Chicago independently abolishes subminimum wage for tipped workers | Hacker News Reader

Chicago independently abolishes subminimum wage for tipped workers

chicagotribune.com

124 pointstoomuchtodo165 comments

This has already been banned in most of the west coast states. Other states and cities also have tip credit far above federal standard.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping. I doubt that tipping could be banned constitutionally due to past supreme court precedents but we really should re-evaluate and try to get rid of this practice. Why does a certain class of workers get this benefit that perpetuates race and age discrimination (white and young employees get tipped a lot more).

Weird you left out gender and attractiveness.

Attractiveness isn’t a protected class, and gender in this case goes opposite the direction people usually complain about. If you want moral sympathy for a cause, it’s helpful to pick a subset of the intersection between your cause and the morality that will be most impactful.

> I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping

How exactly can they do that? Make it illegal for two people to exchange money? Tipping is a social phenomenon, and it isn't going away via laws.

It's a simple law: "price at the register cannot exceed the advertised price".

Price at the register is exactly the same as the advertised price.

Em.. no, the advertised price usually says "latte 4.50" but at the register it gets mysteriously padded with sales tax, tip tax, foo tax and bar tax, so you have to pay 6.50.

Nobody thinks anything is getting "padded" with sales tax other than Europeans who have never heard of the practice before and can't get over the fact that ~5% (the median US sales tax is 5.1%) wasn't disclosed as if that is making their breakfast unaffordable.

You're never required to tip so the "advertised price" and the price at the register are identical. You choosing to leave $2 on top of that doesn't change anything, even if it's only done through social pressure.

Silly attempt at shrugging off legitimate complaints notwithstanding, at least use an average sales tax when you do.

Now it just comes across as you saying that half the country is above 5%, which would’ve been a more honest statement as it seems considering few states however around 5% combined sales tax: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/2023-sales-tax-rate...

The average sales tax in the US is 5.1%.

Got a source for that?

My source shows that the combined average sales tax (i.e. state, county, city and municipal) comes down to 6.57%, 6.59% if you don’t count DC.

26 of them have an average combined sales tax of 7% or more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#/media/File:Restauran...

Which bit do you not understand? End point taxes are not ubiquitos, and at least other countires have decent laws so people can see what they actually pay.

Uhhh..

> > says "latte 4.50"

> > pay 6.50

> You're never required to tip so the "advertised price" and the price at the register are identical. You choosing to leave $2 on top of that doesn't change anything, even if it's only done through social pressure.

Taxes and tips aren't the same thing. Their $2 example is something you are required to pay.

Not in Seattle, they have a host of fees they add to the menu. That look like tips but aren’t

I'd love this! Not for tipping, but so that we can stop with this nonsense of not including sales tax in the price listed for things.

That could be tricky. When I live, a cold burrito in a refrigerator cabinet is considered to be groceries, and is untaxed. Heat up that burrito, and it's a taxable meal. Also, some non-profit organizations aren't taxed on purchases, so the sticker price is the final price for them.

You can't pre-calculate the final taxed price using the local tax algorithms as they are today. They number can't be known until the transaction takes place.

you can just list two prices for cold and hot

That would be OK in that specific instance. However, there are a lot of rules like that, and I just wanted to mention a couple.

In any case, I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that it may be a lot complicated than adding a fixed percentage to every price label.

if that is the case then the rules are too complicated and need simplifying. that is not automatically an argument to not have a rule to list the full price, but it could also be an argument to remove or change other rules that make things more complicated. the lawmakers here need to weigh the pros and cons for each.

While I agree, I suspect there’s little political will to overhaul the local sales tax system right now.

Europe manages it just fine

For a given class of goods Europe generally has one VAT rate for the whole country.

In the US the sales tax for a given in-person sale is the state sales tax, plus possibly county sales tax, city sales tax, and sometimes even special tax district sales tax.

For remote sales, it is similar except the tax is computed using the buyer's location rather than the seller's location.

If they can calculate the price at the tills, they can calculate the price for the labels on the shelves, or the price stickers

They can do that but that costs money so they never will. We worship the dollar like its a god above gods. No way we're going to willingly do something that costs the rich a dime more than absolutely necessary.

But they cannot calculate price on ads. Also, can you deduct VAT from your taxable income in Europe? Sales tax in the US is deductible.

VAT is deductible if the buyer is a VAT registered business. The amount of VAT is still printed on the receipt by law, so you can still know how much you pay.

Companies already manage seperate ads in the EU for language, currency and price discrimination reasons, it's really not a huge bother.

So customers cannot deduct VAT from their personal taxes... I also doubt that separate ads per township are common in EU. For example, in Los Angeles the city is made from several separate townships with different sales taxes, two shops on the same street may have different taxes because one can be in LA and another in Santa Monica.

Everything humans do is a social phenomenon. That doesn't really mean anything.

