There have been a number of studies that found that attractive people, especially attractive women, receive bigger tips from customers than other groups [1][2] in some contexts. The implications of this are perhaps just as interesting as women being the primary group disadvantaged by this proposed policy simply due to there being a higher proportion of women than men in tip-receiving jobs.
One could argue that if this proposal were to go through, people in tipped industries would receive an allocation of wages that's less tied to subjective consumer tastes about inherent physical attributes that don't directly contribute to the quality of service received. Though I lack polling data on this, I'm hypothesizing most people would perceive that as more fair.
If this is true, then it could also lead to a reshuffling of who becomes a tipped worker. People who are attractive are currently incentivized to become tipped workers because they are relatively well-compensated in a tipped job. If tips were to go away (or be pooled), this incentive would become much weaker. Perhaps attractive people would shift from tipped jobs into other jobs, where their attractiveness (be it physical or personality-based) are still effectively compensated. Pharmaceutical sales comes to mind.
That's actually a pretty good argument. More equality. And since - as we know from this wonderful article - men are underepresented in this field it would help getting more men into these jobs. What a great win for diversity.
So, non-attractive persons are already discriminated by customers and this could level playing field and compensate for what nature messed up. Why is it bad?
I hate tipping culture.
When I was young and a waitress in college, I noticed horrible racism from waiters who treated minorities badly due to tipping stereotypes.
Summary: there are racial differences in tipping in the US. They persist even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Servers (both white and black) treat expected poor tippers worse than expected good tippers. No one is sure why there is this difference.
I've been to four places without tipping in restaurants, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. I would say all of them had better service than here in the US. In particular, the East Asian countries I visited all have _excellent_ service without tips.
I suspect quality of service has a lot more to do with cultural factors unrelated to tipping.
American restaurant service is by no means good, despite waiters/waitresses supposedly being motivated by tips. It's expected that people are paying the tip regardless, so there really isn't any motivating factor anymore.
America has the problem where calling a waiter over is rude, so you have to wait for them to come over to your area. I can't count the number of times I've been waiting 15-20 minutes just to start my order, and this is often in restaurants that are fully staffed and barely busy. I don't encounter this elsewhere.
I lived in France for a year before moving to the US. Even though French waiters are notorious for having terrible service, I always received excellent service by being very polite to the waiters.
The idea that you are entitled to excellent service because you are paying is pernicious. If you want excellent service, treat people excellently.
Excellent service should be the default, and you only lose it by being an asshole; in other words, I'm not paying for the privilege of having to work extra hard just to get decent service.
Literally the only thing you are paying for is service (the services of cooking and waiting on you), otherwise you'd be eating at home.
I live in Australia where tipping is either frowned upon or reserved for exemplary service.
Perhaps your idea of “good service” is coloured by your own culture. For example in the USA it is rude to summon a waiter while everywhere else it is rude for the waiter to intrude.
There are also different signals such as ROTW putting cutlery together to signify “I am finished” and crossed to signify “still eating”, or whether to place your napkin yourself or have the waiter help you. Then there are different habits such as paying staff a proper wage and not relying on a hangover from slavery to support waitstaff.
You are the second comment that claims it is due in America to soon a waiter... As an American that is complete news to me, and I would think many other Americans would be shocked to discover it is rude.
How else are you supposed to get something?
Of the countries in which I've lived, 2 stand out as regards tipping culture, Spain and France.
Spain has a tipping culuture and the service is mediocre; service is sometimes chaotic (eg food arrives before drinks) and slow, eg asking for bill, paying bill, getting the change takes a long time.
France has a no-tip culture; service is correct, friendly and efficient, despite the stereotype of Parisian serving staff.
My theory is that quality of service isn't related to the tip, but is related to the cultural acceptability of shit service.
I lived in France for years, have visited China maybe ten times for several weeks each, and traveled around other European countries. None of these places has a tipping culture for restaurants, and all of them have excellent service despite that.
I don't remember any time that I've had bad service anywhere in the world. I'm sure I have, but I don't collect that memory and press 'save'. People who have strong opinions on service are too uptight
The servers returned more often in the US than in UK to just check on the table, they returned to get drink orders more often. They brought the check more quickly in the US when we were ready to leave.
As someone who has waited tables as a kid, I know why they did all those things in the US more often. People often tip more on alcohol and you can also get your table turned over more quickly during your shift. In the UK there's no incentive to get more alcohol to tables nor to turn over the table.
Now, I'm not going to explain myself or reply any further, as I'm getting DV.
While we are on the subject of tipping does anyone find it slightly annoying that every point of sale system now is configured to ask for an additional tip? Clover, Revel, Square, etc.
Some have different levels of UX where you are basically prompted to give 15%, 20%, 25%. I wonder where the tip actually goes in this case?
