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Part of the issue with tipping culture is that there's a grey area between the "obviously tipped" and "obviously not tipped" roles. This grey area creates space for companies to pay tipped wages, but customers to also not tip because they didn't think about it.

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In most states (not sure if it's a federal law), tip-earners are guaranteed to be "topped up" or "made whole" if their tips don't bring them to the normal minimum wage.

That minimum is still too low to be livable in many areas, Texas included, but that's a separate, albeit related, problem.

I only ever worked a tipped job in California, where there is no separate tipped minimum, but it's a very common refrain from service industry workers commenting online that this "top up" happens far less often than you would think.

Not surprising. The entire point of a tipped minimum wage is to make labor cheaper. Given the scope of wage theft in America, I’d actually be shocked if top up payments were regularly honored.

Sadly, I’ve heard the same. That’s wage theft. And a good reason to do away with tipping and start paying wait staff a real living wage.

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