- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.ca
Summary
Tipping in U.S. restaurants has dropped to 19.3%, the lowest in six years, driven by frustration over rising menu prices and increased prompts for tips in non-traditional settings.
Only 38% of consumers tipped 20% or more in 2024, down from 56% in 2021, reflecting tighter budgets.
Diners are cutting back on outings, spending less, and tipping less. Some restaurants are adding service fees, further reducing tips.
Worker advocacy groups are pushing to eliminate the tipped-wage system, while the restaurant industry warns these shifts hurt business and employees.
Key cities like D.C. and Chicago are phasing in higher minimum wages for tipped workers.
Door dasher in Australia here: after about 500 completed orders, I can say I’ve been tipped once, by this old lady like A$5.
Tipping is stupid. I’m not incentivised to do anything better. The app would just give everyone crappier orders if everyone tipped.
The point of tipping isn’t generosity, it’s because some jobs in the US make $2 an hour, that tip is their wage.
You tip servers and delivery drivers.
The standard federal minimum wage still applies. If tips aren’t enough to get you there then the employer has to make up the difference.
Tips are literally a subsidy paid to your employer so that they don’t have to pay you (just the $2.13 federal tipped minimum wage).
Sure, legally the standard minimum wage applies. The notoriously insufficient even at the time of adoption $7.25/hr minimum wage. If you can get the notoriously understaffed DOL to take a serious look at your case. If you can produce enough evidence. If, per federal minimum wage law, the entire week’s pay- not per day, not per hour, per week- was less than that minimum wage per hour. If, if, if, then yes, the employer is technically required to compensate for the lost wages up to but not more than the $7.25/hr federal minimum wage.
In practice, wage theft is the largest and fastest-growing category of theft in the US.
Almost no employers do this. And even if they did, 7.25 isn’t enough to live anywhere in the US.
employers legally have to, if they don’t they are in violation of federal law.
That’s true. They still don’t.
then that’s a crime to be handled by the relevant authorities. Vigilantism is illegal
The point of tipping is to incentivise staff to do a good job. Of course employers saw staff getting extra money and decided they didn’t need to pay as much any more. Tipping has now grown to the point where you are expected to pay extra for just about anything or else the worker doesn’t get paid, which is not only counter-intuitive, it’s just stupid.
I travelled through Eastern Europe a while ago and got so sick of extra “taxes” added to the price of everything that I just stopped buying stuff. I imagine tip fatigue being pretty similar.
Maybe originally, but for servers and delivery drivers, it’s the only compensation for their labor they receive.
This is just wrong. If tips stopped tomorrow you’d still get whatever your state minimum wage is (or at least the $7.50 federal minimum).