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Comment by mmanfrin | Hacker News Reader

Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis.

e: Addressing common replies:

"This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.

"Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is. Uber used to bar drivers form asking, but they recently lost a lawsuit over that rule and so now Uber drivers will occasionally ask for tips (which will cause it to slowly become the norm). When tipping becomes the norm, the low-base-wage of the driver becomes less of an 'issue', and then tipping becomes even more of a necessity as that is where the drivers will make their actual margins.

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> Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price.

Waze Carpool is more targeted at actual ridesharing (and designed specifically to support to/from work carpooling), not a taxi service using "ridesharing" as a misleading name.

Its not really trying to compete with price as it is offering a slightly different service (its kind of like UberPOOL, except its really focusing on -- though not strictly limited to -- the case where the driver is also one of the passengers with a need to go to the destination, or from the source, or, ideally, approximately both.)

Uber has Uber Pool for the exact same purpose.

Not exactly. Uberpool drivers still don't want to actually go to the destination the customer does. Google's offer appears to be trying to coordinate cars of people who are all trying to get somewhere.

That might circumvent some of the legal issues Uber has had, a lot of cities have ride-share programs.

They are circumventing the legal issues by limiting to 54 cents per mile, which is the IRS standard mileage rate: https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/2016-standard-mileage-rates.... That is, at this rate it's just considered a reimbursement for gas/wear and tear on the vehicle, not actual income for services provided.

No, it isn't because the driver still makes a profit with Uber Pool and they didn't intend to travel where they're going.

In Germany for example ride sharing under the legal definition requires that the driver doesn't make any profit and really just takes people along. If that's the case, you don't require additional/different insurance etc.

If passengers cover your costs then you always make profit indirectly - by gaining experience carrying people and being more experienced driver in general.

Right and after work the drivers and artists that work for exposure get food from the supermarket without paying because the supermarket gets exposure by them shopping there.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Driver with that experience could more easily find a job in the field.

Oh, yes I'm sure there is vast hierarchy to climb from junior, to senior up to rockstar ninja guru taxi driver.

A driving license will be more than sufficient for any driving job and if it isn't, you're applying for a job like truck, stunt or test driver that requires additional training anyway.

For a minimum wage probably you're right. But if potential employer had to choose between someone with experience and someone without, who is he going to choose even if said qualifications are just a "driving license"?

Waze Carpool is fantastic... for the 0.26% of the US that lives in the Bay area.

Isn't this just a starter?

Sure, but it's being used as an example of something that exists, which for the vast, vast majority of the US, doesn't.

My mistake here was forgetting the echo chamber that is HN. There is a world outside SV, but it doesn't really matter.

People on HN are interesting in things that affect their lives. Curse them! I mean, really, come on.

There are hackers outside SV/Bay area, which apparently don't count.

The Bay Area is about 2.24% of US population, not 0.26%.

There should never be an obligation to tip. The whole point of tipping is that it's not obligatory. I get that we've messed that up for a lot of professions, like restaurant servers, but Uber et al have a chance to reset the social norms at least around taxi-esque services and they should take it.

If it's not obligatory to tip then it should be obligatory to pay people a living wage, in any context.

Living wage destroys the ability for people to make a little extra on the side with part-time gigs.

Why would that be?

How is that? A part time job would pay a part of a living wage.

You realize that "living wage" is only a price floor for labor, not a price ceiling, right? It is a guarantee that people are paid at a minimum the amount necessary to support themselves, with various definitions excluding or including that person's family situation from consideration.

Instituting a living wage would in no way prevent you from working extra and being paid extra for that work. I'm inclined to believe you haven't actually researched what a living wage is or would entail to enact, because the inaccuracy of the claim you're making is egregious.

Maybe what they meant is that without a wage floor people working for extra cash could take the job for below-living wage rate, outcompeting people who are looking to support themselves fully with the job.

(I don't endorse that point of view, just trying to make sense of their claim.)

That makes more sense, thanks for clarifying. Appreciate it!

I think what the parent is getting at is that by instituting a price floor, you prevent people from providing services whose utility is below the price floor. In other words, if someone wanted to do extra work that wasn't worth much money (but might add up over a longer period of time), they are now unable to do said work because no one will be willing to pay them for it.

Basically, when setting a minimum wage, you end up picking between two groups of labor: those who work for some extra money (think high schoolers and retirees who would like some extra spending money and don't mind doing menial tasks that may not generate much value to earn in) and those who work to live (think unskilled laborers who do laborious work and feel they are insufficiently compensated for it). A lower wage favors the former group because they are able to offer the services for less (and the quantity of labor demanded will increase if the price goes down) while a higher wage favors the latter because they can demand more money.

Got it, didn't realize that was the argument. Thanks much.

I hadn't heard this decision point framed so clearly in terms of the two kinds of labor each side ends up favoring, that's a great example.

I don't know if I'd be so charitable to call my counter-assertion to the assertion I replied to an argument, but the replies to your reply are indeed representatives of the argument chains that lead to the assertion, and I agree they are phrased well, probably better than I would have. More tangentially I'm now wondering how often leaving an assertion that's the obvious output (if you've seen it before anyway) of an idea framework ends up with other people doing the backward chaining algorithm to give an explanation for you...

There are part time tasks that we might want to pay someone to do, but are not worth paying anyone for at living wage costs: The value and the minimum wage don't line up. Those are often the kinds of jobs untrained teenagers did back in the day. If it's illegal to pay someone to do it for a wage I am willing to pay, then it doesn't get done.

It would be nice if it was possible to have a sensible minimum wage for, say, employing someone over 5 hours a week, but have mechanisms that make it legal for someone to do very short term work at wages nobody should ever live on. There's plenty of people underemployed at 15, 20 hours a week, that would love to supplement that with a bit of extra work, even if it was under minimum wage. In fact, in some cultures this happens all the time.

That work would also get done if we had a citizen income that matches that living wage, and we got rid of the minimum wage altogether.

Now, whether the world would be in a better state by leaving work not done but guaranteeing a living wage or by maximizing work done is a matter for debate: Looking at minimum wage laws alone is not enough to compare policy outcomes. Still, the grandparent was making a defensible argument, whether you think he is wrong (and he might be) or not.

That clarifies GP's argument immensely, thank you.

It isn't a guarantee of that when you tie it to an hourly rate. Anyone who isn't delivering enough value after the rate hike is going to have their hours cut and is going to have a harder time finding a second job, which is something a lot of minimum wage workers have to do thanks to overtime pay requirements. I'm not saying this as some upper middle class libertarian either, I was still working these jobs just a couple years ago. A 40 hour or less work week for me would have kept me in that position nearly indefinitely. Yet raising the minimum wage much higher than it is now would price the people who are most in need of employment out of the labor market. I know you're probably likely to cite recent wage hikes in certain cities as evidence that this isn't the case, but those are areas where a dollar has a much lower purchasing power than it does in most of the country. A national minimum wage of $12 an hour would have made a huge number of the people I'd worked with at a minimum wage job a liability rather than an asset.