"Tip creep" or "guilt tipping" is simply milking [1][2][3] the social conventions around tipping while you're standing in front of the would-be beneficiary, card in hand.
Most of the tip goes to the seller, of course. But most payment processors deduct their fees from the total amount after taxes and tips, like Square does [4], so if the final transaction amounts are higher, as they are in this case, they make more money too.
Won't most people still assume that if they do supply the optional tip it will go to their waiter (with perhaps some also going to the busboy and/or cook)?
There needs to be a sign that explains how tips are actually distributed.
I'm struck by how significantly the effect varies between states - according to table 2, 25% of the transfers (around $1.55 billion) are accounted for by Connecticut and Delaware alone (which collectively are around 2% of the US population).
Does anyone know why the effect is so strong in these states? In the notes the authors say that Delaware is one of the states with unusually strong protections - so I'd expect transfers would actually be unusually low in that case!
I seem to receive worse service in the US than in almost any other country I've been to.
Other countries: you get the waiter's attention when you want to order something. Normally, it goes smoothly and they leave you alone.
US: the waiter comes over every five minutes to check on you, annoying you and interrupting conversations. They pretend to be nice and overly friendly, and often flirt with you for money. Alternatively, they might forget to check on you, but social norms engendered by the behavior of the group that do make it seem rude to wave or call to get their attention.
Worst of all, the waiter is incentivized to turn over as many tables as possible so they do everything in their power to hurry you through your meal.
Assuming that you are correct in your assessment that the U.S. generally has poor service, that fact would not necessarily contradict the above poster's point that tipping results in higher-quality service in the U.S. You are applying standards from other countries and cultures and assuming that it would work just as well over here.
How American of you! :)
Edit: This is a more general comment that addresses the conceit that the tipping system is merely a way for restaurant owners to pocket more money for themselves. This idea is simply ludicrous, given the staggeringly-thin margins in the business. I have no words to describe my disdain for the kneejerk reaction to attack job-creators at every turn.
As a counter counter point, there are places which don't take tips, and they offer some of the best customer service in the world.
Japan is a good example. In the food service industry, establishments will usually put their own service charge which they think is reasonable onto the bill (usually a small amount). They don't expect (many will refuse to take) further tips because they price the cost to serve into it.
My example is clearly assuming the customer is in the United States. I don't think we can copy a few things about Japan's food service industry and expect to have a similar dining experience here. Culture is too complex for that to work.
Japan's entire service industry always leaves me pleased.
In reality the tip the customer leaves is dependent on the weather, the gender, race, and attractiveness of the server, the noise level of the restaurant, and the number one determination: the amount of the check!
Plus other factors...
Quality of service only makes up 1-5% of the amount of the tip received.
Furthermore, even if tips "insure excellent service," since tip pooling is standard operating procedure, then it doesn't accomplished that goal.
The tip goes to the wait staff. The bill goes to the chief/ingredients/building upkeep/owner. Tipping won't improve the entire experience, but it can improve the service.
If the service can be improved, but can only be improved by bribing staff to do their job properly, that's a terrible indictment of the hospitality business.
Tips rarely go to only the wait staff. Most restaurants pool their tips (for accounting/tax tracking), and share them with busboys, hostesses, wait staff, line cooks, and even dishwashers. At the restaurant I worked at in the 80's, the management even skimmed some for themselves.
The Libertarians had a movement a little while ago where they would "tip" $0 to their waitress/waiter and then "gift" them the amount they'd want to tip (which happens to be tax free)by writing their intentions as such on a receipt.
No idea if this actually works legally, or logistically, but its an option
Always tip in cash. Does it mean employers can't still try and take the cash? No, but at least it's more difficult than if they pull it out of the credit card transaction.
Tipped employees make less:
"According to a common labor law provision referred to as a “tip credit”, the employee must earn at least the state’s minimum wage when tips and wages are combined or the employer is required to increase the wage to fulfill that threshold."
Both in federal law and most state laws, tipped workers have a lower base minimum wage, but have to be “topped up” by the employer to the general minimum wage if their tips are insufficient (but as tips are also frequently used as a performance measure, and many tipped professions are high-labor-supply fields where vacancies are easily filled and thus employers are quick to let people go, tipped employees that would need topped up are under pressure to pad their own tips to protect their job.)
If tipped workers had the general minimum wage as their base minimum wage with no top-up requirement, much of the abuses would go away (and there'd be less employer desire to drive the practice, but the culture would probably endure for some time.)
As others have said, employers have a much lower minimum wage for tipped workers in most states. However, perhaps unintuitively, workers still usually prefer tipped over non-tipped jobs because you can usually bring home more money through tips than through the minimum wage
The fun part about this is that it’s averraged over an entire pay period. That means you can end up working many hours for a marginal wage of almost nothing, as long as there are a few good hours mixed in.
