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Comment by danaris | Hacker News Reader

Um, way to be incredibly classist. "If you can't afford to support someone else, why are you treating yourself to a luxury of any kind?"

Everyone needs luxuries sometimes. The solution to tipped employees not getting enough money is not to bully people who can't comfortably afford higher tips out of going out; it's to a) encourage unionization, b) eliminate the separate "tipped minimum wage", and c) raise the minimum wage in general. Or, y'know, implement UBI.

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What's sort of funny is the concern about tipped workers is also classist. Tipped workers in restaurants do pretty well, at least in contrast to their hourly counterparts in the back of the house. College educated people often take front of house jobs during college so they empathize with the front of house workers, but the front of house makes considerably more than the back and has far better working conditions. Stand in a 100+ degree kitchen for 12 hours, burning and cutting yourself daily and tell me that the waitstaff have it bad with a straight face, especially after you learn they are taking home twice what you are and that's before factoring in the rampant wage theft in the restaurant industry.

If you had a really good experience and you want to show your appreciation, go in back and tip the cooks.

While there may very well be a higher proportion of college students in front-of-house jobs, the idea that that's the majority of such people is similar to the idea that minimum-wage jobs in general are "for teenagers", and thus shouldn't need to provide a living wage.

They all need better pay, but tipped minimum wage being lower is a further travesty (even with the provision that they have to take home at least minimum wage at the end of each day), regardless of what percentage of college students make up that workforce.

My point is if you feel what FOH staff take home is a travisty, then you should be apaplectic with rage when you look towards the back of house. I don't see that often, it's mostly complaints about bartender and waitstaff earnings.

I mean, I try to ration my rage (there's a lot to be upset about and only so much blood pressure to go around), but yes, I think they all deserve much higher pay, in general.

It is interesting to think about the various ways tips are used:

1. User feedback: customer quality perception

2. Variable pricing: if customer can pay more, they do; customers without as much are not turned away

3. Untaxed earnings: tax authorities set a theoretical floor, but undocumented cash is difficult to substantiate

Are there others?

Obfuscating the total cost when the consumer is making decisions—-the menu price is like the listed price in Google Flights, then taxes and tips are kind of like the baggage and seat fees on low cost airlines.

It's not obfuscation if it's entirely at the customer's discretion.

Google flights doesn't allow me to choose what percentage in fees I feel is appropriate for the service.

> Everyone needs luxuries sometimes.

Then by definition that's not a luxury?

You're confusing the definition of a singular thing with the group of things.

For example, apples are a luxury in that nobody needs them to live (and the same can be said of any single food source - and therefore whether or not we consider something a luxury comes down to its availability and cost, nothing to do with champagne being more or less "needed" than beer), but they are also part of a bigger group we call "food" that definitely is not a luxury.

I...no; no, that's not how that works.

If I were saying "everyone needs to go to a restaurant on a regular basis," then it would be hard to justify me also calling going to a restaurant a luxury. But that's not what I said.

What everyone needs is some luxury in their life. Something that's not just there to keep you alive—something to make life worth living.

Having luxuries sometimes is what separates surviving from thriving. And yes, everyone—everyone, no matter their station in life, their choices, their income, whatever—needs and deserves to thrive.

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