Living wage is not defined in terms of absolute money made from a job. Its defined in such that if you are spending your time working for something, it should be at least enough to survive off if you did it 40 hours a week.

Right, but a living hourly wage requirement that applies universally without exceptions prevents someone with a full-time job that pays a living wage (or perhaps much more than that) from doing side jobs that have a price which would provide mutual benefit to both them and the person paying for them, but only do so at a wage below what would, on its own, be a living wage.

This is a real issue (and it applies to regular old minimum wages even they aren't living wages); its among the arguments for why Basic Income would be a better minimum-quality-of-life support than minimum wage guarantees for the working plus welfare for the nonworking, since it doesn't stop any mutually-beneficial work from being done merely because the market clearing price is below an artificial threshold.

OTOH, even people who recognize that the restriction on some work that it implies is a problem think its a cost worth paying for a living wage guarantee given that its harder to get support for (and, arguably, beyond the level of the economy now to support) a Basic Income at a sufficient level in the near term.

The term itself is sort of ridiculous as well, since most advocates for it want a $15 an hour minimum wage, which is nearly twice what I lived on for quite a while, and is far above the median purchasing power amongst all people. And to be blunt, most of the people I worked with for less than $8 an hour were barely worth what they were being payed then. At $15 an hour there is just no way they would be able to find enough employment

Yeah I could take issue with the term too. At least with minimum wage (which has the same issues wrt a price floor, like many forms of work not being worth the minimum $x/hr the law requires) it's the same at the city/state/federal level you live in so you can properly account for it, and in the ideal case is enough to "live" on so proponents are happy. "Living wage" is inherently more subjective. I can live almost anywhere in the US at that place's minimum wage or less -- if I live like a college student, or a bit worse. It's not enough to support a family on. But too often a living wage gets set at some high price it takes to rent a studio apartment alone in your area and eat out every night, and maybe even support a child. It's just a nebulous term.

I live in the Seattle area where $15/hr is the minimum wage now for the city proper. Sure certain businesses still have another year or two to implement it, and other businesses another 5 or so years, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results over time and how well they match various parties' predictions when the law was passed.

I think the USSR tried a living wage. After 80 years of a living wage they had to line up every morning for their stipend of a loaf of Bread and a Bar of Soap.

While I believe people should be paid fairly, it would be difficult to implement and carry out successfully as history has proven.

I believe you're conflating 'living-wage' with communism. Those are pretty different animals.

Russian people were dirt poor because the USSR spent a majority of their economic fruits to subsidize strategic communist allies in order to keep them loyal. A lot of the other communist bloc countries were pretty well off until this subsidy stopped.

Adults should be capable of deciding for themselves if a given wage is sufficient to meet their expenses.

We need to tip in America because the prevalent attitude here is "I don't get paid enough for this shit." It's not so much about paying people a living wage, as much as changing the way people view their jobs and obligations.

Everyone wants to change the world, but how many people will actually pick up a stray piece of trash and throw it in a bin?

If only that were remotely true.

In many/most states, the minimum wage for a variety of jobs is not in the range of "livable". For example, minimum wage for restaurant jobs in Georgia is $2.13/hour [1]. They actually don't "get paid enough for this shit," so their attitude actually matches reality. Tipping is a necessary component of the compensation if we want to continue our practice of letting certain employers have exemptions from labor laws.

EDIT: $2.13/hour is $340.80 per month, if you are given enough hours to make full-time. Taxes etc. come out of that (you will probably see some of that money again when you file your taxes, for all the good it will do then).

(Yes, I know the employer is supposed to top-up the staff to e.g. $7.25/hr. That does not always/usually/ever happen.)

You are correct that paying people more than a pittance changes how they view their jobs.

[1] https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

I waited tables a decade ago. If I recall correctly, it was $2.95 + tips and I believe with a 4% tip-out. So your 15% tip became 11% real quick. So I hustled.

I'm not saying that we should continue to screw over people who rely on tips as living wage. What I'm saying is that if one wants to have the overwhelmingly warm service Americans expect in restaurants, we need to keep tipping. After all, we've heard anecdotes about service in Europe being poor.

Yes yes, they don't tip in Asia, and service is excellent. Don't forget the social fabric is different there.

> What I'm saying is that if one wants to have the overwhelmingly warm service Americans expect in restaurants, we need to keep tipping.

Except you do not give any argument for why that is the case, but just hand wavingly claim it. Why exactly wouldn't it work if tips were abolished, all the prices on the menu are raised to match the average income from tips, and salaries raised to make up for tips? I don't see why good service would only be possible with tipping.

Because customer service is draining. Because even when you get paid $75k, dealing with assholes still sucks.

I'm gonna hand wave some more: most Americans when they think of good service beyond just being quick on delivery. Good service is about having a friendly conversation and building rapport with another person. It's may be weird for those of us with introverted tendencies, but this is Middle America with big smiling teeth.

Now.. by giving me an immediate incentive (tip) to smile through a bad customer's rudeness (or even harassment--please don't ever hit on people paid to serve you, ever), I'll continue to smile and pour on that syrupy niceness even when I just want to tell a person that they're an asshole and never have to deal with them again.

Personally, I have absolute no problem with tipping, or paying higher prices to pay restaurant workers a better wage, but I think people who are pushing no-tip don't understand the complexities in place.

In the restaurant world, at the end of each night, you'd get a huge wad of cash, and you felt you had worked for it (even though it can be argued people tip consistently). So even though the carrot may not be real, it still convinced people to act a certain way.

Now take away that carrot, take away the cash. You just have better paid McDonald's workers.

I disagree completely. For one thing, many McDs employees in countries with a higher minimum wage also have a better attitude, but there are also standout employees at McDs in the U.S. The issue isn't just that the workers at higher minimum wage places are paid more, it's that they are better employees because the managers there can't afford to hire a mediocre one (especially since it's harder to fire them), so they get good employees and train them. And the instances where I've had really good service from McDs in the U.S. are often cases where there's an economic downturn and you have alot of overqualified people taking that job as it's better than nothing.

Service in any restaurant is more a function of the kinds of employees you can attract (through wages) and the amount of training the manager puts into their staff. Tipping is only important in that it allows some restaurants to pay a fairly decent amount of money to attract higher quality workers for only a couple of nights when a straight wage would require a larger time commitment to get the same amount of money. However, a (necessarily higher) straight wage would also allow more workers the opportunity to make a decent full time living as a waiter or bartender, which means you could have really good servers even on less busy nights of the week, but fewer servers on the busiest nights as there's less flexibility in hiring and firing.

