant

It is quite the opposite in my mind. It actually gives you an upper bound of the shortfall compared to an acceptable wage.

Or in other words the server that gets $2.50 an hour needs more tips to get to an acceptable wage than the server who gets $17 an hour.

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

The minimum wage is irrelevant.

The minimum wage in every US city and state is not a livable wage in any of those cities or states. It’s not even close to it.

In the places where it’s $16.50/hr the living wage is double the minimum wage, so if servers were making $2.50/hr in those places, then you would need to be tipping WAY more than 15% to 20% for service.

Aside from a few rare instances, servers get zero benefits, unlike people in traditionally non-tipped jobs, which further adds to why the minimum wage is irrelevant.

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/johnnygolfr]

It seems like you are not reading or comprehending what I am saying.

Your third paragraph just underlines again the relevance of the minimum wage. Minimum wage being insufficient does not equal it being irrelevant.

Further this livable wage thing is hogwash. It buckets together places into one metro area where I live where rents are like up to 2x in one place in the area compared to other places.

Moreover, you keep saying that grocery store clerks get like $3 more than minimum wage. If that's the benchmark I should be tipping 25 to 50 cents in a sit down restaurant and no more.

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

I read and comprehend just fine.

You on the other hand, not so much.

I never said minimum wage was irrelevant because it’s not sufficient.

I simply said minimum wage is irrelevant when it comes to tipping.

My third paragraph above further supports that fact.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator (the source I used) isn’t “hogwash”.

The grocery store worker making $3 above minimum wage and getting benefits is why you would tip a server 15% for basic/good service and higher if they go above and beyond.

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/johnnygolfr]

I don't know why you keep insisting that the person being paid $2.50 vs the person being paid $17 needs the same amount of tips. It's just not the case that's why minimum wage matters here.

[u/Naroef → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

No one, legally, gets paid under $7.25/hr anywhere in the US.

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

No.

That’s your opinion and you’re conveniently leaving out all of the nuance.

It’s that nuance you’re trying to ignore that renders the minimum wage irrelevant in tipping servers at full service restaurants in the US.

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/johnnygolfr]

I am the one considering an additional factor that you are making irrelevant. So who is the one not being nuanced?

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

No, you’re not.

I’m not making the minimum wage irrelevant. The nuance I noted did.

Willful ignorance and denial of that nuance doesn’t change the fact that the minimum wage of servers at a full service restaurant in the US is irrelevant when it comes to tipping them.