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.
good work Americans, keep it up.
don’t stop until the rate is 0%. paying workers is the employer’s job.
Sometimes people try to bring tipping culture to NZ. We show them the door.
Whats funny is when Americans dont care about our non tipping culture and tip anyway
saw that once. The waiter said “I am not allowed to accept tips” and the american looked confused/offended. Thought it was quite funny
I once worked for an American company that had a requirement that if you’re using company money to pay for a meal, you tip at least 20%.
That was very awkward in some countries…
One time after a meal out in Wellington, the waiter chased us up the street - he’d just realised he overcharged us for wine, and was bringing us the cash.
Yeah! Thank you so much for punishing the servers and delivery drivers instead of business owners and making it harder for me to pay rent and feed myself! You’re all such wonderful people!
nah, by law if nobody tipped, they’d have to be paid by their employer in full. You’re not punishing them, you’re just not accepting responsibility that, by law, is not yours
You’re a victim of the system you’re protecting. Enough with the Stockholm Syndrome.
The ones funding my bosses and not me are doing a lot more to protect the system than I am. Not tipping has no effect on the employer and only punishes the person providing you a service.
We’re here talking about it
Your employer is required to pay you minimum wage if tips don’t make up the difference. If people stop tipping entirely, it actually will impact your boss.
A. Wage theft is widespread and hard to fight without money
B. Minimum wage hasn’t been a livable wage since the 70’s
different problems. Maybe try to tackle those instead?
This makes absolutely no sense. Do you even think before you type or…?
Customers fund businesses. Customers who don’t tip still fund businesses. Not tipping makes no impact on the business’s pay scale.
That’s like employers holding someone hostage and then claiming any harm that comes to them is your fault.
I feel like this is 90% of politics; a gun is held to someone’s head for a hostage demand, and to not give in to the demand is to be as bad as the shooter themselves.
“How could you shoot down my bill for a Coal Chugging Committee? It would’ve created so many jobs111”
You’re still not supposed to shoot the hostages.
Not according to Jack Traven.
https://youtu.be/DuNqh2AOItM
How about you be angry at the business owner for paying a shit wage? Tips should be a bonus you get for a job well done not something that makes your life liveable, that’s what your wage is for. We aren’t to blame if your boss is a piece of shit who refuses to pay you a liveable wage.
I assure you I am also angry at my corporate masters, but they’re irredeemable scum and aren’t on Lemmy. It angers me more when I see people cheering that food is being taken out of my mouth as though it’s some virtuous blow to my bosses. It’s not. You’re only further exploiting already exploited people
It angers me when I have to subsidize someone else’s wages because they’re not built into the price I’m paying.
Do you tip the cashier at the grocery store? The technology employee who recommended what TV to buy? The book store worker who helped you find a book?
No, you don’t.
Why? Because their pay is already factored into the price of the goods being sold or the service being provided.
If anyone’s stealing food from your mouth it’s your employer.
Yes, blame the exploited for their exploitation and never acknowledge your participation in it. You are a good American
the exploited are in on it in this case. Because, by federal law, “below minimum wage jobs” don’t exist. You either make minimum with tips, or the employer is forced to pay the full amount. So the problem is wage theft. That is not the concern of the clients, but of the relevant authorities, if the servers bothered to report, of course
A very good American.
“No! No! My employer shouldn’t be paying me a living wage, the people I serve should be paying me my living wage! My employer is categorically not at all responsible for paying me!”
— you, a very wonderful person, and a damned good American!
It’s so much nicer travelling in places where service workers are valued by their employers.
I still support the anti-tipping people though - it’s the single best option they have to effect change. It’s something small, concrete, and moves things to the desired end-state.
Stop tipping and donate the amount to community organizations fighting poverty instead.
Or better yet advocate for a minimum wage that is actually livable so people don’t have to rely on charity organizations that often come with religious strings attached.
I mean this is the better way to do it honestly. People generally tipping less means those positions basically pay less. The whole reason people work those jobs is because with good tips you can make some serious bank. Stop making bank, people will move elsewhere, can’t hire servers because tips don’t pay well enough? Then start paying them. If the alternative is everyone just stops tipping tomorrow then people would really be screwed, because they wouldn’t have time to transition.
Sure it sucks they’re getting paid less, but if the alternative is this “you better pay our workers so they can eat because we ain’t gonna do it” then I’d say it’s a pretty welcome change.
It’s also not like the tip amount dropped to 5% or something. Prices have been going nuts lately, so the tips are probably about the same cash amount as they have been, which is just a smaller percent of the now larger bill.
It’s not. The better way is for people who don’t want to tip to stop going out to places or using services where tipping is customary. That way nobody is increasingly encouraged to perform labor for less than they’re work is worth. If there are not enough customer’s because of this then the businesses will change or perish. All of this anti-tipping sentiment leads me to believe is that if these customers were to trade places with the owners then they’d pay their laborer’s just as little.
You negotiated what your labor is worth when you took the serving job; below minimum wage. Don’t like it? Go find a non tipped job that doesn’t rely on patrons subsidizing your wages.
What other industry relies on paying for something and then having to pay more after you’ve already paid the agreed upon price?
there are no “below minimum wage jobs”. Minimum is minimum. If you don’t tip, the employer has to pay the full minimum wage. If you end up with less than minimum wige, then you were stolen from by your employer. The proper response to which is to go to the authorities, which take this kind of thing quite seriously, not guilt tripping the clients