Sorry but I worked in a variety of non tipped customer service jobs and I was always polite even when abused because that was my job. If I didn't do my job I would lose my job. It's really not all that draining either. I can't imagine requiring bribes, oh sorry, tips, to do my job.

The biggest difference in customer service in all the establishments I've worked in was management. Training is extremely important and can't be winged, there has to be a procedure in place. Having the highest expectations of your employees and component staffing are a must. And don't be scared to fire anyone who is not meeting your standards.

Poor customer service is mostly a result of poor management. Good customer service is a result of good management.

Anyway over friendly servers make me very, very uncomfortable. I went out for food with my companions not for a social experience with a stranger.

>smile through a bad customer's rudeness

Being nice to assholes isn't something I consider necessary for good service. If anything it's bad service for all the other polite customers who have to listen to their bullshit.

Aussie currently living in NYC: Rarely tipped back home and the service is on par.

There's no reason why it can't work differently, as mentioned elsewhere, but it would require alot of change in the way these businesses are ran in the U.S. and there's not that much incentive. Most likely the end result would be the same as far as service goes.

From having lived in both the U.S. and Australia, my feeling isn't so much that tipping is the reason why the service is better. I've had excellent service in some places in Australia and lousy service in places in the U.S. My feeling is that the management makes a point of emphasizing customer service more in the U.S. than in other places (even in businesses that don't have tips), and this is true across the board. Increased competition in the U.S. is some of it, and just plain cultural attitude is alot.

Service is Europe is not poor. Not by a long shot.

When talking about service you have to consider cultural differences too. I'm american, in the country that I studied abroad in the service expectations were different from cashiers than American cashiers and neither are tipped.

I also would prefer to have much less fake friendliness.

Not sure why you'd accept that very long. I'll tell you how it works here (swe): Most of restaurant employees in the city are organized. There are no minimum wages, instead the union and the corresponding employee organization agree on a minimum compensation. A restaurant that doesn't want to follow the agreement will risk being blockaded by both this Union and any other union that symphathizes, for example their trash won't be picked up. The salaries for restaurant staff are still among the lowest at $3k/month, but still it's 80% of a police or nurse salary.

This might sound like the Union runs an extortion scheme, but interestingly the employers organizations are supportive as it means a lot less regulation and more flexibility. The result of this model is a pretty flat structure in comp: a nice university degree will likely not make you twice the hourly wage of the lowest diner job in the country.

> a nice university degree will likely not make you twice the hourly wage of the lowest diner job in the country.

Why shouldn't it?

Not saying it shouldn't, but it should because qualified work can be paid more not because unqualified work can be paid less. Having an organized workforce that says "the minimum cost for full time work of any kind is a living wage" flattens it.

Why should it?

That's because Sweden uses Unions effectively, and no, it's not extortion.

Working class support for unions in the U.S. has been steadily declining for decades and sits around 50% today.

Do you feel like the unsupported assertion that employers do not obey the law helps to bolster your point? If so, is it because you feel facts are subordinate to emotional resonance?

There's plenty of support for this assertion. If you spend a few moments, you can find it quite easily.

I included that point because there are a lot of foreign readers of HN who may not realize how widely flouted our labor laws are here in the US.

as a practical matter, i don't believe it's possible to have "optional" tipping that doesn't create obligation (even if that would be desirable).

either you create a cultural norm where tipping isn't allowed or expected, which Uber has effectively done, or you have a situation like restaurants, where the tip may as well be part of the price, unless you're cool being the asshole who doesn't tip, which most people aren't.

if tipping is an option, through a kind of cultural game-theoretic pressure, the situation will always devolve into the restaurant norm. at least that's how it is in the states, and short of massive cultural changes i don't see that changing.

> if tipping is an option, through a kind of cultural game-theoretic pressure, the situation will always devolve into the restaurant norm. at least that's how it is in the states

In the UK tipping in restaurants is optional and, while it sounds really weird to say this, I don't think the waiters and waitresses seem to care either way. I don't get a different reaction from them if I tip or if I don't. They don't seem elated if I tip a lot or disappointed if I tip a little. Nobody seems to care and this situation seems stable as it's been this way as long as I've been an adult.

I think it is because they aren't getting paid $2.13/hr like servers in the USA are.

But this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, isn't it? You could just as easily argue that the wages are so low because tipping is pretty much a given.

It's actually enshrined into law - restaurants are allowed to pay less than minimum wage because of tipping.

It's a perversion of the whole norm, since it effectively turns tipping into a subsidy to the restaurant owner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...

As your link says, they are not allowed to pay less than minimum wage. They are allowed to set hourly wages for tipped employees lower than minimum wage, but they have to ensure that the total compensation of the employee averages out to minimum wage.

Realistically, if the restaurant owner has to contribute anything beyond their hourly rate to the paycheck of the server, that server will be fired (or the business is so slow that it will go under soon).

My experience as a server was a lot of < $1 paystubs after taxes on tips.

Not necessarily. I briefly worked at a 24x7 roadside place where tipped employees would occasionally fall under minimum wage due to slow periods or customers who would either stiff the waitress or tip out $0.35 on an egg, toast, coffee which cost $2.65.

That place systematically robbed those staff by refusing to pay minimum wage and falsifying records and withholding taxes based in nonexistent tips. The Labor department fined then pretty heavily -- but that isn't an uncommon practice.

I'm not sure how this contradicts what I said. Your experience showed that the business was not contributing anymore to your paycheck than the normal wage. Had they not been breaking the law, they probably would have fired someone due to the "extra" expense.

Exactly - so any tip just reduces how much the owner has to pay to cover minimum wage, making it a subsidy to them, not to the server, who gets minimum wage either way.

It's not really a subsidy though, it's just a complication of the payment.

It could be a subsidy if it wasn't an established custom to tip, but people know quite well that they are paying the server a tip for the service.

I suppose the fact that it enables the restaurant to under-report wages and thus under-pay wage taxes is a bit of a subsidy (but then some of that savings probably shows up for the customer).

It is a subsidy, because the server gets the same, it's the restaurant that pockets the difference.

Say the server works 40h/week like a regular full-time worker, so the minimum take-home pay under federal law is $15000. If the server gets $0 in tips, the restaurant must pay the $15000. But if the server gets, say, $5000 in tips, the restaurant can pay only $10000.

The server gets the same money, only the restaurant gets to save some.

Right. In practice, servers get $15000+ in tips. So there usually isn't a subsidy.

It also has a non zero impact on the menu prices (they would go up if tipping wasn't expected)

Seattle recently passed $15 minimum wage and now a lot of restaurants are charging a "service fee" and putting up signs that discourage you from tipping. A much better system imo.

