Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.

To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.

But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.

A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.

  • @jeremyparker
    link
    -28 months ago

    Waitstaff get paid well below minimum wage; tips are required to make up the difference.

    Delivery drivers - and everyone else who isn’t waitstaff - get paid minimum wage. It sucks, but that’s the deal.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      38 months ago

      In the us, tips are not required to make up the difference, tips are allowed to make up the difference. By encouraging tipping culture you are directly allowing the business to offload its wage costs directly to the consumer.

      “An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage. If the employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.” - https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips

      Your broad generalization on employee salaries is also dishonest of course.

      For example, when I worked as a delivery driver, I was initially paid how you explained (except I also got a minimum $2 per delivery) However, it was changed to being paid minimum wage while inside the store and $2.13 while actively on a delivery, and the minimum per run was increased to $2.50.

      Obviously every business is different in how they structure pay.

      • @jeremyparker
        link
        18 months ago

        I had no idea delivery drivers were paid like waitstaff - that’s fucked up

        Your broad generalization on employee salaries is also dishonest of course.

        Hey now, be nice - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      28 months ago

      This is regional, some places don’t have reduced min wage for tipped employees. Servers make the same min wage as everybody else and earn tips on top of that.

      • @jeremyparker
        link
        18 months ago

        Really? I didn’t know that. Everywhere I’ve worked (which isn’t everywhere but it’s 4 states in the East coast and the deep south), the waitstaff got $3.10 - but I admit it’s been over a decade.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      18 months ago

      Nah, that’s not the deal. If it were the deal, you wouldn’t see waitstaff fighting against getting rid of tips in favor of a fair wage because they make more in tips