Generally speaking, in states where the tipped minimum wage is lower than the standard, the employer is required to pay the difference if the tips do not meet that minimum. It’s a fucked practice, but that’s how they justify it.

I have my concerns about UBI but I think it’s likely going to become necessary in the near future. In time it will probably run into the same problems of minimum wage increases, where the CoL goes up and up as the income floor is raised meaning that being near the floor feels the same no matter how big the number is.

But despite my concerns, at this point I’ll take it 😅

Because different things are different

You are ignoring my entire argument. At no point did I say tipping culture in the US is good nor have I defended it as a just way to distribute pay. It sucks, and it sucks to live under it in my chosen profession. But it is the reality that I and other restaurant workers live with.

My point is that you should direct your ire at the systems that built this shit show. Removing tipping with no other corrective measures doesn’t fix anything, it just makes life worse for people who are trying to make a living. Service industry jobs should treat tips as an added incentive for good service, but that’s just not the real world. I’ve already detailed a few of the reasons in my other comments but you don’t seem to be reading any of them anyway so I’m not going to waste anymore energy on this conversation.

Thank you for the actual source! I knew there would be evidence aside from my anecdote but didn’t particularly feel like looking it up. I’ve had this argument on lemmy a couple of times so I find it a bit tiresome. Appreciate the support :)

This is definitely one way to approach it, but I currently make minimum wage plus tips in a city where the minimum wage is over $20 and it’s still hard to make ends meet at times. I’m a single adult with no dependents and although I have a reasonable standard of living I’m by no means thriving. The tips are still a very necessary part of my paychecks.

The problem is complex, like I said in my first comment. Lots of sub-industries thrive off of milking restaurants, and simply doing away with tipping is not going to fix it. I just wish people would have some sense of worker solidarity instead of attacking people who live off of tips.

I’m not trying to be a dick but this is about as short sighted as someone saying they should make crime illegal.

As I explained in my post, restaurants that do this struggle to stay open because people only look at the price and are less likely to want to pay it. Even places that keep prices the same and add a service charge receive many complaints and a drop in business. My source is that it has happened in multiple restaurants I’ve worked at.

I doubt you read my whole post because I also spoke against the system. I’m not brainwashed, I’m living in reality.

Edit: side note, all of capitalism is built on exploitation of labor, it’s the defining characteristic

I live in the US and I’ve worked in the industry since 2008, and I hate the anti worker framing of anti tip culture sentiment so much. I’m a cook but my wage is just as reliant on tips as the servers. The servers and the kitchen staff do equally important parts of the job of giving people a good dining experience. Servers do more than just carry food to the table in a quality restaurant, and there are hours of labor that go into every plate.

Furthermore it’s not always the employer’s fault that the pre tip wages are so low that tips are necessary. The industry involves several players outside of the restaurant itself, including landlords, purveyors, HVAC and sanitation services, and so on. All of them charge as much as they can get away with, which leads to razor thin margins for the restaurant, and labor is always the highest cost. Many corporate entities diffuse this cost in various ways but small scale places like the ones I prefer to work in don’t have as much room to maneuver.

If people had to pay the full cost of a meal that adequately supported the staff, it would likely be just as much or more as the same meal at a lower price with an adequate tip included (15-20%) and restaurants would struggle to stay open even more than they currently do because people would complain about the high prices.

I wish people would address the system as a whole, including the capitalist mode of production, rather than blaming the workers who are victims of this system. I’m opposed to tip culture and I wish livable wages were guaranteed for all forms of labor, but in the current reality we all live in, not tipping doesn’t do any damage to the system, only to its victims.

Maybe a bit too calm, but I really enjoyed what I played of Wanderstop. It’s from the dev of Stanley parable, with music from c418 of Minecraft fame. I haven’t yet finished it because I got distracted by other games but it’s a really peaceful game where you brew tea and gradually unravel a story about trauma and healing from it. Even without finishing the story I can highly recommend it because it’s just so beautiful to look at and the core gameplay is simple but engaging. You’re an arena champion who stumbles upon a tea shop while looking for respite from battle, and you farm ingredients to combine into different teas for other travelers who come across the tea shop.