Washington State specifically doesn't allow tipped employees to be paid a lower hourly wage!

What's the point of a service fee on top of the cost of your meal though? Why not incorporate it into your meal, since it's non-optional.

I noticed they did this in Singapore. You'd be charged a service fee on top of your bill, I can't remember if they popped tax on top of that too. If it's non-optional, it should be included in the cost.

>What's the point of a service fee on top of the cost of your meal though?

For the same reason airlines don't include mandatory charges in their fares - humans are not particularly good at rational pricing evaluation.

It's known as partition pricing and generally results in higher revenues - from "The Effects on Perceived Restaurant Expensiveness of Tipping and Its Alternatives": [1]

"Furthermore, participants ordered more expensive meals when automatic gratuities were added to the bill than when the costs of service were built into menu prices"

[1] http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

Because if you raise menu prices by 20% customers will balk. Maybe eventually when people are used to the new system that will happen.

The differential between server minimum wage and regular minimum wage used to be much lower, but the regular minimum wage keeps getting adjusted up due to inflation &c.

In Poland a common wage per hour for a server is 5 pln(low end) - 10 pln(high end)/hour = 1.28/2.56 USD. Tipping is just weird, full stop.

> Tipping is just weird, full stop.

How does this conclusion follow from your previous statement?

Servers are actually never paid that wage. If a server's tips do not elevate them above the standard minimum wage, the restaurant is required to compensate them at the standard minimum wage. This was at least the law when I worked in the service industry.

Yes, very true.

The fact really is in the USA if we eliminated tipping, the cost of the food on the menu would just go up by $X number of dollars, and people don't want that, they want low prices for the items on the menu which is why the system also is the way it is.

I don't believe you. No one I know likes tipping. It's awkward no matter how you slice it. We would all much rather just pay what it costs and not have to tip.

Looked it up. You were right. Well, at least in the pay structure. 85% of surveyed people prefer a tipping pay structure to including it in the price of food.

I think it has to do with the perceived idea that tipping leaves the diner in control and leaves the ability to punish a bad waiter. Maybe I'm wrong about that too.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/2013/04/18/tipping-in-rest...

There was a freakonomics episode on this. People believe they have control, but it turns out that , even if the amount people tip differs per person, people basically never change how much they tip.

No job wherein the customer directly employs you should give customers direct control of employees wages. Can you imagine the custom applied across the board.

I'm sorry doctor that appendectomy scar is a bit to big for my liking I'm only tipping you $180.

Honestly, this would greatly improve medical service in the US. Unfortunately, for sums this big there would be too many people willing to be dicks even when the service was good, so the system wouldn't work for that reason.

I don't think people (as least zero of the people I associate with) have any problem with tipping in the United States - it's just so understood it's what you do when in a restaurant, that the only question is usually one of "(A) I'm Lazy, don't want to calculate, 20% tip, (B) I'm being anal, figure out exact 18.5% tip, (C) Got poor service, 15% tip, (D) Waiter spit in my food and was really obnoxious/rude to me - 10% tip (but be prepared for further hostility when you do this)."

After doing this for enough years, it becomes a background task that you don't even really think of, no awkwardness.

> Waiter spit in my food and was really obnoxious/rude to me - 10% tip

It is absolutely insane to me that you would tip anything at all in that case. US tipping culture is crazy.

In what situation would you give 0% tip?

I have never given a 0% tip in the United States. If the service is that bad, get the manager, have them fired - but as long as they are working, they should be paid. Not tipping is equivalent to asking someone to work without salary. Tipping 10% is pretty damn aggressive, and the few times that I've done it, it's certainly gotten a reaction.

What people have to understand, is that a "Tip" in the United States for a server == Salary, not some nice additional money. It's how they pay their rent/buy their groceries/feed their children.

How, exactly, does not tipping result in someone not being paid. A bit hyperbolic.

Not hyperbolic at all. If you read through this thread, the "salary" they are paid assumes that they are making money through tips. It doesn't get adjusted if they are tipped less.

What? They are paid the standard minimum wage if they aren't tipped. It's actually the opposite of what you're saying. Their hourly pay from their employer DOES get adjusted when they are tipped below a rate which satisfies the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

That presumes first class (or at least credible) payroll management, which, while there are probably instances of in the Restaurant Industry, is less common than one might hope. In practice, waitresses are paid their minimum server wage and are then on their own to scrounge up tips to make up the difference. For each case where we can find where a restaurant actually made up the difference in missing tips, we will likely also find several examples of where it doesn't happen.

And, while that "$7.25/hour" is OK in some place like Terre Haute, Indiana, It's destitute poverty in a lot of cities, so the societally agreed convention is that in order to live/pay groceries/utilities/bus-fare/etc... tips are essential.

It's reasonable to assume that when a serving person in the United Stated doesn't receive a tip of 18-20%, then that money is resulting in a reduction of expected baseline salary.

It's very uncommon, but if the server is outright hostile I'd give 0% no problem. It's only happened a few times in my entire life, though.

I've only ever left 0% tip once. It was because I had to repeatedly get up from the table to find the server, first to order, then to get the check, possibly another time when I needed something and they never came back to check after the food was delivered.

This is the case in every country I have ever been. If you read a travel guide for any country it might say that tips are usually given to taxi drivers, restaurant staff etc, but only in the US has zero tipping almost become equivalent to not paying the tab in full.

Also, when I go to the US with 5-10 year intervals the norms for tipping seem to have always crept upwards.

It's pretty much 20% here it seems.

Then they raised the minimum wage. So restaurants added a 20% service fee on to cover it. Okay, fine. That's actually the outcome I wanted.

Except some places left the tip line. So now people still tip out of obligation.

Never ends.

I'm curious where people stand on the "To Insure Proper Service" backronym? I've always bucked back on that by saying "Well, taking some sense of pride in your work, even if that work is bringing people their food and are enjoying the experience of your establishment should insure proper service, otherwise why not work elsewhere?" but I'm not sure that's a very charitable stance to take so I've been wondering what others think as a means of evolving my position a bit?

It sounds like a pretty stupid backronym to me.

On the other hand, if you know beforehand that you are expected to compensate the service staff outside of the bill from the establishment, you should factor in your comfort level with that arrangement before you order, not act like it is some obscure thing you'd never heard of being done.

I'm against that backronym only because it would properly be "ensure", not "insure".

I find the poor spelling offensive

> only in the US has zero tipping almost become equivalent to not paying the tab in full.

Canada is the same way, do not tip 0% in Canada unless the waiter was abjectly rude or spilled something on you.

I find it strange that the same tipping norms exist in Canada as in the US, since, if I'm not mistaken, Canadian waitstaff are paid at least minimum wage. In the US, the fact that waiters are paid less than minimum wage and expected to make it up on tips is often cited to explain why it is so bad to not tip at all.