You just ban asking for tips, leaving a space for a tip on receipt, etc. It's not hard.

Wouldn’t a blanket ban on “asking for tips” be an infringement on a person’s freedom of speech? It’s essentially just asking for some money, which surely anyone is free to do

Tell that to Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes and SBF. There are limits on what you can say to people and how you can exchange money.

Ha, those are fairy strong examples IMHO. A bit apples to oranges

The difference is temporal: tip is for a "past" already rendered product or service. Sbf, Holmes, et al, it's about a promise for "future" services, which have a risk associated of no delivery or render. When you've already eaten your burger there was no risk of uncertain delivery. The causal relationship is reversed

True generally, but it gets murkier all the time. Just last week I ate at a traditional restaurant that stated up front that there is a 15% service charge on all checks. This was in a city that has a very high minimum wage even for tipped employees. More traditionally, parties of a certain size at a restaurant always are charged a fixed gratuity.

Then there’re the square terminals that are normalizing up-front tipping for everything, not even just food service anymore. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has tipped up front for something and the service wound up being terrible. So there are three examples of tipping towards the future.

There’s another future component to tipping: in many places there is regulation that states if the tips don’t make up the prevailing normal minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference in salary. I’ve personally never seen this happen and I worked for tips for about 7 years.

It depends if you mean the individual asking, or if they're asking because of company policies.

We ban businesses from having signs that are too tall or too bright, from doing door to door soliciting, making phone calls without consent, and a pile of other behaviors that could all be labeled as "speech", but which people find extremely irritating.

Oh this is easy

Revoke the alcohol license if there are tip jars present, if its mentioned on receipts, the point of sale system, or if staff brings it up

Other discretionary things can be revoked too. Easements, performances, outdoor dining. This is entirely easy.

Have random audits to see how often payments match the receipts

Have a consumer protection agency launch random lawsuits and distribute funds to patrons

Encourage staff to mention that everyone is paid a full wage and have similar disclaimers on the menu and receipt, just like they put shellfish and undercooked disclaimers on the menu and in some places have to state it verbally

Create liability so that any private lawyer can try to sue everyone just like was done to create California’s cancer disclaimer, they can function alongside the consumer protection agency

Make it illegal for point of sale systems to push tipping for certain merchant codes, merchants have to snitch on the POS provider and vice versa when anyone questions why the system is guilt tripping them into a tip

Everyone is a node within a network, graph theory, you can control behavior by regulating the intermediary, the nodes will flip their behavior in a distributed fashion. Think about everything that way and you can find how to control all facets of life under any governance system.

When the town clerk is processing your building permit they can't ask for a tip. Well, they can and do in some cultures, with the understanding that you'll get better service! But it's illegal in the US.

So it's not too difficult to imagine that it can be done.

> I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping

Just don't tip. There's no law saying you have to.

> There's no law saying you have to.

Behavior is not defined by law. Social constructs and concepts matter too

Be the only non tipper? No. That breaks the golden rule.

(There is no tipping where I live, I am glad)

This is true, but two things mitigate it. The first is that if you're the one paying the bill, it's pretty easy to do so in a way that nobody you're with can tell how much, or if, you tip. The other thing is that the social consequences aren't that large.

In the end, it's voluntary behavior.

To be transparent, if I saw someone not tip when they took the bill I’d say something. I’ve heard of people looking explicitly at tips when evaluating dates, because it’s perceived as a (vague) proxy for empathy. I’ve also seen workers complain to the customer over not tipping, so you can totally be “outed” by them too.

I’m against tipping like a lot of this thread, but it’s a standard practice in the US. Being the one non-tipper is not changing the system, you’re just hurting the service worker.

Theoretically possible. But have you tried it? I forgot to tip once when I visited the US and the waitress nearly assaulted me.

> But have you tried it?

Yes, I have, and have never had the experience you've had. That sounds more like you got a terrible server than anything else.

Well, it was in San Francisco. Is this something you do frequently? Don't waiters/waitresses confront you about it?

In San Francisco..yeah. At least when I lived there the general mentality of servers was a littlw militant. Not tipping a bartender by mistake had one almost come across the bar at me. If I were not tipping in a major city, I would hustle out before the server noticed.

One option is to ban a business from asking soliciting tips, or regulation on payment processors who do business in Chicago to remove the tip line. It's possible but it would see a lawsuit for restriction of speech. IANL but that may not be enough of a defense, since the customer is still free to give a tip (speak with money) but the business would not be allowed to solicit gratuity's.

I was strategizing with a friend recently about how they could get a fresh start somewhere new. They're broke, have been unemployed for years and are dealing with fairly severe mental health issues. They have some skills, but will likely need a flexible, unskilled job in the beginning. So I started scouting out cheap cities and noticed an interesting trend. The rent for a 1-bedroom in a decent part of a city in Kansas is about the same as an equivalent in South Dakota, arounds $700/mo. The difference? The lowest you can get paid in SD is 33% higher than in KS. $7.25 (the national min wage) versus $10.80.

