[bunderbunder]

Tipping in the USA goes something beyond just being culture. We've even got it ingrained into our laws. Minimum wage for servers is barely nominal, and much less than what anyone else in the restaurant is making. It's expected that customer tips will form the bulk of their earnings. So if you believe that people deserve to be paid a living wage for their time even when they're not at their best, the status quo places the onus to make sure that happens on you.

[madeofpalk]

The circular reasoning is what gets me - they get less than minimal wage because they earn tips because they get a poor wage because they earn tips because...

[rhino369]

Tipping predates minimum wage law in America. When they were written the laws just took into account the fact that some people get paid in tips.

Americans got the tipping culture from Europe before it faded away in Europe.

[mikecb]

It's a ratchet.

[rahimnathwani]

> the status quo places the onus to make sure that happens on you.

The onus is on the employer, not on the employer's customer. Implementation varies by state: http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

Some states have a higher minimum cash wage (before tips) than the $2.13 mandated by federal law. e.g. in California this is $9 per hour.

In many places, the employer (restaurant) is responsible for topping up the employees' wages if wage+tip doesn't reach the state's normal minimum wage.

[vertex-four]

Of course, there's no real protection against being fired for failing to make enough tips... and for those who make over minimum wage on tips right now, not tipping them amounts to them making less money.

[sukilot]

Do you work for minimum wage? But you expect waiters to smile for it.

[darkarmani]

> We've even got it ingrained into our laws. Minimum wage for servers is barely nominal, and much less than what anyone else in the restaurant is making.

That's only if the tips don't make up the difference to get to minimum wage.

[jacalata]

That's the "ingrained in law" he was talking about. The law assumes tipping, else it wouldn't make sense to have that exception at all.

[darkarmani]

Ok, i agree and don't agree at the same time. The law does make accordance for tipping, but it doesn't assume tipping or it wouldn't require at least the "real" minimum wage.

[zkhalique]

Anyone remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJCjet2e3U

[joshmn]

Think about it: if we weren't tipping our wait staff, service would be awful, yet, if we paid our wait staff a livable wage, the prices at restaurants would increase ten-fold.

[SilasX]

Restaurant meals aren't 10x more in no-tip countries.

[deciplex]

This line of reasoning needs to come up a lot more, across a wide range of topics from universal health care to cab service and everything in between.

The US is unique in a few ways because it has oceans on either side of it, and is otherwise isolated. In most other respects, what works anywhere else should be expected to work there. If other nations can make restaurants work without forcing employees to take less than a pauper's wage from the owners, and thus depend on cultural norms and customer's generosity to live, then so can America. If other nations can get all their citizens health care, then so can America. If other nations can have elections without spending many billions of dollars, then so can America. And so on.

And if Americans for some reason can't make these things work, it is about time for its people to start looking for the fault within themselves, their government, and their society, rather than discarding the ideas as unworkable, because the rest of the civilized world has already proven them out.

[joshmn]

I might have been exaggerating, but my point is that labor is the most costly thing to restaurants.

I've worked in restaurants and I've waited tables at a very high-level. There are your entry-level Applebee's servers who have no experience, are in the "survival career" category, or have no aspiration to do anything but work at Applebee's. They should earn 3-4x minimum wage, or about $24k a year.

Then you have your more respectable chain: Ruby Tuesday's. 4-6x or about $40k a year.

Something in the middle: Longhorn Steakhouse, 5-7x.

Above that you start talking about restaurant professionals, where they expect to see at least $80k a year. Prices are now 14x, but your server? They're damn good at their job. Never seen a professional in action before? Go to your city's equivalent to Manny's Steakhouse[0].

[0] http://www.mannyssteakhouse.com/

[sukilot]

Making up a stream of arbitary numbers doesn't explain anything to anyone.

[walterbell]

Less middlemen between farm and plate?