In BC, at least, liquor servers have a lower minimum wage than the norm, as they're "expected" to make up the difference with tips.

Unfortunately, you are mistaken. Minimum wage for tipping jobs is much less than normal, in all of the 4 provinces I've lived in (AB, SK, ON, QC).

Am I misunderstanding something? Alberta Labour lists this:

* General hourly minimum wage – $11.20 for most employees

* An hourly minimum wage of $10.70 for employees serving liquor as part of their regular job

https://work.alberta.ca/employment-standards/minimum-wage.ht...

> In the US, the fact that waiters are paid less than minimum wage and expected to make it up on tips is often cited to explain why it is so bad to not tip at all.

Waiters always earn minimum wage in the US regardless of what tips they get. A waiter who earns $0 in tips must still be paid minimum wage by the restaurant that employs them.

See the Fair Labor Standards Act per the United States Department of Labor: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm

By "less than minimum wage", the poster was referring to tipped wage - this is the lower, $2.13 per hour federal minimum which can be paid out to employees who make at least $30 per month in tips.

Since it is expected that tips make up the difference between the tipped minimum wage and the regular minimum wage, yes, tipped employees are actually paid less by their employers than regular minimum wage in the vast majority of cases. This is a large part of why tipping remains in practice - tips effectively subsidize the employer's payroll.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...

A waiter who earns $0 in tips is likely an awful waiter and won't remain employed long. His employer does not want to have to make up the difference on a regular basis.

I'm not entirely sure if I understood your first paragraph, but it seems like you might have overlooked this quote from the page I linked:

> If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages [...] do not equal the Federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.

In other words, the employer always needs to pay federal hourly minimum age. Paying a waiter less than minimum wage would be breaking the law regardless of what tips they get.

> tipped employees are actually paid less by their employers than regular minimum wage in the vast majority of cases

Edit: OK, I think I understand what you mean. I agree that because most waitstaff receive tips, the amount their employers pay can be less than minimum wage. However the amount that the waitstaff receive is always at least minimum wage.

In some parts of the US following labor laws is less prevalent than others. In many places the employer will simply ignore the law knowing they will face no consequences. Please see the south.

> In the US, the fact that waiters are paid less than minimum wage and expected to make it up on tips is often cited to explain why it is so bad to not tip at all.

Where in the world did you hear that?

Can't speak for the OP but: everywhere?

The federal minimum wage for a food server in the US is $2.13/hr. The employer only has to pay more if their tips don't average out to $7.25 an hour.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_St...

Right, so even if they don't receive any tips they get paid minimum wage. It's a bit disingenuous to suggest they make less than minimum wage if they receive no tips.

In theory this is so but in reality you will be fired if you require the employer to do this.

> but only in the US has zero tipping almost become equivalent to not paying the tab in full.

Tipping in restaurants and taxis is kind of expected in Romania, too (more exactly the capital, Bucharest). Granted, the taxi fares are ridiculously low, so even with a 15-20% tip the price only starts approaching a "normal" level. Restaurants' tips are more like 10%. I also tip my barber/hairdresser, but that's because he does a really good job.

that's pretty interesting. any theories on the underlying cultural differences that explain it, or just different established customs?

all the (many) wait-people here in the states i've known really dislike it, and it's generally considered either clueless, rude, or stingy not to tip at least 15%.

i'm curious about things like:

1. if you go out with your friends to the pub, and don't tip on your bill, are you friends giving you shit about it or otherwise commenting or silently judging?

2. if you were on a date, would she notice and judge if you tipped poorly? (i know many women for whom it would be an instant deal-breaker here, essentially a social signal of many other undesirable traits)

You don't tip in a pub, and you don't have a bill either as you pay for each round of drinks as you get them.

I don't know how your date would be able to know how much you tipped, because you'd normally pay using a chip-and-pin credit card so you don't need to put any money on the table or write anything down.

In Australia, no one would expect you to tip at a pub. Depending on how long you stayed there, you might open a tab, but usually people pay by round. With something like Paywave, paying small amounts is trivial.

On a date at a restaurant, they probably wouldn't care. Waitstaff don't really react differently whether you tip or not.

The "cultural difference" in Australia is that servers, etc. are actually paid the same (fairly high by U.S. standards) minimum wage or above for experience bartenders. So tipping just seems kind of dumb in most cases. The bill is the bill and you pay it and move on with your night.

I think there are many reasons why it persists in the U.S. On the server end, it makes it easier for a casual employee to make a reasonable amount for a couple of nights work and you would make much less if you were straight hourly. It also allows service industry employers to "staff up" on those busy nights and not have to worry about keeping too many on the rest of the week. While customers get to do some social signalling, I think that's mostly adjacent to the server and owner's pay scheme.

If the U.S. moved away from tipping, they would need to pay a higher minimum wage, keep fewer casual employees that only work 2-3 nights a week, and the regulars would be either full-time or half-time which means the busy nights would have fewer servers, though maybe more experienced so nearly as productive for the ones that work it as a full time job.

Why would they have less staff on busy nights? How does wage tie into the obligation of giving employees more hours?

Where do you live? I've lived in the south east since I was young and people definitely expect to tip/be tipped 10%. It's not as strong as America but definitely odd not to.

Hmm that's not my experience. Sometimes the card machine doesn't even give an option to tip, so you can't always do it even when you want to.

Optional only in so much that you will find 'Service is included' on your bill, at least in London it's common practice.

Its quite possible this is because their employer keeps the tips. I generally pay the bill by card but tip in cash for that reason.

That's a US-centric weird custom. Not the case in many other countries. I some places (Japan, some South Pacific Islands) tipping is often considered downright rude.

Also try getting Scottish people to tip with game theory and see how that turns out..

I guess you haven't lived anywhere else in the world other than the US then... Because tipping is completely optional everywhere except the US (and Canada). Even the US has only done it this way for about 100 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12tipping-t.html?...

The ultimate problem with tipping restaurant service workers is that servers are legally allowed to be paid sub-minimum wage. The restaurant offloads their obligation to pay their employees onto the customer, and if the customer doesn't tip then the server will not be paid anything for the work. Under these conditions, customers have a moral obligation to tip servers, but that doesn't mean the system isn't a mess. Servers get no benefits, back staff get no tips, but servers get cash and the opportunity to underreport their tax burden.

That is not true at all. Read the law. In a situation where a server's tips do not boost their hourly wage to the federal minimum wage, the employer is obligated to compensate them up to that level. So in a situation where, say, a server was never tipped, the employer would have to pay them $7.25 an hour just like any other food service worker who makes minimum wage.

This really only works if people know about it. If they don't, they won't complain when they're making below minimum wage.