It would take a lot more work for a thorough analysis, but my quick assessment found SD and neighboring Nebraska ($10.50) to be top states to live off of minimum wage in large town/small city.

I'm surprised it's not somewhere like Spokane or Bakersfield. Smaller cities in states with high minimum wages (plus stronger social safety nets).

I was very focused on finding nice-ish apartments in core downtown areas, which changes the equation a bit. Bakersfield has 1-bedrooms for under $800/mo, but nowhere near their downtown. In Spokane I'm seeing virtually nothing for under $800/mo, let alone downtown.

Spokane and Bakersfield? Maybe 50 years ago…

A number of states have minimum wages substantially higher than $10.80, and also have large towns/small cities. I might look at one of the smaller cities in California (minimum: $15.50), Illinois ($13), NY ($14.20), or Maine ($13.80). Note that I am specifically not talking about the "flagship" cities in the big states here, where costs are much higher than the rest of the state.

One can rent a 1BR in the $700 range in all of these states. And while some aspects of cost of living may be higher, the $4.70/hr difference between SD and CA translates to an additional $752/mo of income.

I mentioned in another comment, but I was looking only for nice 1-bedrooms in core downtown areas, which is a big limitation. But I will expand the search. Maine sounds especially interesting.

But what percentage of employees, even in unskilled jobs, are being paid minimum wage in each of those locations? The floor may be misleading.

Low-skilled job availability is an important factor to consider as well. Places that have a higher minimum wage tend to have less of them.

Do employers in KS actually pay only minimum wage? Minimum wage in Utah is a joke if you actually want to find anyone to work for you anywhere near Salt Lake City.

There's cheaper still.

I'm still in contact with someone who lives in the west slope of Colorado. Lives in a small city of ~20,000, and splits a 2BR with a friend. His share of the rent and utilities is under $350/mo. I think the actual rent is $550/mo. He's in walking distance (5 - 15 minutes) of everywhere he needs to go, including no fewer than two supermarkets and a Wal-Mart.

The Dakotas do tend to be very cheap, but also parts of the Rocky Mountain rain shadow, parts of Appalachia, and a few other pockets around the country.

Good. I can take or leave the practice as a customer. I generally tip 20% unless the service is exceptionally good or bad, so it'd work out mostly the same for me if restaurants just raised their prices 20% and got rid of tipping.

But there are a couple of recent developments I absolutely loathe:

1. Mandatory service charges on top of the bill. No, sorry, that's bullshit. If you want to charge more, charge more. Yes, that will make your published price reflect the real cost. That's a feature, not a bug. When I find out I'm at such a place -- usually too late, after I've eaten -- I tip max(0, 20% - service fee). In other words, I apply the service fee toward what I would have tipped. If the servers aren't getting that fee and they quit because their tips suck, that's on the owners.

2. Asking for tips for everything. Earlier this week I went to a shop that sells cakes that're made off-site and shipped in. I asked a cashier for the cake I wanted, she turned around and picked it off a rack and handed it to me, and the checkout terminal asked for a tip. For what? Nothing against the cashier, but I'm offended at the shop for having the nerve to even ask.

I get why employers like tipped positions: they can get away with paying less, guilt tripping customers to make up for low wages with donations. Nah. I'll continue tipping people I would've tipped 5 years ago, like waitstaff, barbers, etc. I'm not going to start tipping every not-traditionally-tipped employee just to cover for their employers.

I have to wonder how much the tips on those new advanced checkout terminal actually go towards the particular worker; most of the time it just seems like a default situation where the business barely understands how to setup the terminal let alone turn it off

But _should_ they go to just that particular worker?

In HS, I washed dishes in a restaurant in my hometown. The waiters (all white, young attractive 20 somethings) would _occasionally_ share out a few dollars of tips to us on a very busy night. The dishwashers were highschool students immigrants. The work for dishwashers naturally scales linearly with the number of orders.

Certainly I think it's BS that as a customer, I'm not sure whether the management is just taking these (and telling their workers "oh, you're getting minimum wage; you don't need tips"). But if we're gonna be tipping for _every_ service, should the person that takes your coffee order get the whole tip, rather than the person who's making drinks, or doing prep work in the back?

No one seems to know how to configure them. I'm in Australia and the tip screens show up on them now so the staff press "skip" on it before they hand it to you. Including the business owners.

Visa/Mastercard also have an incentive not to help the shop owners not remove the tipping screen, because Visa/Mastercard charge a percentage of the transaction size. Removing the tip option has an impact on their profits.

Does anyone know if all the time, it is not possible for the staff to know if you tipped or not when using the terminal? Not for post-pay but pre-pay, e.g. buying a coffee. I would generally be inclined not to tip in these situations but am worried my drink will be contaminated if I don't.

