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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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US tip culture is so weird. I’m talking about the comments as much as the pic
what about it is weird?
our servers are generally paid 2-3 dollars an hour, and they make all their income base on tips. people who work in service industry generally prefer it, as it allows them to dodge taxes by underreporting their tip income. it does create a bit of a feast of famine in the service industry, as if you can get a lucrative dinner shift at a higher end restaurant, you can make a good living, which is otherwise in accessible to people without degrees or specialized skills.
That's the part that is weird. And I live in the U.S.
the average wage with tips is like 20/hour, which is significantly more than minimum wage, and in some places more than double.
hence why people who work in these jobs are against the removing of tipping, because they'd make less money.
what's hilarious is people on lemmy who probably have never worked as a server or bartender going on about tipping and restaurants like they know better than the people who work in them. because in their ignorant opinion they 'know better' than these folks.
Alternately: they could be paid a living wage with menu prices to support these higher wages. This allows for a more consistent (read: reliable) income. While I have not personally worked as a server, I know enough people who have. They have "good nights" and "bad nights."
Another affect of this is that it removes ambiguity regarding which places depend on tips and which don't. This line has been muddied by places haphazardly adding tip prompts to their checkouts.
There's a theme here, and that theme is consistency.
Consider that the comments on this are from the customer side. The increase in places asking for tips and inflation of "suggested" tip percentages hasn't been helping.
I think there might be a theoretical tipping culture that threads the needle of waiters getting a living wage while giving some leeway. Basically: 20% on the total is absurd and a dark pattern for advertising goods below cost; 0% is a hard barrier that can price certain populations out or fails on edge cases.
For example if I walk in with a table full of toddlers I should be socially obliged to tip you for going above and beyond the normal service. If I have a table of well behaved adults I shouldn't be forced to pay the same gratuity for group size. If I do, I'm subsidizing clumsy patrons breaking dishes and making messes.
In a similar vein, ordering something simple and eating quickly shouldn't incur the same payment as chatting for 2 hours while no tables are available. If I'm paying a set price for the implicit use of a table then you damn well better set a timer on the table so I know. All of these variables are impossible to price in and vary wildly with your clientele, which makes tipping an attractive option.
Maybe something like a restaurant enforced hard cap of 5%-10%. Nobody complains about a reasonable company culture of overtime+bonuses, service workers should have the same right to that compensation. Unfortunately, that realistically wouldn't work. Exploitation is baked into our economy, so 0% is our best option.
i consider that the comments are mostly from people outside the USA being whiny something exists here they don't like or understand.
I consider you'd have to be a moron to think those of us who have worked in US restaurants would not see a problem with tipping culture.
&
Why would people outside the U.S. who don't work in restaurants want to embrace tipping culture?
Everything you just said is weird
cool. to me it's about as normal as drinking water from the tap.
is that weird in your country? i understand many places tap water is not potable.
I'm my country drinking tap water is as normal as paying people a living wage. We don't usually tip, because people are payed enough already.
I'd say the only thing we seem to have in common is that people love tax evasion.
service workers do earn a living wage. they get it from tips. tips are the wage. it's just paid directly by the customer rather than the business owner. the business owner never gets any of the tips, unless they are stealing.
maybe it would make more sense to you if you consider them as contract workers who are working for you individually when you go into a restaurant? and those who do better jobs often get better wages, and/or those who are more attractive.
Wage is predetermined by contract. Getting tips is random money with no guarantees.
No idea why people defend this system. Depending on goodwill of random people is not the way to go.
OK, you can come to america and start a restaurant without tips and see how it goes. You can prove everyone here wrong!
or... places here have tried that before and almost all of them have failed because it's not sustainable to pay people $25+ an hour and customers won't pay the prices on that food when they can go down the street and pay half as much.
good news is you don't live here, so it's none of your concern really.
Like the 10 closest restaurants near me don't allow tipping and pay their workers 22-27 an hour... And they do just fine?
I'm in California.
You might be a idiot full of shit. Who doesn't actually know fuck or all about this topic. Just defending a shitty practice.
where is that precisely? SF? LA? what is the income in that zip code?
I have no doubt it's possible in a very high income area where people dont' care about paying $50 for hamburgers, but you're a fool if you think that's generalization to a zip code where the median income is 40-50K.
Also, how long have they been around? months? years?
a few places in my city went that route and closed after 2-3 years. they were experiments.
What are you talking about? The biggest restaurant chain in the US (McDonalds) forbids tipping. Last I checked they’re doing OK.
Hey, yeah! How do all these tipping apologists contend with all the fast food places that pay their workers and don’t take tips?
This might be the stupidest take of the take. God damn
I will be honest. I find that weird.
Do you underpay the shop clerks too, with the assumption that they will simply take part of the money handed to them by shopping clients?
No. shop clerks aren't providing a personal service. they just stand there and ring you up.
That's a service. Otherwise shops wouldn't add self-checkout.
No, it's not. I was a cashier for years. I was not doing any service for anyone. I was taking money from the customer and literally nothing else. The service I provided was for the store, not for the customer.
a server at a restaurant takes your order, chats you up, and brings your food from the kitchen/bar to your table. You are on your feet, moving around, putting on a show for people. that's a lot more work than what I did. I never wanted to be a server because it I would hate to have to work so much, even if I made more money.
Hell, in Europe cashiers sit down on the job the entire shift.
gods, restaurants in the USA must be exclusive multiple-start endeavors. I thought movies were lying.
Honestly, as someone who worked in the service industry ... Nah not really. Also the only way you can "dodge taxes" is to not report your cash tips, everything else that's not cash automatically gets thrown into your income because it's all computerized now.
Most people would prefer a living wage and healthcare benefits (plus 401k, and dental and other "normal" benefits that most corpo folks get).
Like you can easily get absolutely fucked over money wise depending on what sections your waiting, if you have a big party that tries to split the bills up and avoid auto gratuity that way (common where I worked which sucked) and get screwed by the low tips on the split checks ... You might just have some folks that come in and just don't tip for whatever reason, weather is horrible so nobody comes in, etc etc.
It's not a great way to live. Not to mention many restaurants have a culture that's just generally exploitative so even putting all the above aside it's not the best work environment for a lot of folks.
Not saying that all the above is true for all establishments but that's my take and experience.
cool. my state propose a initiative to remove tips entirely two years ago, it was viciously voted down 2 to 1, and ever bartender or service person i know was violently against it because they knew their income would go down if it passed.
fwiw I voted for it.
Well I guess you and I know different people in the industry.
Also a lot of them aren't exactly ... The brightest bulbs, people vote against their own self interests all the time. That's how we got Trump in the White House ... Ugh.