As if managers never break the law. Plenty of managers pool the tips and take their cut from the pool. Illegal? Sure. What can anyone do about it? Only quit.

Quit and report the manager to the labor board. There are whole government departments, federally and in each state, dedicated to prosecuting people who do things like this. If people stop letting them get away with it, they'll stop doing it.

Accusations are easy. Proof is difficult.

At least in India, tipping isn't that bad. We have Uber drivers who are OK to let go a couple of bucks for lack of change.

The point of the service is not for people who drive for a living. It is for people already headed in the same direction to carpool. So the benefit of getting paid is just a bonus as long as it isn't far out of the driver's way.

    "Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is. Uber used to bar drivers
    form asking, but they recently lost a lawsuit over that rule and so now Uber
    drivers will occasionally ask for tips (which will cause it to slowly become
    the norm).

I'm pretty sure I was recently given a low rating by a driver on Uber because I didn't tip. From my perspective the ride went perfectly fine, and I wasn't even asked for a tip, but I checked my rating later and it went down from the perfect 5.0 I used to have.

If this becomes the norm, tipping will become mandatory because all the drivers will know who tips and who doesn't and will adjust service (or lack of service) accordingly.

Drivers rate passengers? Where can I see my rating?

https://help.uber.com/h/e9302f73-8625-427f-abf7-dbe7ab25af7d

FTA: the price is intended to be low enough that one wouldn't try to use this to be a taxi driver. It reminds me of the days when someone offered to chip in for gas in exchange for carpooling.

Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee but have never heard anything about this before.

EDIT: Oh, nevermind.

Keeping up with everything Google is doing is itself a full time job. I barely have time to keep up with all of the gazillion announcements in my own tiny corner of the world that affect my day job, so I'm usually as surprised as anyone when something "big" happens in a different part of the company.

> "Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is.

No, it really isn't. I've never been asked by an Uber driver for a tip, nor would I give a tip if asked. In fact, I'd probably dock a point from their rating.

Put the onus back on the company to pay an honest wage, and let everybody pay the same price for a ride (rather than tippers subsidizing rides for non-tippers).

I took an Uber home from the train station last week and it was less than $15. I'm not sure how much a taxi would've been, probably at least $25.

I don't feel good about it. How can someone provide good service if they're taking home so little? I fear that soon Uber will be overrun with poor service because all the quality drivers have been driven out by low costs.

Talk to your drivers about it. So far they've all told me that they get more passengers thanks to the app, and the pay from Uber's base rate outweighs unpredictable tips.

[edit] NYC, and the drivers are pretty candid about still picking up rides from black car dispatchers and competitors. I have no reason to question their honesty.

I think it's worth considering whether those drivers are incentivized to tell you the truth. I can't say either way, but I wouldn't put it past Uber to instill reasons for defensive praise of the service.

I've had some lousy jobs, and it seems like the worse the job is, the less the employees complain. It's a weird form of denial, or something else?

Safeway bucks that observation. Safeway managed to irritate every employee, including my deceased father. He hated that company with a passion. In his late twenties, he became an electrician, and loved the work, and union pay.

All drivers I’ve talked to (mostly in the London area) told me they are very unhappy with their pay, but because Uber is so cheap, they can’t drive for their old cab companies anymore (all business moved to Uber).

Because those old mincab services were TERRIBLE. Calling to book late at night with unknown arrival times and being forced to ask everyone at the party "hey what's the post code here?" wasn't fun. Bye bye Swiss Cottage Minicabs. I've not had a blanket negative from London drivers though. Some complain but most seem "meh" like moving from one job to another.

Yeah, every taxi/minicab company at any city in UK on Saturday night is like "sorry, there's a 2 hour wait" - and even if you do wait, nothing turns up. In the meantime, Uber is always instant, the longest waiting time I've ever seen with Uber was 10 minutes, even on the busiest time on Saturday night.

Not quite any city. Edinburgh taxi service is legendary - typically under 5 minutes wait time. Lord knows how.

I've always assumed it was because the relatively high taxi rates in Edinburgh meant there was plenty supply and it's not hugely difficult to become a taxi driver in Edinburgh (there is a test, but its nothing like the Knowledge in London).

What shocks me is how slowly the taxi companies are responding to the Uber threat. I use Uber when I can and the price has nothing to do with it. It's better cars, better service, and friendlier drivers (usually).

Every time I get in some yellow cab that's a 5 year old Crown Vic with torn seats, rattles everywhere, and a driver that can't (or won't) tell me how much my ride is going to cost, I remember why I normally take Uber.

Feel free to explain how you think a small, regional company that actually has to, you know, turn a profit, is going to compete with a multinational losing billions a year to establish a global monopoly.

They are getting there, although slowly. They've had all the data and infrastructure necessary to get something off the ground for years, but haven't bothered because they've never had to bother.

I've had the exact opposite experience. 90% of my drivers love Uber, and I've taken ~100 rides so far.

Use UberExec or UberBlack instead. Yes, you pay more for the car, but drivers also make substantially more (and are required to be better).

Uber Black is about 2x the price of a taxi in Oakland, and about 4x the price of Uber X. The mininum fare is $15. The wait times are usually 10-15 minutes vs 2-5 minutes for the trip I regularly take.

There might be a case for that service but the drivers are so rare that it's hard to say.

The Uber driver probably made more than the taxi driver would have because they don't have to pay the hefty daily cab rental fees or rent a medallion. It's not like taxi drivers were rolling in cash before Uber came around.

The Uber driver probably made more because Uber is spending VC money to build both sides of its market to achieve a monopoly, from which (once achieved) it can extract rents to pay investors back (at least, that's the plan.)

Uber also subsidizes your ride sometimes. I had a ride that Uber paid the driver about $60 for (we were talking about the economics of the service and this came up), and I paid only $3.

Either you or the Uber driver in question completely made that up. Nobody is paying drivers $60 for $3 rides.

Then people will stop using it and they'll address it. A lot of drivers are part time and use it just to supplement their income.

I wish people cared about exploiting others, but they just don't seem to care, unless exploitation is so appalling it makes them look terrible. Even then--they rationalize, and go into denial.

Care to detail the exploitation in this situation?

What alternatives are there for unskilled laborers?

I'm pretty sure Uber drivers make more than minimum wage (barely) after expenses and it seems like much more comfortable and fun than flipping burgers or working at Walmart.

Taxi drivers used to spend a lot of time just waiting around. Doing less idling means fares can come down as income stays the same or increases.

Last week I took Uber to work and paid only $1.22 for a 10 minute drive. Five minutes later I spent more than that on the toppings of my breakfast..

.. not sure how this is sustainable but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

I think you were misbilled, or someone forgot to turn on the "meter".