I have a feeling the answer is yes, or don't know, and if there were any regulation enacted the best would be to ensure gratuities before service provided are either banned or guaranteed to be hidden. Gratuities after service provided don't seem to require any restriction.

Disclaimer: I live in a country without tips and love it, would feel better on trips to the US if it were the same.

The thing that really gets me, which I've only ever seen in Chicago is this mysterious 3-5% fee added to every bill, but which the restaurant will immediately remove for you if you ask what the hell it's for.

In DC we call that a tourist fee. Several of the restaurants near the National Mall will add a "guest fee" or "tourism fee" to the bill, but you won't find it explained or listed anywhere. They probably rake in a lot of money from foreign tourists that way.

Well, you don't _have_ to give a tip even if prompted. Part of the struggle here is learning to ignore any internal shaming mechanism for valid conditions where no tip is warranted - specifically, taking a product off a shelf and charging you money for it. There is no circumstance where I'm tipping in a retail environment, specifically basic shopping activities. I'm starting to wean myself off of pandemic-era tipping for take-out orders (I tip 10% for to-go now).

Part of the whole donation industry and now tipping-everywhere practice is just basic money-harvesting, like putting a net in the river and seeing what they can harvest from randos at scale. But there is some interest-balancing that needs to be considered, specifically my need to not hemorrhage money. At some level the expectation gets kind of insulting. Checking out at a grocery store? Want to round up to donate to some non-audited cause you never heard of that has a plausibly good name? Wassamatta? You hate kids/puppies/poor/refugees/war victims/elderly???? No, I hate being taken advantage of and hate my kindness being leveraged, GTFO.

I'm with you on every bit of that.

I'm good about turning that potential internal shaming into annoyance with the employer. For me, that means that every ridiculous request for tips gives me a bad feeling about the business, either shame for being pushed into tipping, or frustration that I had to spend emotional effort to avoid it. Either way, it leaves me with a bad feeling about the place, and makes me less likely to go back.

When you say “10% for to-go”, is that for delivery or when you’re yourself picking up food to go?

If it’s just picking up food to go, why tip at all, hasn’t pretty much zero service been provided to you?

Picking up, I tip excessively for delivery, and honestly it's because I've been both a delivery driver and standing at the ovens, so it's purely a personal sort of nostalgic solidarity/empathy/love to send some joy their way in the form of cash. I know I appreciated it back in the day and was very grateful for it. I don't have any love or respect for the social glare or tip shaming, however. It's gotten out of hand.

Same for me. I take care of delivery drivers. And for the non-altruistic payoff, I get my pizza fast.

When I delivered pizza, we all knew who the good tippers were and would scramble to grab those tickets. I’ve paid my way to be on that list now.

It’s not just internal, it’s external shaming from everyone around you

especially the person you want to have sex (or build a life) with

I was always under the impression that the mandatory service fees (like for groups of x or more) was just a way to make sure that the wait staff don't get stiffed. If the service fee is 20%, I just tip 0% unless I feel inclined to tip more on top of that.

That's the interpretation I'm going with. Here, though, there are quite a few restaurants that add a service fee to all dining. If you eat there alone, you're getting a 20% fee.

It's worth asking if the service fee is actually a gratuity or not. If it's not listed as a gratuity, then legally the owner can be taking a cut.

If it’s not a tip, that should be illegal as hell. It’s just a way to have higher prices without advertising them as higher up front.

> people I would've tipped 5 years ago, like waitstaff, barbers

Why would you tip a barber?

(I am not from the US, trying to understand)

I don’t know, we just do.

Here’s an article about who to tip: https://lifehacker.com/who-should-i-tip-and-how-much-5970143

I don’t agree with all of that, like no way I’m tipping at a buffet where I’m not receiving any service. It’s more illustrative of how weirdly complex this all gets.

This is good news for Chicago workers.

The headline seems incorrect, though. In Los Angeles, the minimum wage is $16.04 across the board, because California doesn't allow employers to deduct tips from base wages (aka "tip credit", the loophole that allows subminimum wage for tipped workers in most places).

Also, New York is larger than Chicago, and the minimum wage for tipped service employees is $12.50 ($10 for tipped food service workers) in the hospitality industry, and $15 for any tipped service workers not employed in hospitality. That's technically "subminimum" because it's less than the minimum wage in New York City, but in most places the tipped minimum wage is closer to $2 (ie, basically all earnings are due to tips), which is a very different situation from being guaranteed $10-$12.50/hour.

Chicago is the first city. California as a whole (and several other states) have already eliminated sub-minimum wage statewide.

Edit: Not first city. Biggest city to do so independently.

That's a really weird way to write the title then.

"Chicago does X before NYC, ignoring LA which didn't have to because of a state law that already did X"

The fourth paragraph in the article explains LA already does it and lists every state. The first paragraph and the original title users the word "independently" to emphasize it was Chicago's choice and not a statewide mandate like LA.

