this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Hey Folks!

I've been living abroad for over half my life in a country where tipping is not the norm. At most you would round up. 19€ bill? Here's a 20, keep this change.

Going to the US soon to visit family and the whole idea of tipping makes me nervous. It seems there's a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don't know how much has changed in this regard.

The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.

So will AITA if I don't tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

You don't technically have too by law but if you decide not too... you should know the server will likely be irate to the point of secretly wishing you dead. I highly recommend leaving a tip or just don't eat out. Order the food for take out and just pick it up at the counter, but do not expect someone to be super happy that they just served you for basically nothing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It depends on the business. My advise would to look around you to see what everyone else is doing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I tried not tipping on a US visit. You can get away with it, but people will be angry.

It's just a silly local custom you have to put up with when in America.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's the way our tax system works. Employers have to pay taxes on payroll; they don't pay taxes on tips. By having customers pay servers directly, they reduce their tax burden.

Believe me, we don't like it either, but we are familiar with it, so there is little incentive to change.

Tipped employees are primarily paid directly by the people they serve. If you are not tipping a tipped server, you are declaring their work is worth less than minimum wage.

It is lawful to do that, but it is a real dick move.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

You have to tip 20% of the bill minimum. You can round-up only from there.

It's considered very rude to tip less than 20% because in the US, most service workers are legally allowed to be paid less than the minimum wage ($2 or $3 per hour is not uncommon).

You should give $1 to a bartender for every drink you order. If it's an expensive city, you should give $2 per drink.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I only tip if someone had to do something to get me that food/experience. Picking up food to take home? No tip. The restaurant makes you get your own food from the counter and do your own refills? No tip. The checkout screen might have a tip, but I'm putting 0.

It's not really your personal responsibility, it's the restaurant owners responsibility. If people aren't getting enough tips in a restaurant where tips are the big draw, and that causes wait staff to quit, the restaurant owner should be paying his people to subsidize that.

15-20% also is not a hard rule. There's a lot of places where I live that try to pass off costlier food in shitty atmosphere (think 30 dollar entrees, but the server sees you twice and it's a "theme" restaurant). If I think someone did well and engaged with us as customers and were pretty good about making suggestions on the menu or being extra attentive to drink refills, then guaranteed they're getting within that 15-20%. Anything less than that, then I as the customer who only gets to make that judgement call off of the limited interaction we have, and you'll get 7-10% or 5 bucks, whichever is bigger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

You should take a look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_states_by_minimum_wage and see what the minimum wage is in the state you are visiting. The minimum wage where I am is one of the highest in the nation so I don’t tip anymore.

Edit: I am aware many states have below federal minimum for tipped employees. My point was if they’re visiting one of the states with a high minimum wage, they should forgo tipping. Nobody below bothered to link it, but here's the minimum wage page for tipped employees: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped. It's worth noting that even in the states that can pay tipped employee as little as $2.13/hr, the employees never actually make less than the federal minimum of $7.25/hr because the employer has to make up the difference if the employee doesn't make enough in tips, not that $7.25/hr is even remotely a livable wage in 2023...

Regardless, tipping is an inherently flawed system, and it's not the responsibility of the consumer to pay specifically the server a living wage while everyone in the kitchen suffers (I would know, I've been there). If you're not happy with the wage laws in your state, get involved in politics and exercise your right to vote to do something about it.

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