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submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

Summary

Tipping in U.S. restaurants has dropped to 19.3%, the lowest in six years, driven by frustration over rising menu prices and increased prompts for tips in non-traditional settings.

Only 38% of consumers tipped 20% or more in 2024, down from 56% in 2021, reflecting tighter budgets.

Diners are cutting back on outings, spending less, and tipping less. Some restaurants are adding service fees, further reducing tips.

Worker advocacy groups are pushing to eliminate the tipped-wage system, while the restaurant industry warns these shifts hurt business and employees.

Key cities like D.C. and Chicago are phasing in higher minimum wages for tipped workers.

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[-] pyre@lemmy.world 107 points 1 month ago

good work Americans, keep it up.

don't stop until the rate is 0%. paying workers is the employer's job.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Yeah! Thank you so much for punishing the servers and delivery drivers instead of business owners and making it harder for me to pay rent and feed myself! You're all such wonderful people!

[-] hark@lemmy.world 44 points 1 month ago

That's like employers holding someone hostage and then claiming any harm that comes to them is your fault.

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I feel like this is 90% of politics; a gun is held to someone's head for a hostage demand, and to not give in to the demand is to be as bad as the shooter themselves.

"How could you shoot down my bill for a Coal Chugging Committee? It would've created so many jobs111"

[-] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

You're still not supposed to shoot the hostages.

[-] AtariDump@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[-] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 32 points 1 month ago

How about you be angry at the business owner for paying a shit wage? Tips should be a bonus you get for a job well done not something that makes your life liveable, that's what your wage is for. We aren't to blame if your boss is a piece of shit who refuses to pay you a liveable wage.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I assure you I am also angry at my corporate masters, but they're irredeemable scum and aren't on Lemmy. It angers me more when I see people cheering that food is being taken out of my mouth as though it's some virtuous blow to my bosses. It's not. You're only further exploiting already exploited people

[-] asret@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

It's so much nicer travelling in places where service workers are valued by their employers.

I still support the anti-tipping people though - it's the single best option they have to effect change. It's something small, concrete, and moves things to the desired end-state.

Stop tipping and donate the amount to community organizations fighting poverty instead.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Or better yet advocate for a minimum wage that is actually livable so people don't have to rely on charity organizations that often come with religious strings attached.

[-] AtariDump@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

It angers me when I have to subsidize someone else’s wages because they’re not built into the price I’m paying.

Do you tip the cashier at the grocery store? The technology employee who recommended what TV to buy? The book store worker who helped you find a book?

No, you don’t.

Why? Because their pay is already factored into the price of the goods being sold or the service being provided.

If anyone’s stealing food from your mouth it’s your employer.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Yes, blame the exploited for their exploitation and never acknowledge your participation in it. You are a good American

[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 month ago

the exploited are in on it in this case. Because, by federal law, "below minimum wage jobs" don't exist. You either make minimum with tips, or the employer is forced to pay the full amount. So the problem is wage theft. That is not the concern of the clients, but of the relevant authorities, if the servers bothered to report, of course

[-] prole 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Try to live off $7.25/hour, let alone raise a family. Servers make even less (~$3 something/hour?).

This shit is so fucking tone deaf and misguided.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
[-] don@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

“No! No! My employer shouldn’t be paying me a living wage, the people I serve should be paying me my living wage! My employer is categorically not at all responsible for paying me!”

— you, a very wonderful person, and a damned good American!

[-] prole 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Dude, read the thread, Glytch is not saying that! Holy shit you people are dense...

You are supporting the exploitation by using the service in the first place.

100% of the tip is given to the driver (in the case of delivery apps), and refusing to tip does nothing but directly hurt other working class people.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

By continuing to support a business that you know exploits its workers you participate in the exploitation of those workers. Your desire to not pay for services rendered only amplifies said exploitation and does nothing to incentivize its cessation.

To paraphrase PBS: Exploitation is made possible by customers like you.

[-] don@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[-] AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Don’t feed the trolls. :)

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[-] prole 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm with you, these replies are delusional. Saying that the employer has to pay minimum wage if the servers don't get tips is so ignorant it's insane. Servers make like ~$3/hr in a big chunk of the US. That's slave labor in our modern economy. $7.25 is not much better.

They think they're making some grand statement by tipping their UberEats driver $0, while in reality they're just taking money directly from other working class people. And if they actually wanted to make a statement, they would not have used UberEats in the first fucking place.

Edit: To be perfectly clear, when I say servers make $3, I am referring to the federal minimum wage for servers, and yes it is different and much lower than $7.25/hr.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

I also agree with you but i wanted to point out that if the worker getting paid $3/hr doesn't make enough tips to cover the remaining $4.25/hr in tips then theoretically the business is legally supposed to make up that remaining hourly difference. -I've never seen that happen but a server making such a low amount in tips repeatedly is a server i'd expect to not remain working in that role.

[-] prole 1 points 1 month ago

You are mistaken. The US has two different federal minimum wages. Servers have a lower minimum wage. It's like ~$3/hour.

[-] fartemoji@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa

According to the DOL, an employer may not pay their employees less than $2.13 per hour even if they make enough tips that they'd still be making minimum wage just off of tips. So there is a separate, lower minimum wage for tipped workers.