Really, this should be fixed as a misleading change-of-title when posting to HN. Who can summon dang?

Title limit, I could not fit independently in. Propose a better title and I'll edit.

EDIT: "Chicago independently abolishes subminimum wage for tipped workers." May dang have mercy on my choices.

"Chicago abolishes subminimum wage for tipped workers" maybe?

I think it's a good edit. I don't know if it's a better title in general, but it avoids this major distraction.

ceasar chavez would like a word with you...

California is the worst state for tipping as of today. [1]

Once it’s fully phased in I’ll change my tipping percentage to 10% from the typical 20%. I expect most people will rationalize this since menu prices will rise.

[1] https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/poverty/3891977...

I wonder what that means for the culture of tipping. A real side effect of this will probably be restaurant prices going up (no idea of the amount), and that might make people less likely to tip. There's also a psychological effect that not tipping or tipping less doesn't feel as bad now that the workers are getting a real wage on top of tips.

I wonder if this will be the end of tipping. That seems simpler than trying to remember how much to tip is normal where based on laws like this.

> that might make people less likely to tip

At least in California, I still tip my usual 15 to 25%.

If waitstaff make the federal minimum wage, they would only be making around 10 dollars (probably less) an hour less than back of the house in my area. Back of house is by far the worse job, so I'd probably start flat tipping 5 - 10 dollars per visit rather than a percentage to bring them to parity with boh.

> I'd probably start flat tipping 5 - 10 dollars per visit rather than a percentage

I hear you. All I'm saying is that based on the real example of California, most people don't do this. (And most servers don't expect it.)

We went through the same transition here in 2022. With actual restaurant data in hand, comparing August 2019 (in an effort to try and avoid any skew COVID might have created) and August 2023 recorded tips, I see no effective change. 2023 saw a nominally higher tip payout per hour, but in line with the rate of inflation.

Tipping certainly hasn't come to an end. That much is for sure.

It means nothing. Tipping is a show of status, and culturally, that is not going away. Eating out will just cost more.

See CA/OR/WA. Nation’s highest minimum wages, including no special tipped min wage, but most people still tip for waited food service.

It actually has gone the opposite way. In my lifetime, the “standard” tip went from 15% to 20% somehow.

It will mean nothing. Cities/states that have $15+ non tipped minimum wage are also ones that have the highest expectation for tips.

If you go to some fancy downtown restaurant yea of course haha. But if you are just going to dennys or ihop or red lobster or something? nah just the usual. I mean.. if it's an expensive place, 15% is still going to be a fair amount of money haha.

Ah, Californian checking in here. In both CA and NV (states I'm familiar with), tipped employees always get the full minimum wage on their check (none of that 'credit' nonsense).

You're still expected to tip.. but you're not going to ruin someone's day tipping $2 at dennys when you're by yourself. Or the usual 15% (which at Dennys is probably $2 anyway lol). (I'm sure people will disagree, but YMMV)

As for price increases: Yea, whenever the minimum wage goes up, some places will use it as an excuse to raise their prices. The actual price does not necessarily correlate with the amount the businesses are trying to raise their prices lol. It's kinda funny to watch that because some franchise owners like McDonalds and Subway have raised their prices so much that their prices are higher than a restaurant or a higher end place like Carls Jr or Five Guys lol.

> I wonder if this will be the end of tipping.

We can but hope.

I've already eliminated a huge portion of my tipping, because I'm actively angry about those tip prompts and that everyone and their dog is actively asking for tips these days.

This practice needs to be killed with fire.

I don't see why it would effect tipping at all. Instead of people saying, "wait staff makes less than minimum wage, so don't eat out unless you plan to tip", they will now say "wait staff makes only minimum wage...".

Now just abolish tips altogether.

You’re not legally obligated to tip so I’m not sure how it would be abolished. Best just to stop doing it if you don’t want to.

I’m not sure a law explicitly stopping people from giving more money would pass, but maybe one explicitly asking restaurants to stop asking for tips would work.

The way I've been putting this into practice is to ask my server for their venmo/cashapp and tipping them through that, then writing on the receipt "I don't believe in tipping"

This is the only way I've found to attack the structural problem of tipping without hurting the workers.

This is still tricky for the worker, because waitstaff management uses tip totals as a proxy for worker productivity. I try to offset that by writing on the receipt, which the worker can share to demonstrate it wasn't because they did a bad job.

The rest of the incentives are impacted in the way I want them to be, except for taxation, which I believe in, and the kitchen staff who are usually underpaid with the expectation that a percent of tips will flow to them.

> which the worker can share to demonstrate it wasn't because they did a bad job

Friends in hospitality. Unfortunately, there is a contingent of assholes who do this in lieu of tipping at all. This doubly fucks the server in a place with pooled tips; their colleagues now question whether they stole the tip.

