Chicago's Radical Solution For Broken Tipping Culture

We dug into how American tipping culture got so broken, and the fight to fix it.

It turns out that your tips are subsidizing the payrolls of multi-billion dollar chains, while they pay their workers under minimum wage.

It's a system rooted in slavery, and pushed by a wealthy restaurant owners onto the rest of us.

But there's a growing movement to change it.

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[Liz-wzdh]

Even as someone who worked in the restaurant industry, I found the tipping thing to be a divisive topic. Even with coworkers. Some people see it as in addition to their job's base pay (which is great) and others got so used to getting tips that they gave poor service as punishment for people who didn't tip. I liked being tipped but since I wasn't a server, whose entire pay relied on being tipped, I just saw it as a 'nice to have'. I don't believe anybody's entire paycheck (or even most of it) should be based on tipping though. That means the business really cannot afford those workers and probably should not even exist.

[oswaldboelcke]

When I was young, people were happy with a 10% tip for good service, but the service had to be at least reasonably good. Then we allowed that to grow to 15% and that was even for poor service and a few years later to 20%. Ouch. People are now trying to get us to pay 25% or even 30%. This is way out of control.

[AaronCoston]

We recently had dinner at a place in Birmingham AL. They eliminated tipping entirely and priced the food accordingly. Workers had a stable income, and the consumer was never guilted into a massive tip. Wasn’t even an option on the bill.

Amazing how they cannot survive paying a salary when all other restaurants around the world do it by selling food that is literally cheaper in dollars.

[Myst]

it really is amazing just how many problems could be solved if we just made corporate lobbying illegal

[redblur]

We need to abolish the idea of a "standard tip" altogether. Tipping should be something that you only do on the rare occasion when someone truly goes above and beyond, when they provide unexpectedly good service or take extra steps to make your experience pleasant. Otherwise, we aren't really changing the negative culture around tipping, we're just putting a higher price tag on the same bad idea.

[yaash]

Nobody's job should require the generosity of others as a form of income. You showed up and did the work so you should be paid.

[RenghisKhan]

Strange how companies like Starbucks and McDonald's seem to still be making profits in my country while paying the minimum wage of about €14, 00.

[MarcoLandin]

"If you can't afford to pay your employees a fair wage, you're *not good* at doing business" - Me, since forever

[tayzonday]

I’ve lived in three of the seven states that require tipped employees to be paid the full minimum wage. There are endless great restaurants in Minnesota, California and Washington.

[thesantiagoprince]

Wow, imagine living in a country where the price advertised is the price you pay, and staff get paid by their employers.
Basically anywhere besides USA.

[GSimpsonOAM]

Tipping is discouraged in New Zealand as we have a decent minimum wage.
Tourists sometimes say prices are high dining out etc. The price listed is what you pay. No tips, all taxes too are included in the price.

[jeremymizer]

Ever since this new wave of tipping came about, I just stopped spending money. I'm not tipping 20% for gas station coke, or 30% for a meal. It's ridiculous

[ufSync]

If a business cannot afford to pay its workers properly, then their business model is flawed.

[Ravi-qgso]

The attitude of "You should tip at least $5 no matter what the service is." and "If you can't afford to tip you shouldn't go out to eat." has always amazed me.

[thetokutickler]

My brother as a teenager once worked in a restaurant as an assistant helping to prep food and clean stuff. He somehow counted as a server and was paid $2.13 an hour, but since he wasn't actually a server and the restaurant was set up so that each server got to keep their individual tips, he was working a tipless job for less than minimum wage. He would have quit sooner but my parents gaslit him into thinking it was his fault for being lazy or something.

[lisam]

So I went to a self order kiosk to order and waited to pick up my food. Literally no human interaction and they asked for a 15%, 20% OR 25% TIP. I had to mess around the kiosk to find the 0% tip option! This is getting extremely out of hand.

[cutback]

tipping only "sucks" because it's gone from a decent gesture, to becoming a subsidy for greedy pieces of trash to rationalize paying their service workers a decent wage.

[briand]

After moving to Oregon and finding out they don't have sub minimum wages, I stopped tipping. Employees working in a restaurant are literally in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to wages. Can't eat your cake and have it too.

[dustup]

I just had a Little Caesar's pizza delivered by a Door Dash delivery driver and was charged $5.99 for the delivery, $4.00 for the tip and $4.84 for the driver's benefits. The Pizza cost $14.99 with tax, the delivery fees was $14.83--- a 98% tip in other words.

The driver had the audacity to call me to come out to the curb to retrieve my pizza. I told her to take it back if she was not going to provide an actual delivery that I paid $14.83 in delivery fees and I will get a refund.

She brought it to my door and was surly.

I will customize my tip next time to "$0.00" and eat the delivery and employee benefits charge.