As the other answers have said, they don't for tipped jobs. This is why tipping service people in restaurants in the states is a big deal because it's the bulk of their paycheck and anecdotally there are plenty of shady employers who don't follow the rule about making up the difference.
Yes, but that requires the person knowing that law, and being in a position where they feel they can report it without fear of retribution. Most people who fall victim to wage theft don't fall into those groups.
In California, and Oregon, apparently, they are paid minimum wage from the start, and receive their tips on top of that, instead of being paid some "tipped alternative minimum wage" and then hoping that my employer is benevolent enough to follow the law and make up the difference.
And it's always posted in English and Spanish -- including phone numbers of who to confidentially call to report violations. If people choose not to report violations -- that's really on them. We're generally talking about adults here -- not helpless children.
Yeah, no. If you're in the position where you're told, regardless of what's on the poster, that reporting means you're fired, then you are not in a position to do so.
This fake machismo around things like this, where the immense pressure and power that employers have over their employees is completely ignored, needs to go away.
So the articles says that they can take tips if they pay the minimum wage -- given the minimum wage for jobs that traditionally have a significant tip component is typically much lower than the "minimum wage" (because it's made up in tips, right?), does this mean that they're referring to the non-tip minimum wage?
I would be fine with this if they require businesses who are taking tips to advertise that fact. Then I can happily not tip. Why would I voluntarily pay extra for my meal if it isn't going to the server?
I was mainly referring to general wage discrimination across all industries, but here's a few references for the restaurant industry from 10 seconds of googling:
– The industry follows a conscious business model of confining women to the lower-paid positions within restaurants. Women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home.
- In addition, women are confined to the lower-paying segments of the industry such as quick-serve and family style rather than the highest-paying fine dining segment. So even within the same job classification of server, full-time, year-round female servers are paid just 68 percent of what male servers are paid ($17,000 vs. $25,000 annually).
- Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group.
- Women are pushed toward lower-paying jobs at more casual restaurants, and people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions.
> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home.
This is a ridiculous statement. Cooking at home has zero to do with going to culinary school and becoming a chef. If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men (or at least 80%+ of them,) based on my experience in working in probably 10 different restaurants in my life.
Working as a line cook is often part of the career progression of becoming a chef. At the finer restuarants, the line cooks are often "staging" while they're in culinary school. If anyone has ever worked as a line cook in a real restaurant, one would know that it's pretty brutal work -- lots of dirty cleaning, standing in front of hell-fire ovens and grills for entire shifts -- at a pretty pitiful level of pay. Certainly, women do it, but even remotely comparing that career with making lasagna in a home kitchen is like suggesting that I should be a race car driver simply because I drive a car every day or that I should be a stand up comedian just because I can make my kids laugh.
> Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group.
At the beginning of the comment, we just were discussing how only 19% of chefs are women, but then we complain that women are pushed into the "lowest-paying jobs" -- such as the kitchen. The kitchen is where you start if you want to be a chef. And, most kitchens I've ever worked in had few women. Most of the women were in the front of the house making real money, while those of us in the back were cutting and burning ourselves for $10 per hour with the goal of moving up in the kitchen brigade at some point. The dishwashers are almost always men. I don't think I've ever seen a female dishwasher at any fine dining restaurant I've ever worked at. Obviously there are women dishwashers, but there are a heck of a lot more front-of-the-house women than there are in the back of the house. I've seen very few female busboys. I can't remember a single one. I've seen many men barbacks -- but can't remember seeing a single female barback. In fact, the pretty women are typically in the highest paying position in the resturant (aside from the general manager) -- bartenders. I've been denied many jobs as a bartender because the bar "only hired women bartenders." Although I had no problems getting a job as a doorman or a barback.
> ..people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions.
Chefs didn't start in the kitchen as chefs. Managers typically didn't start as managers. Almost universally chefs started by working on the line. Managers often started as waitstaff or even busboys. Whoever is providing this "data" seems like they've never actually worked in a restaurant, nor experienced how the business works and how people move up in the industry. Also, a non-trivial number of back-of-the-house workers are illegal aliens who are both "of color" and willing to work for far lower wages.
It isn't that people "of color" are being sent to the kitchen as punishment -- but often those with limited English proficiency aren't generally going to be front-of-the-house. In my anecdotal experience working in a variety of restaurants in Houston, black people and white/Hispanic women were typically working as waitstaff -- and making far more money than the white/Hispanic males working in the kitchen. Bartenders trended female, general managers trended white male, kitchen managers were black, white/Hispanic and male. Sous chefs were commonly white male or female. Pasty chefs were generally white or black female, dishwashers were older hispanic men, busboys and barbacks were young Hispanic men. Line cooks were white or Hispanic men. Executive Chefs -- typically white or black males. Completely anecdotal for sure -- but, at least in Houston, restaurant racism was something I don't think I ever saw; and I worked in a lot of places, especially in the high end. I was a manager of a few places, mostly at the bar, so I saw the nightly tip declarations -- anyone making the claim that women make less in tips than men or that certain races make lower tips than others -- I would have to doubt their experience in the business. Women often made more. People of color made just as much as anyone else.
>> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home.
> If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men
So your argument is that the discrimination begins much earlier in the chain?
More men are ending up in line-cook positions that are on the career track to high paying chef positions, yet you think it's the men that are being shortchanged?
If a person has with the same entry level education and experience but is forced to get lower pay and worse work environment, then that is discrimination regardless if it has higher potential to reach a high paying job several years later in life.
Discrimination is antithesis to liberty. The right for he or she to become what they seek out to be without the restrictions of gender roles. Young men should not be forced to do poor work for no pay in hopes to get a chance for high paying job later, and young women should not be forced to do nice and high paying jobs only to be blocked later in life for top positions.
If there is one gender discrimination that need to be destroyed it is the view society has on young poor men and old women, contrasted to the view of young attractive women and old rich men. The work market would look very different if people, both women and men, were not restricted to gender roles.
I have no idea, but the previous commenter said that there are few women chefs because there are few woman line cooks, and most chefs are line cooks first.
I am wondering if "women" in the title still moves anyone these days? People are joking when they see titles like "10% of homeless are women" as if the remaining 90% were aliens from another planet.
"DOL has masked the fact that this rule would be a windfall to restaurant owners and other employers—out of the pockets of tipped workers—by making it sound as if this rule is about tip pooling."
Sounds like this one must've been written by lobbyists? Assuming this article is accurate, why would this seem like a good rule to get rid of?
You kind of answered it yourself, restaurant owners have lobbyists and can donate big to political candidates/movements. The Papa John's pizza founder was pretty notable in the last election cycle and the Domino's pizza founder was pretty big money guy behind the scenes last time I looked. Employees at restaurants won't have lobbyists unless they are unionized.
The politicians driving the change found that restaurant owners are better donors than waitstaff. Or they're ideologically committed to the freedom of the economically strong to wield their strength against the weak. Take your pick.
The percentage of unionized workers in the restaurant business I would estimate at less than one percent - maybe if we count employees of schools/universities there would be an uptick. What you say may be true about other findings from EPI but it's probably more accurate to call this pro rank and file employee.
Here's an idea -- why don't we let business owners decide how to pay their people? If waiters don't like tip pooling, then they can work for another restaurant that doesn't do it. It's ridiculous that the government even gets involved in this -- assuming minimum wage is met and taxes are being properly paid -- what business is it of the government how restaurants operate (beyond health and safety obviously.) Does the government get involved how a car saleman's commissions are paid? How about the compensation structure of other sales-based professions?
Most employers (especially of cheap labor) will take advantage of their employees to the fullest extent of the law. If stealing tips is legal, there won't be "another restaurant that doesn't do it."
We are talking about owners being legally allowed to pocket money that was given directly to their employees to keep. How can you possibly think actual theft is a "free market" issue?
Pure guess but probably to allow for proper taxing of tips. Cash tips are notoriously underreported. I’ve never met any who receives them who claims the full value as income. Most will claim some min to meet a “normal” amount for a work day and pocket the rest.
A law like this would shift that to be income received by the management which presumably they’d have to properly account for. Even if they give it all back immediately there would be a paper trail.
If that’s the case then I think this is stupid. I love the fact that I can tip someone in cash that’s predominantly off the books. Makes me feel like I’m giving them an extra X%.
So you like to facilitate tax evasion? So that tax that's not being paid gets paid by some other schmuck -- like the cooks or the busboys that don't generally work from tips?
I dunno how it works everywhere, but when I worked as a busboy and then later as a barback (similar job), I was paid a percentage of the tips from each waitress or bartender, directly from each individual to me.
Essentially yes. I explicitly tip in cash to allow for the option. It’s up to the receiver to make that determination and I clearly can’t force them to do so. Part of it is an assumption on my part that someone working as a waiter isn’t exactly on the highest rung of society (economically) and could use a hand. It costs me nothing extra to do so yet could have some value for them.
I also go out of my way to directly tip bus boys. Again for all the same reasons as above.
The only cooks I’ve tipped are those with direct interaction with me as a customer. So omelette station, street vendor, or mom and pop diner with one of them operating the kitchen. It’s not that I don’t think other cooks deserve tips, it’s just not feasible to tip them and I assume if they’re in a position not to receive them then their wages should reflect that.
One could argue that if this proposal were to go through, people in tipped industries would receive an allocation of wages that's less tied to subjective consumer tastes about inherent physical attributes that don't directly contribute to the quality of service received. Though I lack polling data on this, I'm hypothesizing most people would perceive that as more fair.
[1] http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487015...