Thanks for the well-written and thoughtful response, you make lots of good points here about how store management provides incentive to non-tipped workers.

> FWIW, tipped workers typically work for an hourly wage lower than the minimum wage, and are expected to earn the rest from tips.

That's true, and tipping those workers is something one ought to do. My post was primarily in reaction to tipping expanding to new frontiers of employees who are paid a "regular" wage such as most coffee shop workers or waiters in states where there is no special tipped minimum wage.

In these cases, it seems strange that one job (food-related service) deserves tips while other jobs do not. I've seen many posts recently such as "Tip the bill challenge proves humanity has a heart" or "20% minimum tip or else", but have seen no such calls to help employees in other fields.

It does seem like the obvious ideal is that people who work full-time hours are able to support themselves in a non-extravagant but livable way. I don't claim to know the correct economic solution to get there though!