If the tip is for good service, which is ostensibly what it is for, then why should it be pooled in the first place?

If it is out of fairness to the back of kitchen staff, then they should take a front of house job instead. That’s like an engineer demanding to get part of a sales guy’s commission on a sale.

> This is the only way I've found to attack the structural problem of tipping without hurting the workers.

That's my big problem. I hate tipping, but I still tip well - to do otherwise is to punish the people with the least ability to change the system.

The only good way I know of to attack the structural problem is to preferentially frequent the few restaurants with a non-tip policy.

But if the workers rely on tips in order to e.g. pay rent, I don't want to be the a-hole that doesn't do it.

I want restaurants to just charge what it costs to make and serve food and I can choose to eat there or not based on the listed price.

My take is that this is just brainwashing. Technically other than farming and a couple other things (not restaurants), the business owner must pay them the minimum wage if tips don’t meet it, so I personally don’t see any issue.

That being said I generally get take out because many restaurants in my area have a kitchen appreciation fee when you dine in.

Wage theft is really common though, so if they don't get tips their pay may end up just being low. Not that it's your fault, but that's the reality.

I was at a restaurant the other day and on the bottom of the menu it said "a 2.5% tip will be added to all transactions to help us pay our staff" and all I could think was why can't they just add a dollar to some/all of the menu items instead? If a restaurant needs more money to pay its employees, they should just charge more money. I really don't get it.

I refuse to return to businesses that do this. Restaurants, stop being sleazy and manipulative. Just be honest and raise your prices.

They fear being honest because not everyone will do it. So the right answer is regulation to ensure everyone does the same thing transparently.

> I really don't get it.

It is as simple as the business wanting to trick people into thinking prices are lower than they actually are.

No, to me that's totally fine! They know what their costs are and they charge you accordingly.

What bothers me is "the price is $X, but if you don't pay $Y our workers won't be able to make ends meet, please support them!" I don't know how much your workers need, that's your job when you set prices! (And if the price is too high, I won't eat there, no harm done.)

I just wonder if they expect you to also add an additional tip, since 2.5% is so much lower than the standard percentage.

> You’re not legally obligated to tip so I’m not sure how it would be abolished.

You legally require it be removed from receipts and PoS systems, and mandate that all tips be taken by the venue rather than going to the workers (or at minimum be distributed evenly between all workers).

A decade or so ago, there was some talk of it eventually being banned by he Supreme Court due to it being de-facto racial discrimination in pay.

Sure, you can always slip them something under the table, but right now it's mostly an official, sanctioned part of their pay.

How would that be enforced? Who would enforce it? How do you abolish something you're not mandated or asked to do?

Include service on the receipt for a start.

It is included, by the fact you legally do not have to tip.

> Include service on the receipt for a start

This is smart. When I see an included gratuity, I usually don't tip. (Even if I usually would have tipped more.)

I have seen restaurants write “service fee x%” and then explicitly say “this is not a gratuity”, implying that patrons should still tip.

I see we’ve reached the Ticketmaster stage of the restaurant economy. Fees upon fees only disclosed at the final step.

I like this, but mainly because it will help get rid of tipping.

I suppose alternately some restaurants will add automatic tips to the receipt, which will go to the owner, and the employees will be 100% wage, and no tips. Which basically works out to the same thing with extra steps.

I'm not so sure it will actually cause the employee to take home more money though, I suspect they'll end up with less.

This is already the law in many places, including the entirety of California, and it has neither resulted in the end of tipping nor in restaurants confiscating tips.

Thankfully, it says this in the 4th paragraph, but it still feels misleading, as I was a California hourly worker 25 years ago and, as far as I remember, even then it was not legal to pay tipped workers less than the state minimum wage. So Los Angeles has had this law much longer as a larger city, but yes, that is due to state law, not a city law. But there is clearly not much point in passing a city law saying the same thing as a state law employers in your city already have to abide by. If anything, doing it this way seems too easy to circumvent by attempting to put your site in the suburbs or doing shit like carving out Beverly Hills as its own city.

> But there is clearly not much point in passing a city law saying the same thing as a state law employers in your city already have to abide by.

The only reason I can think of would be to secure the law in place if there might be uncertainty about a state law getting reverted.

Or for enforcement purposes. The city may want to put enforcement resources behind the initiative within the cities jurisdiction, but cannot enforce a state law.

Everyone talking about getting rid of tipping is weird to me. I enjoy tipping... It's a privilege to have someone waiting on me, and I want them to know I appreciate it.

EDIT: These replies are wild. Everyone should be able to make a guaranteed living wage (at minimum). Of those in the service industry, I enjoy being able to show my appreciation with a tip. Pretty simple.

Almost anyone coming from overseas to the US thinks it's pretty weird that the US has permitted the creation of a class of workers who can be paid dirt and must live off the gratuities of an informal societal expectation.

