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Comment by matt_wulfeck | Hacker News Reader

I'll vote on the minimum wage law increase provided we finally do away with tipping.

Tipping is a cultural aspect, not a legal one. Tipping was written into the law because people were already tipping, not the other way around.

As long as food servers are paid less than minimum wage it is a moral issue as well.

Servers earn the greater of tipped minimum wage plus tips, or minimum wage. Of course people take serving jobs expecting to earn more than minimum wage, but it's not the same moral issue if they don't.

In theory employers are supposed to make up the difference if tips don't meet minimum wage. But it's infamous for being poorly enforced.

I agree that is a problem. I suspect it's receding as the percentage of restaurant sales paid by credit card increase.

People who dine at restaurants that likely commit wage theft might tip for moral reasons, but to me, it makes more sense to boycott those restaurants and communicate to managers and owners the reason why.

They can, yes. But the instability of wages is a bigger issue. You can do amazing one day, and horrible the next. Combined with the fact that we teach next to nothing about financial planning in the US, and the extreme reliance on consumer debt by our economy, tipped workers are more like gamblers.

I agree. I would love to see tipping be replaced with a steady wage or salary based on skill, seniority, etc., like most careers have.

It's only a moral issue if the server is compelled to work for that wage. Slavery is immoral. Entering into a voluntarily wage agreement is not.

Sometimes life compels you to do things that are necessary, but not optimal. I know people that feed their family on tips.

Workers being paid substantially less than their labor is worth by their employer is wrong.

I actually do wonder. How is tipping in Europe v.s the US where we always do %10 or so

Sometimes it exists, other times it doesn't.

Tipping just about doesn't in Australia, where we pay a reasonable minimum wage ($17.29 per hour for adults in full-time employment). You occasionally find people will tip a taxi driver or bartender, but by and large it's just not done.

Interesting. Some states in the U.S just raised the wage to $14 dollars but nationally it's pretty low

In Toronto we do 15% to 25%. 10% is really low.

But you have a fair min wage in Canada, right?

It's about 11 CAD.

Not for "service workers". They can be payed below minimum wage because they get tips as supplemental income.

In Italy, tipping is fairly rare. It's so much easier to just pay what the meal costs and get on with life.

In sweden I only tip if the service was better than expected.

In Norway where I live tipping is totally unnecessary, the restaurant staff are paid a reasonable wage. I travel to Poland on business and rarely tip anyone, just a few cafes in touristy spots seem to think they deserve it. I often let the taxi driver keep the change when I am flying out because I have no use for a pocketful of small denomination coins.

Do you say that as a consumer, or an employee, or an employer? I am curious about which perspectives support tipping and which don't.

Consumer: Dislikes tipping

Employer: Likes tipping

Employee: Likes tipping

Ask an employee who works in the kitchen

I can definitely do that. One of my good friends used to work in the kitchen at Applebee's. What are you expecting me to hear from him?

An angry rant about how the front of house staff claim all the tips, or share them, at best, only grudgingly.

Personally, as a consumer I like tipping. But only because it gives me a chance to pay a higher price than I normally would, and to preferentially support small businesses that I like. I could do that by buying more stuff, but tipping is somewhat easier and more direct.

However, overall I think I'd prefer to see the end of tipping culture in America. There are too many downsides to it to justify the upside (which is effectively a kind of market segmentation / consumer surplus capture). For one, a lot of places allow different minimum wages for tipped positions, which is a very bad practice in my opinion and defeats the purpose of tipping. For another, tipping makes harassment (especially sexual harassment) of waitstaff by patrons a lot harder to combat. It also skews the income distribution between the waitstaff and the back of house staff. All of these things are bad verging on extremely bad. And they could be substantially improved by eliminating tipping. So even though I'll miss being able to be generous with a tip when I feel like it, I think it's time for the practice to be put out to pasture.

I don't like tipping for those situations where it's unclear how much is appropriate, for instance grocery delivery at the supermarket says their employees won't take tips but then you talk to the delivery person and they say that it's bullshit, people tip anywhere from $1 to $50 at Christmas. What am I supposed to do? Tip a percentage of my groceries? That's ridiculous. Nobody on the receiving end will honestly tell you how much to tip, because they want you to overestimate it.

But when it's clear what to do, like in restaurants and cabs, I'm happy to tip a percentage.

Some employers dislike tipping because they can't control what percentage of the price of food goes towards paying the wait staff.

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