
I dare you to read this and still feel good about tipping - colinprince
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/18/i-dare-you-to-read-this-and-still-feel-ok-about-tipping-in-the-united-states/
======
brighteyes
Some of the points raised are good, but there are arguments to be made the
other way as well.

For example, the article is very concerned that the current tipping system is
unfair to the poor. But since tipping is optional, it lets people adjust it to
their income. In other words, if tips are a fixed 18% mandatory thing - as the
article suggests - then it prevents poor people from tipping less (and rich
people from tipping more). In other words, it creates a new unavoidable cost
for poor people.

And some of the arguments are not compelling. For example, it seems that
mentioning slavery is used primarily to elicit an emotional response. While
perhaps slavery factored into things in the past, tipping seems similar in
other countries that do not have a history of slavery. Compare the US and the
UK, for example.

~~~
dalke
The article _does not_ suggest an 18% mandatory tipping. It reports the
results of a high-end restaurant which put 18% mandatory tipping into place.

Nor was that the only suggestion in the piece. In the interview with Saru
Jayaraman, Jayaraman says:

> What I have been advocating for is what already exists in seven states,
> including California, which is that every employer be required to pay the
> full minimum wage to all workers, and people get tipped on top of that.

This still means that someone who does not wish to tip, perhaps from poverty,
does not need to do so.

You say "While perhaps slavery factored into things in the past, tipping seems
similar in other countries that do not have a history of slavery." But that's
irrelevant. The context is:

> Among the many things she uncovered is that the federal tipped-minimum wage,
> which allows restaurants to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 per hour
> in the United States, is rooted in a regrettable period in this country's
> past: slavery.

Different countries can have different routes to the same end-point. Note the
commentary about how:

> When rich Americans traveled to Europe in the 1850s and 1860s, they stayed
> at hotels and dined at restaurants. When they came back, they tried to show
> off that they knew the rules of Europe and how to tip, and those were the
> environments in which they tried to tip first.

The argument is the European practices came to the US, and were used in
situations like restaurant workers and train porters which were the servant
class in Europe and primarily done by poor blacks in the US.

Then the professionalization movement of the late 1800s - ‘we are
professionals, and we shouldn’t have to live on tips, because we should be
paid by our employers.’ - spread from the US to Europe and killed off tipping
in most of Europe, but didn't take root in the US for the ex-slaves working in
the lowest paying jobs in the US.

So I find it hard to accept your objection that there should be a comparison
of the US with other countries, when the article makes that comparison.

The UK and US tipping situations are not so similar. According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#United_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#United_Kingdom)
, 10% is common in the UK, while it's 15% in the US. In addition, all staff in
the UK must be paid the national minimum wage, while in the US, tipped
restaurant staff have a lower minimum wage. Much of the article concerns why
there is a difference in those two minimum wages in the US.

~~~
brighteyes
> This still means that someone who does not wish to tip, perhaps from
> poverty, does not need to do so.

No, they still do - the cost is moved from the tip to the base salary.

The total money received will be the same, on average. But when tipping, there
is more flexibility and variability, and that benefits poorer people.

It's similar to coupons - they take a little time to use, and they save a
little money. The poor benefit from them, while the rich ignore them. If
instead prices were lowered uniformly to the same average, the poor would lose
and the rich would gain.

Also similar is the "pay what you want" model used by Humble etc. Given the
choice to pay less, the poor can use that opportunity. More payment
flexibility is good for the poor, and removing tips removes that flexibility.

I'm not saying tips are good. Just that there are valid arguments going both
ways.

~~~
dalke
> the cost is moved from the tip to the base salary.

But that's an argument against minimum wage, not an argument against tipping.

And no, it isn't simply that shift of payment. It also aligns the goals of the
wait staff with that of the restaurant. Because when the wait staff has two
employers - the restaurant and the customer - there will be conflicts about
putting personal profit through tipping ahead of the restaurant's.

> and that benefits poorer people

Citation please?

Because the article quotes Jayaraman as saying:

> "even in places like New York and D.C., seventy percent of tipped workers
> are actually women, largely working at casual restaurants, like Applebees,
> IHOP , and Olive Garden, earning a median wage of $9 an hour when you
> include tips. These people suffer three times the poverty rate of the rest
> of the U.S. workforce, use food stamps at double the rate, and, the worst
> part, suffer from the absolute worst sexual harassment of any industry in
> the United States. When you’re a woman living on tips—even if you’re making
> a lot of money on tips, which most women aren’t—you’re subject to the whims
> of the customer, and really encouraged by management to objectify yourself
> or subject yourself to objectification to make money in tips."

and quotes Porter as saying:

> Studies have shown that tipping is not an effective incentive for
> performance in servers. It also creates an environment in which people of
> color, young people, old people, women, and foreigners tend to get worse
> service than white males. In a tip-based system, nonwhite servers make less
> than their white peers for equal work. Consider also the power imbalance
> between tippers, who are typically male, and servers, 70 percent of whom are
> female, and consider that the restaurant industry generates five times the
> average number of sexual harassment claims per worker. And that in many
> instances employers have allegedly misused tip credits, which let owners pay
> servers less than minimum wage if tipping makes up the difference.

It sounds very much like having the same minimum wage for tipped and non-
tipped staff would directly and clearly benefit poor people, for the multiple
reasons given.

While your argument is, well, hand-wavy.

When I had little money, I simply didn't go places which had tipping. It was
either cheap fast food where no tipping was required, or I made my own. So I'm
also struggling to understand how many poor people - as in, on food stamps,
like the above mentioned restaurant workers - go places where tipping is
expected, and don't tip.

Furthermore, there are plenty of stories about how black people are
stereotyped as poor tippers. Eg, [http://www.ebony.com/news-views/are-black-
people-really-bad-...](http://www.ebony.com/news-views/are-black-people-
really-bad-tippers-981) and
[http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2008/10/do-black-
cu...](http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2008/10/do-black-custom.html)
. There's even wait staff who will give bad service to black customers.
Quoting from a comment in the second link:

> It got to a point even the black waiters did not want to wait on fellow
> blacks because they knew they'd get stiffed. I got to a point I was so tired
> of being stiffed and putting up with their demands, I would put ciggerette
> ashes in their food or mix in food from the garbage cans with their food.

What you suggest - that poor people simply don't tip because they don't have
money - means that obviously poor people (which are also disproportionately
minorities) will get bad service just because the wait staff will believe they
are going to "get stiffed."

Thus, I still find it hard to believe that a significant number of poor people
are going to restaurants with tipping, and not tipping; because if they did so
they would get this sort of horrible treatment by some of the waiters.

So, why not pay everyone a decent wage, and completely get rid of the social
obligation to tip? Then poor people, and minorities, will be treated the same
as middle class and rich customers.

~~~
dalke
I'll add to that - by your logic shouldn't medical doctors and car mechanics
also switched to being tipped positions? That way rich people can voluntarily
pay more through tips, while the poor people don't need to tip.

Since that doesn't happen, and likely won't happen, that strongly suggests
that your argument isn't valid.