That was probably a promotion, check your receipt. Most places in the US UberX minimum fare is $5+ and even without it, I couldn't find any reasonable combination of base fare, time and distance that would come out to $1.22

http://uberestimate.com/prices/

But no, probably not sustainable (for Uber):

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses...

Haven't looked in detail, but I continue to wonder about those outsized losses. Seems they are monopolizing the market using investor dollars to price below cost.

Many taxi services have been their own racket. But I don't view the above as moving to a better, sustainable model -- not at the current prices.

It seems this -- Uber drivers earning more than the profit/cost structure merits -- is a stopgap towards cornering the driverless car livery ("taxi", etc.) services, at which point labor expenses significantly decline and the old-school competition has been severely crippled if not eliminated.

P.S. I'm not a user of Uber -- or Lyft, etc. Suburban car owner. By I don't like market manipulation and monopolization -- good things don't tend to follow. Even as I watch one friend benefit quite significantly -- and essentially -- from the current Uber presence.

For their sake, as well as the larger picture, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. But I've yet to reach any level of comfort with much of these "sharing" services/businesses.

I don't think it's my problem. The driver freely chose to do this for the pay offered. Why should I second guess that?

Where it gets weird is when people take the taxi instead. This means the Uber driver loses $15, but you don't have to see him...

Already seems like it's happening to some extent. I've noticed the number of questionable vehicles and drivers creep up in the last six months or so.

So little? They got $15 for presumably a 15 min ride? They will probably do several trips just in that hour, and most full time drivers do 25+ trips a day. It adds up.

> "Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is

The driver can put up a sign asking for a tip, but I don't feel obliged to give one.

I don't tip the cook in a restaurant. I don't tip the receptionist at a hotel. I don't tip the farmhands who picked the vegetables I eat at the supermarket. I don't tip the truck driver who unloaded all the goods I buy. I wish all of these people earned a higher wage and I'd be happy to pay more at the point of sale, but I wish the practice of tipping disappeared.

What's appalling to me is that tipping (regardless of QoS) is even still a thing. Tipping was made big during the Great Depression. After the economy rose back up, tipped wages should've been rose back up to match minimum. Effectively abolishing the ridiculous idea of tipping even if your service sucks. Thankfully, a few states have realized how ridiculous the current system is and made it mandatory tipped wages (before tips) are the same as non tipped wages (California being one of them).

Every driver I've asked has said they make more with Uber than they did as a taxi driver. I don't know if it's a decent wage, but it's more than they were getting.

Tipping is in my mind toxic to long term growth of ride sharing. It makes the user have to think, it's just bad UX.

You're against paying less as a result of increased business competition? Are you a driver or an shareholder of Uber/Lyft?

I routinely take Uber and Lyft and have never been asked for a tip. I never plan to tip either because it's not part of the deal. It's the company's job to provide them a livable compensation, not mine. Not tipping is already culturally entrenched in these services, so them suddenly trying to make it a cultural norm isn't going to work because most of us are against tipping culture.

Uber discourage drivers from asking for tips, the Lyft app ask you to give one.

The driver here is not supposed to be getting a livable wage, because the driver should be headed to their full time job that will provide them with a livable wage... the fee here (Google isn't even taking a cut) would be to create a minor incentive and make up for gas/wear-and-tear.

If I have to tip uber drivers, guess i have no use for it. The whole point is to be frictionless.

Anything as long as it is not exploitative (I personally have no concerns over this regarding Uber but I certainly include it as a criterion) and does not involve tipping. Tipping is described as an opportunity to "reward excellent service" but in reality it satisfies the parts of the brain that respond to being given the opportunity to temporarily act as a financial master over other human beings.

In India, the concept has taken off because of Uber and Ola subsidizing the fares by paying the difference from VC money. The moment they stop subsidizing and start raising prices to make them par with what drivers get paid, the consumers will shift back to auto-rickshaws. If they start dropping prices, the drivers will shift back to inter-city routes.

Not feeling obligated to tip was almost the entire reason I prefer Uber over traditional cab companies in the first place.

It's only a matter of time until the cars are completely driverless. Will you feel better knowing that there isn't anybody behind the wheel being taken advantage of, but also no longer has this option to make money for themselves?

I'm not being sarcastic. I honestly don't know how I feel about it either.

I'll take Johnny Cab without guilt. History is littered with jobs that don't exist anymore. Either we'll make more kinds of jobs, or we'll find a way to deal with the fact that we don't need as many workers.

I agree with you. I have used Uber when visiting San Francisco and San Diego and all 9 rides have been great, but the price seems low. We now know that they lost 1.2 billion dollars over a six month period. BTW, I have always used Uber in ride sharing mode, never exclusive. I don't mind cash tipping since I always travel with lots of small bills. The secret of good hotel experiences is handing out of modest tips to everyone who helps you, and including Uber drivers seems fair enough.

EDIT: re: hotel tipping: I tend to stay at the same hotels when I travel. Still, tipping maids and other helpful people should be done regardless of expectations of good service during future stays.

>Uber drivers will occasionally ask for tips

I've never had anyone ask me for a tip. I think that ship has sailed as far as Uber goes. It's now the expectation that you don't tip uber drivers. Hard to see how that changes.

Even if someone did ask me, I'd tell them that one of the reasons I use Uber is to not have to carry any cash.

I, on the other hand, would prefer them to compete on price. I like saving money.

I find it odd to tip for professions where they earn decently; restaurant waiters don't earn much (they earn 'restaurant minimums' or even under the table) and rely on tips.

Uber and Lyft drivers earn decently ($20/hr+ in the bay area, $30/hr+ in NYC), and I wouldn't consider tipping them if I was earning similarly/less than they are. OTOH, if you're a high earner and paying a tip doesn't make a difference to you financially (but does to someone else), then you should do it!

    $20/hr+ in the bay area, $30/hr+ in NYC

Neither of which makes for a "decent" living, particularly if you correct that for wear & tear.

They want to stay below the IRS caps on cost reimbursement for drivers (https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/standard-...). If drivers make more than that, they would have to carry special insurance and maybe be vetted.

That page doesn't seem to mention caps and I've never heard of such a thing. Do you have any more information on that?

Ridesharing law is a bit of a gray area, but I was looking into it a couple years ago, and it seemed to be a dominant interpretation that the IRS limit was determining for whether something could be considered true ridesharing and not subject to regulations that companies like Uber have to deal with. There is a company called Carma that was operating under that cap at the time (but I just checked their site, and they seem to have changed their model to a subscription thing). Here is one link I found in five minutes of googling that mentions using the IRS cap: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M042/K158/4... There are better sources, but I don't have them handy.

OK, here is a better link suggesting that the 54 cent/mile rate mentioned by the WSJ article isn't just about undercutting Uber but also about avoiding legal problems. http://kxan.com/2014/02/25/ride-sharing-app-gets-green-light...

