How Much Should Consumers Have to Pay for Tipflation? Troy Iwata Investigates | The Daily Show

Troy Iwata talks to tip-free businesses, food service workers, and shoppers to determine whether Trump's "no tax on tips" policy will help or hurt this new wave of tipflation. #DailyShow #Tipflation #Trump

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[MeterLP]

If a business cannot stay open while paying employees a living wage, then let it fail. Europe doesnt have tipping culture and its full of restaurants. In Japan, tipping is seen as an insult, and they have restaurants. So it is clearly possible to run a restaurant where the employees arent reliant on customer charity.

[XanderEwald]

It’s bizarre how the US are still arguing about problems that have been solved more than a century ago in Europe. We have reasonable minimum wages, universal healthcare, and tipping is optional.

[Martinbeef]

Tips are ridiculous in America. People need to be paid a decent wage.

[mrdavidashley]

We're forcing people to pay tips instead of forcing THE COMPANIES to pay people the right wage. Every other business has to budget in wages into their structures. There are other countries that do not tip, remember that...

[tommcfadden]

Just a thought…if we tip for the service, why do we calculate the tip as a percentage of product we purchase? Example…at a sit down restaurant you order a 12 dollar burger and tip 20% ($2.40) Order a salad for 10 dollars from the same waiter and tip 20% ($2.00). Basically you have ordered 1 item. Assumably the waiter is doing the same amount of work and providing the same service. Tipping is essentially a scam. It shifts the responsibility for paying wages onto the consumer.

[MeterLP]

"If we pay workers a living wage, everything will be super expensive!" No, it wont. European BicMacs are only 40 cents more expensive than in the US, and that is mostly because the quality is much better thanks to food quality laws.

[ImmuneToTrollHate]

Tips are a bad excuse for employers to not pay their employees a living wage
Yes, if we get rid of tipping the cost of services will go up
But not more than what we are having to pay in tips because these people can't afford to live if we don't

[teonesofle]

if a business can't survive without tipping, it shouldn't be running as a business in the first place

[BlackCatAlley]

Trump wanted to give tips to the owners not the workers. Look it up. Congress stopped him last time he tried it.

[prof.jezebel]

I believe in tipping for table service but being forced to tip (by the debit machine) for someone handing me a croissant over a counter is obscene.

[musodebteach]

I live in New Zealand, and we don't have tipping (same in Australia and the UK). We have a minimum (living) wage, universal healthcare etc. When I've visited the United States having to try and figure out how much I should tip has just been stressful! Seems like a crazy confusing system.

[InitialT-tm-]

I don’t mind tipping for service but the percentages constantly going up is a scam by the industry. Only 35 years ago, suggested tips were commonly 8/10/12%. Now the bottom tier is no lower than 18%.

You may hear the argument that tip percentage needs to rise due to inflation. Nonsense! It’s a percentage of the price you paid. That price already went up due to inflation. So even if you paid the same percentage, the tip is already adjusted for inflation.

[crashnova]

I don't really have anything to say except tips are out of date and people need to unionize.

[Spidrick]

It used to be if you picked up your food/take out, you were not expected to tip. I did so during COVID because everyone was struggling but now it's gotten crazy;

[RubbingPotatoes]

@0:24 perfectly illustrates why the tipping needs to go. Just build it in your average price and stop making the customer decide! Decision fatigue.

[Immudzen]

I don't mind tipping for service but everywhere wants tips now. I actually started manually setting the tip to zero on many of the machines. Grocery stores asking for tips, fast food. Coffee places wanted tips when I just grabbed a juice and a premade item. They wanted a tip just for me picking up two items and scanning them. It has just gotten insane.

I have even seen some landlords trying to get tips on top of rent.

[Jeff-fyfp]

One issue with not taxing tips is that workers will have less recoded wages, and therefore smaller social security checks when they retire

[Cleo-hx]

Im an American who has retired to Spain. There is no tipping culture here. Why, because waiters get paid a livable hourly wage. Lunch is about 12pm to 3pm. Restaurant closes, then dinner starts at 7pm to about 10pm. Lunch: Entre, salad, wine, coffee, and a desert, is about 13.00euros. In the US, it drives me nuts that restaurant owners are greedy and want to become millionaires. People in the US in general are never satisfied with what they earn. Always striving for more. And they put the responsibility of paying their workers on the customers, who already over pay for food. Restaurant owners in Spain and the rest of Europe pay way more taxes than restaurant owners in the US do. Yet they manage to pay their workers a descent wage. And everyone here has healthcare through the state. But many also buy private if they can afford it. America is the only country in the world that does not offer universal health care to its citizens..

[ericcarlson]

Abolish tipping. It's not a customer's job to pay employees.

[bloodymarvelous]

How about this: If you need a 15% tip in order for your employees to earn a livable wage, why not just up the prices by 15% and pay them what they need?