Why on earth you've not got strictly enforced mandated minimum wages in many places, where the wages are above the poverty line and there should be a low to nil expectation that as a customer I'm having to reach in to my wallet to pay for their services when I'm also paying the business seems abhorrent.

Tipping should be something that is an exception for exceptional service, and an unexpected act of good will, rather than an expectation.

They still are guaranteed to make minimum wage: if the tips + salary don’t pass the minimum wage threshold, the employer still has to pay the difference.

That is a meaningless rule when you can get fired for not making enough tips.

Another aspect is customer is expected - no "required" to tip.

They almost certainly will be fired. At every restaurant I’ve worked at, the servers made well above minimum wage. If some server is not getting tipped, then management will assume they are doing a horrible job. And I’m not talking about fancy restaurants, just casual places like Red Robin/Applebees.

And then they eat at absolutely any restaurant in the country, and are doubly confused at how the US service employees are so cheerful and helpful and etc.

It fulfills some function, whether or not it's +EV.

Is it weird to expect employers to pay employees? It’s the waiter’s job to wait tables? Or am I missing something as I’m from not-US?

No that’s perfectly normal reasonable.

What’s weird is that for some reason there happens to be just enough people in the US that believe and demand that I have the responsibility as a customer to take care of an employee’s wage negotiation, payroll and in some cases “productivity metrics”. Thus we end up with this stupid “debate”.

No, that's a given. In addition to that, I appreciate being able to tip them.

But it's not a given in places where tips are used in lieu of a portion of the wages. In that case, all it is is a gift to the business owner.

There was an anti-tipping movement in the interwar period in the US, on the basis that such a relationship of explicit subservience and having one's compensation for work subject to the whims of a master is un-American. I tend to agree.

By "interwar" you mean between the Civil War and WWI? Because it was a movement then. Between WWI and WWII (what I would read "interwar" to mean) the anti-tipping movement receded and tipping became commonplace.

I meant between WWI and II. I wasn't aware of the earlier movement. I first became aware of it watching the 1936 film version of The Petrified Forest, which features anti-tipping as a minor background element, and has a contemporary (to its release) setting—the play it's based on was published in 1934.

As I understand it, you were seeing the last vestige of the anti-tipping movement (just based on the timeline) in the movie. A few states even had anti-tipping laws before WWI that disappeared during the 20s.

Interesting, I'll adjust my internal timeline of those events to match reality :-) Thanks.

Wasn't considered a "privilege" when I served coffee and pizza from behind a counter at 3am to drunks for no tips except the occasional loose change, that was shared among workers.

> It's a privilege to have someone waiting on me, and I want them to know I appreciate it.

It’s only a privilege in the same way that any other commercial transaction is. You’re already paying them for a service. Do you care whether the guys operating your local power plant know that you appreciate your electricity?

Sure, I hope everyone is able to feel appreciated for the work they're doing, it's a very human desire.

Hopefully your are on your way to tip the power plant workers. Make sure to tip security and the cleaners on your way in as well.

Its very telling when this is the kind of equivalence someone tries to make about service industry workers.

The act of physically SERVING someone and answering to their every whim is a unique role in society. If you lack the empathy to comprehend that role, then that's on you.

Tipping is not equivalent to empathy. You show empathy by being polite and thanking the person. And in a properly functioning country you can know that the staff are properly paid at least a minimum wage which is sufficient to live properly.

No one said tipping was equivalent to empathy... I said your inability to comprehend the difference between a service industry position and a "power plant worker" displayed a lack of empathy and understanding.

It's a privilege to have any service done for you, not just waiting tables.

You are free to give them extra money if you feel that service received exceeds the price that you paid for but it shouldn't be mandatory.

Customer should pay for products and services that's agreed upon. Employer should pay their employees to ensure the quality of the said products and services. There's no reason why a quality of service should be variable based on how generous I feel.

In the places where I am immediately able to tip, I do. Coffee shops, bars, salons, tattoo artists, valets, servers, furniture movers, you name it, I've tipped them.

I think the difference is that I get a tinge of embarassment having anyone wait on me. There's a weird power imbalance I don't like. Tipping helps offset that imbalance and lets them know I appreciate their service.

So do you apply this rule for everyone who does something for you in your daily life? Do you go into the kitchen and tip the cooks? What about the person who grows the food, and the one who drives it across the country? Do you tip the bus driver and subway train operator who took you to the restaurant? It should be a privilege for you to tip all of them.

There are millions of people "waiting on you" every day so you can live your life comfortably. There is really no logic behind why the pretty waitress deserves tips and everyone else doesn't other than the fact that you grew up with this practice and so it seems normal.

> It's a privilege to have someone waiting on me, and I want them to know I appreciate it.

If that's what tips indicate, I'd be with you. But it isn't. Tips are expected, and in a sense culturally mandatory. That removes them entirely from being an indicator of appreciation.