At the same time though, tipped workers still have to make the full (federal) minimum wage. If your $2.13 per hour plus your tips only come out to $6 per hour, your employer has to pay the other $1.25 per hour.

Enforcement is another issue, of course, but tipped workers have the same minimum wage as everybody else. The tipped wage just allows businesses to count tips as wages up to a certain point. If a tipped worker is only being paid $3 per hour because they didn't get enough tips, that business is stealing their labor and needs to be smacked.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I was a server in addition to an Office Assistant that adjusted payroll among other things in the hospitality industry here in the U.S.
-That additional amount is supposed to be made up for by the employer if the server doesn't make enough in tips. If as a server you are not making at least 7.25/hr in wages or alternatively in combined pay and tips then you need to contact your local states Department of Labor because you're likely having wages stolen.

[-] prole 3 points 1 month ago

Yes, and the way to take that anger out on the business owner, is not by withholding a tip to the working class driver (who receives 100% of the tip, btw), it's by not using the fucking service in the first place.

[-] dellish@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

You're a victim of the system you're protecting. Enough with the Stockholm Syndrome.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

The ones funding my bosses and not me are doing a lot more to protect the system than I am. Not tipping has no effect on the employer and only punishes the person providing you a service.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 15 points 1 month ago

Your employer is required to pay you minimum wage if tips don't make up the difference. If people stop tipping entirely, it actually will impact your boss.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

A. Wage theft is widespread and hard to fight without money

B. Minimum wage hasn't been a livable wage since the 70's

[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 month ago

different problems. Maybe try to tackle those instead?

[-] Liz@midwest.social 6 points 1 month ago

Sounds like you need a union.

[-] DuckWrangler9000@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This makes absolutely no sense. Do you even think before you type or...?

[-] prole 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They're absolutely correct though and it makes perfect sense. This is a systemic problem. Don't use the service at all if you want to make a statement.

Use the service, and then refuse to tip (100% of which goes to the driver btw), and you are doing nothing but directly hurting other working class people. Good job.

[-] Glytch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Customers fund businesses. Customers who don't tip still fund businesses. Not tipping makes no impact on the business's pay scale.

[-] x00z@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Tipping only benefits your employer.

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Not tipping has no effect on the employer and only punishes the person providing you a service.

We're here talking about it

[-] abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

I mean this is the better way to do it honestly. People generally tipping less means those positions basically pay less. The whole reason people work those jobs is because with good tips you can make some serious bank. Stop making bank, people will move elsewhere, can't hire servers because tips don't pay well enough? Then start paying them. If the alternative is everyone just stops tipping tomorrow then people would really be screwed, because they wouldn't have time to transition.

Sure it sucks they're getting paid less, but if the alternative is this "you better pay our workers so they can eat because we ain't gonna do it" then I'd say it's a pretty welcome change.

It's also not like the tip amount dropped to 5% or something. Prices have been going nuts lately, so the tips are probably about the same cash amount as they have been, which is just a smaller percent of the now larger bill.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

"I mean this is the better way to do it honestly."

It's not. The better way is for people who don't want to tip to stop going out to places or using services where tipping is customary. That way nobody is increasingly encouraged to perform labor for less than they're work is worth. If there are not enough customer's because of this then the businesses will change or perish. All of this anti-tipping sentiment leads me to believe is that if these customers were to trade places with the owners then they'd pay their laborer's just as little.

[-] AtariDump@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

That way nobody is increasingly encouraged to perform labor for less than they're work is worth.

You negotiated what your labor is worth when you took the serving job; below minimum wage. Don’t like it? Go find a non tipped job that doesn’t rely on patrons subsidizing your wages.

What other industry relies on paying for something and then having to pay more after you’ve already paid the agreed upon price?

[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 month ago

there are no "below minimum wage jobs". Minimum is minimum. If you don't tip, the employer has to pay the full minimum wage. If you end up with less than minimum wige, then you were stolen from by your employer. The proper response to which is to go to the authorities, which take this kind of thing quite seriously, not guilt tripping the clients

[-] AtariDump@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago
[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 month ago

yeah those are both ignorant of the law. No, the job pays minimum wage. If you don't tip, the employer must.

Wage theft is what's going on. Which is a different problem. And if that is solved and minimum wage isn't enough, then that's a minimum wage problem. Which affects everyone. Servers aren't special. Neither require tipping.

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[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 month ago

nah, by law if nobody tipped, they'd have to be paid by their employer in full. You're not punishing them, you're just not accepting responsibility that, by law, is not yours

[-] prole 3 points 1 month ago

Paid in full to... checks notes, ~$3/hour (if they make server rates) or $7.25/hour (if they make federal minimum wage)? Wow. Not sure if they make the higher or lower of the two, but either way...

Also, lots of places straight up just won't do that. They might eventually get caught, and pay a fine or whatever.

Refusing to tip, at the consumer level, will change nothing besides ruining the day/week of the person delivering your order.

[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago

there are no server rates. minimum is minimum. the server rate only applies if you tip.

this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
521 points (100.0% liked)

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