From the article:

"Heyride, a ride-sharing program, was forced to shut down operations in the city because drivers did not have permits, the Austin Transportation Department said. The city says when drivers can set their own rates and earn a profit, that’s when they’re treated like taxi cabs.

“It’s not friends taking friends, it’s the money being exchanged, the compensation,” said Steve Grassfield, with The Austin Transportation Department.

With Carma Carpool, riders pay 20 cents per mile and drivers earn 17 cents per mile to pay for gas and car maintenance. Federal regulations say drivers who earn anything less than 56 cents per mile are not considered vehicles-for-hire."

> "Tipping isn't obligatory"

In what way is it obligatory? The vast majority of Uber riders don't tip, and have no intention of doing so.

They must have meant "culturally obligatory". Americans (at least New Yorkers) have a tradition of giving generous tips to all workers they perceive as not making a living wage.

In other countries, tipping isn't as common and can be even be seen as rude (in Japan, for example).

I'm American and live in New York.

You don't tip Uber drivers. I'm sure some small percentage of people do, but it's definitely not the expectation.

(Taxi drivers, on the other hand, do expect tips.)

> "Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is.

Do you think that if they received, let's say twice the salary Google intends to give them, they wouldn't "expect" a tip anymore?

It's up to you whether you want to tip or not. If he "expects" it and makes it known, give him a lower rating.

If you've had a nice ride than it makes sense to tip but no one should feel pressured out of obligation.

Just rate the guy extra well. Tip him with publicity so he gets more business.

For the past six or eight months, I've tipped every Uber driver. Not out of a sense of obligation though, but because he or she took great care of me.

This is going to be buried, because I'm way late to the party here...but interestingly, Uber automatically sets your tip level at 20% for Uber TAXI in your settings, which you can change down to 0% and up to 30%.

Use Lyft, they let you tip in app then you don't have to carry cash.

Don't feel obligated or bad about it. If the job isn't meeting the driver's financial needs, he'll start doing something else.

The market can sort this out for you.

> yes, it kind of is.

No it's not, and you're ruining things by tipping.

I hate tipping.

Tipping is the worst form of 'wage', and it's sad that restaurants in United States have made it a norm already.

You could always just not tip.

"Living wage"? Are you suggesting that uber and other drivers are all dead?

(I know "living wage" is the hip buzzword, but it is a poor phrase, is hyperbolic, and creates a false picture that when these workers finish their shift they are going to go find some secluded gutter to die in from malnutrition)

No it doesn't.

Frankly, I think that was the intention of the person who coined the term "living wage". But that's perfectly fine. It's like saying "pro-life" instead of saying "anti-choice". Use whatever phrase helps you get your message across.

I'm not in the habit of saying "living wage," but if I wanted to say, "a person can't live on 5 dollars an hour" in a pithy manner, that's what I'd say. A literal-minded person might get annoyed at that, but most people understand that it's an ethical statement, not a literal one.

Many workers not making a living wage receive some form of government assistance, so saying that they aren't all dying in a gutter seems beside the point.

And the point of forcing employers to pay a living wage is so that we don't have to subsidize their businesses via government assistance to their workers.

Well, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's the entire point, but it is definitely a compelling reason.

Whether there are good intentions(1) or not, the inevitable consequence of a "living wage", minimum wage, or whatever you call it, is unemployment among the least skilled--typically minorities and youth.

(1) There is plenty of evidence that unions pushing for increases in minimum wage is anything but good intentions and is a desire to boost the demand for union labor. This is especially evident by the fact that in many cases the increase in the minimum wage specifically excludes labor unions.

https://www.dol.gov/featured/minimum-wage/mythbuster

> Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.

> Not true: In a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders urging a minimum wage increase, more than 600 economists, including 7 Nobel Prize winners wrote, "In recent years there have been important developments in the academic literature on the effect of increases in the minimum wage on employment, with the weight of evidence now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market. Research suggests that a minimum-wage increase could have a small stimulative effect on the economy as low-wage workers spend their additional earnings, raising demand and job growth, and providing some help on the jobs front."

The "academic literature" purporting that the minimum wage has no affect on unemployment has deep flaws and has all been disproven. If not so, why not raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour? If it has no affect on unemployment, lets stop pussyfooting around and lets eradicate poverty, right?

The literature I've seen does not purport that no conceivable change in the minimum wage would have any effect on unemployment levels.

It instead concludes that changes within certain specified ranges have not, and should not be expected to, have significant effects on unemployment. (And, much of that academic literature reaching those conclusions is pointing to the actual results refuting earlier models which projected stronger responses.)

>The literature I've seen does not purport that no conceivable change in the minimum wage would have any effect on unemployment levels.

That alone demonstrates the answer in the above linked DOL "mythbusters" to be false, or at least deliberately misleading. Let's break down their response:

>with the weight of evidence now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers

They point to past increases in minimum wage which, according to their selected studies, had "little or no" impact on unemployment, but never has any past increase tried to more than double the minimum wage as some strive to do today. The DOL's answer does not address the question posed.

Regarding the aforementioned studies, even if we take their conclusions to be accurate (which I do not--their methodology is deeply flawed), using them to justify today's "fight for 15" is comparing apples to oranges.

> but never has any past increase tried to more than double the minimum wage as some strive to do today.

That's true, but not by a large margin; the biggest %age one-time increase in the federal minimum wage in the past was 87.5%, a one-step increase to $15 now would be just under 107%.

> Regarding the aforementioned studies, even if we take their conclusions to be accurate (which I do not--their methodology is deeply flawed), using them to justify today's "fight for 15" is comparing apples to oranges.

Show me an alternative model you'd prefer to use to reject the "fight for $15" that wasn't rejected by the actual results of minimum wage increases in the last several decades and we can talk.

Otherwise, all I can see is you rejecting all evidence, but still having no actual basis in fact or justifiable theory for the concern you are raising.

Somehow I feel "ancap" may be ideologically motivated.

>Show me an alternative model you'd prefer to use to reject the "fight for $15" that wasn't rejected by the actual results of minimum wage increases in the last several decades and we can talk.

Tell me which study you want to discuss and/or which methodology is being used and I will tell you where it falls short.

If you're not making a living wage and you're not getting some form of welfare, then... yeah? I mean you might live as a homeless person for quite a while if you make enough for food but not rent.

There are all sorts of living arrangements which don't include welfare, that are affordable and attainable for most everyone. That being said, if housing is not affordable for 99.999% of the population the most glaring culprit is not employers, but local government leaders who prevent the construction of affordable housing.

A hip buzzword from the 1930s, or earlier?

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."

— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

Being old does not preclude it from being a hip buzzword. At any rate, even if that wasn't the best adjective for it, the term "living wage" was just as nonsensical in 1933 as it is today.

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