Also, tips are now being demanded by pretty much everyone, not just for personal service.

There ought to be a law “no mandatory fees like tips on top of advertised priced other than tax”.

No pre-selection of tip amount allowed. The default should be 0.

Sure someone can choose to tip, but the default payment experience ought to be no bullshit. Advertised price + tax.

No airbnb, Expedia, rental car company fuckyou-imadeshitup fees.

So it's okay for us to stop tipping at Chicago restaurants and coffee shops now, right?

I hope so. I’ll probably tip much less (maybe 10%) when there when it’s in full effect. Which is probably too bad for waitstaff. They pulled in much more than minimum wage in most cases and most it wasn’t taxed. I had a friend that cleared $500/night working the Olive Garden back in the day. With this new scheme he’d make $250 if you cut tips in half which I think people will rationalize now.

If you look at California, where we haven't had a separate tipped minimum wage since at least 2016, people still tip the nationwide norm between 15% and 25%.

Certainly looks like a downwards trend though. California is now the worst tipping state. If money continues to get tighter it will become more and more normal to justify a smaller tip. I think you can justify 10% now.

Good! Now for everywhere else, too. That you can legally pay below minimum wage to people working such jobs is a terrible thing for everybody except the business owners who get to underpay people.

The amount of complaining about tipping baffles me. Tipping is a progressive form of price discrimination, where the added profit goes straight into the pockets of labor rather than capital.

Meanwhile, as the customer, I effectively get to bid on the quality of service I receive. One just needs to go to a restaurant in Europe to recognize the vast gulf in quality of service compared to the US, with tipping being the big difference.

One just needs to go to a restaurant in Japan to recognize that tipping doesn’t mean shit wrt. quality of service

This is primarily an accounting and enforcement change. The sub-minimum wage always legally had to be bumped up to minimum wage if the tips were insufficient to do so. The problem was that enforcement (and knowledge of workers rights) was lacking and retaliation was common.

> This is primarily an accounting and enforcement change.

No, it is not primarily an accounting and enforcement change. Previously the first $6.80/hour in tips were simply donations from customers to the employer, because the worker wouldn't see one additional cent from that. Now, 100% of tips are required to be paid to the workers.

Wage theft is still a massive problem - theft due to minimum wage violations alone are larger than larceny, burglary, and auto theft combined - so enforcement is still an issue, not to mention the risk of retaliation. But this law is a material change for people working tipped minimum wage jobs, not just an accounting change.

And now that they aren't taking the tip credit for waitstaff, that money can be combined into a tip pool and shared with the back of the house, who can then have their wages lowered by the expected share of the tip pool. Which could easily be $6.80/hr/waitstaff of savings.

Or, more explicitly, they could make waitstaff tip out the back of the house $6.80 an hour and lower the back of the house wages that explicit amount.

But maybe the back of the house doesn't make enough money to make it up already. I'm not 100% sure of the economics of running a restaurant.

> And now that they aren't taking the tip credit for waitstaff, that money can be combined into a tip pool and shared with the back of the house, who can then have their wages lowered by the expected share of the tip pool.

Not only is this is completely orthogonal to the change in law that's being discussed, this is also already illegal. Tipped workers in Illinois (and most states) cannot be forced to share tips with untipped back-of-house staff.

I'm not aware of Illinois law, and maybe it is different there. (Edit: As of now, , I see no evidence this is a special Illinois law, instead of being the US law discussed below. I continued the thread because maybe someone can show a citation.)

US federal law says that tipped workers cannot be forced to share tips with untipped back-of-house staff unless the tipped workers are paid normal minimum wage. In which case all non-supervisory staff can be added to the same tip pool.

It does not matter for the federal law if the "normal minimum wage" was legally required or optional.

As for orthogonality, the question was "is the first $6.80/hr of tips subsidizing employer wage obligations". If the server is getting more money from the employer but the chef is getting more money from the servers and less from the employer, it's just an accounting change and the total takehome pay of waitstaff, chef and management/owner remains the same.

> I'm not aware of Illinois law, and maybe it is different there. US federal law says that tipped workers cannot be forced to share tips with untipped back-of-house staff unless the tipped workers are paid normal minimum wage. In which case all non-supervisory staff can be added to the same tip pool.

Okay, but we're talking about Chicago, which is in Illinois, and in Illinois this is illegal.

I haven't found any evidence that it is illegal in Illinois. It was legal after the Illinois laws around tips were changed in 2020.

It was illegal when they were paid subminimum wage. If you think it's still illegal, supply sources please.

> The sub-minimum wage always legally had to be bumped up to minimum wage if the tips were insufficient to do so.

Right, but that's the horrible practice. Tips should never be counted toward satisfying the minimum wage. Tips aren't wages.

Perhaps abolishing money and private property is the solution?

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