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Pay your employees a living wage
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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I went to the US in 2024 and it was outrageous, every card terminal asked for it
I was under the impression it was just for sit down meals and not stuff like Starbucks or non food related things
somewhere around 2020 everyone and their mother starting asking for tips, even places that don't pay tip-based wages. it's just pure corporate greed over here. my guess is that it's on by default by the payment processors and most people don't turn it off.
It is, you can just put 0 for those things. I think they market those devices doing that as an opportunity for an upcharge.
This is a product of the myriad of unconfigured PoS systems. If you just Google shit you're supposed to tip for before going into a country, you should be good to go. It's the same thing I do when I travel. While I do agree that the tipping culture sucks, I think it's more rude as a visitor to completely ignore social norms and constructs.
Travelers who aren't tipping are just stiffing a waiter who is working their ass off during the busiest time for their establishment and probably making that person sour on whatever country they're from. I can't realistically see how this path leads to meaningful change or righteousness.
It is just for sit down meals and personal service. If someone is handling your car or your luggage or delivering food to your house, or cutting your hair that's personal service.
The kiosks ask because they can blame the software and get away with it.
My fucking girlfriend always asks me if I tip when we get counter service and there's a prompt on the pos, and I can't get thru to her that unless it's sit down, a bar, or delivery I don't tip unless there's an actual reason to do so.
I fucking hate that there's a cultural guilt in this country of wasting 15-20% extra on food to uphold a fucking post-slavery jim crow policy.
Exactly. When it comes to food service, if all you did was make it and bring it to the counter, that’s all just rolled into the price of the meal. If you’re bringing it to my house or refilling my drinks and taking empty plates away while I sit and enjoy myself, then that’s beyond the meal itself and I’ll happily tip for that service.
What you are describing is a major contributor to tip fatigue. Everything is asking for a tip, meanwhile actual tipped employees are still making $2 an hour. It's out of control.
In the USA, it is illegal for anyone to make less than federal minimum wage. If a tipped employee does not earn tips, the employer must make up the difference. To not do so is wage theft and illegal.
It doesn't work on a per-shift basis. If they work a slow, below-minimun weekday and a busy, above-minimum weekend, they aren't bumped up on the weekday. What actually happens is their weekend is counted against their weekday. Many shifts they do in fact walk out with sub-minimum wages that do not get corrected.
It's a system that's great for the rockstars is busy urban areas pulling in hundreds of dollars a shift. For everyone else in the industry, not so much.
"But overall they're making above minimum."
While true, it's similar to a laborer working a 12 hour shift and not getting any OT because they're under 40 for the week and OT doesn't kick in until hour 41. They still worked a 12 hour shift and 4 of those hours should have been OT, but due to how the hours are counted their employer is able to avoid the payout.
Hold up, you're missing some nuance and it's gonna make Europeans in here believe it's true. In the US, any job can collect tips, it's literally free extra money for no extra work so that's why you see the tip option everywhere. That said, not all positions which collect tips get the service industry $2 minimum wage.
Most positions such as barista, hair stylist, etc get paid minimum wage plus they get whatever tips you give pay them. These positions typically get minimum wage because, despite there being a tip option, most people don't tip significantly (hair stylist might depending on the type, but their base fees are already very high). Think of these as your $1 tip category, it's people who you aren't socially obligated to tip, don't expect a tip, get paid at least minimum wage regardless of your tip, and contribute to tip fatigue.
The other tip group are full tip positions, such as waiter or bartender. These positions get $2 an hour unless they fail to get enough tips on average to meet the $7 minimum wage. Realistically, if they aren't getting at least $7 minimum in tips then they are going to leave or get fired long term. These positions you are socially obligated to tip and they expect a tip. Strangely enough, some of the biggest proponents for this tipping position are the people that work in this field, career waiters and bartenders, because despite the very low potential income it also has a fairly high potential income for a low skill job depending on a lot of different factors. This is your percentage tip category.
The $1 tip category won't go away, no matter how annoying it is, because it's literally free money and no one expects you to do it (and if they do feel free to laugh in their face and never give them business again). The % tip category also probably won't go away because it allows the business to shift costs to the customer and the people in the career support it.
You might wonder why people in the % tip category would support it, it's because it's a low technical skill job (hard work only), a lot of the tips are tax free, people who don't like it leave the career, and it often attracts certain types of people (perhaps neurodivergent is the right word, but I really mean the type of people who don't want a 9-5 Mon-Fri job).
Yes, but you can't just ask someone "Do you make minimum wage? I need to know so I can decide how much to tip."
I don't know how much is normal to tip at some places. At restaurants, 20% is standard, ±5% depending on quality of service.
But at a coffee shop or a hairdresser or anywhere else like that, when the prompt for a tip comes up, I'd feel guilty to put anything lower than 20% because that's how I'm programmed to feel about tipping. It would feel rude to press "no tip" or just $1 or just 5%. But also, cognitively I know 20% is too much for those roles because they already make at least minimum wage. But asking "what's the normal amount to tip" seems rude too.
So I usually end up overtipping, even when it puts a strain on my finances. And that moves the overton window and begins to ingrain the obligation into cultural expectations. And that's precisely what the vendors want to happen. They want you to feel guilty so you tip too much, so that it becomes normal to tip too much and people have the option of "no tip" gradually taken away from them.
That's why in Europe when you use those american POS machines, the staff will click "no tip" for you before even handing you the machine. One, because they don't want to guilt you into tipping, and two because they don't want tipping culture to sneak into their societies. Because if it does, not only will it become a social obligation that no one wants, but it could also potentially give employers permission down the line to start paying less, the way they do in the US.
European wait staff like being payed a living wage without relying on tips. And you can feel the difference. They're not nearly as stressed out as servers in the US, and the interactions feel more genuine because they don't need to kowtow or be obsequious.
Didn't they have self checkouts that asked for tips at some point?
🤯
Not sure where you live but this is now also the case in Germany
That's because businesses use POS machines with american software. It's all over Europe now, but usually the staff will click "no tip" before handing it to you, because they don't want tipping culture sneaking in and threatening their livable wage.
Fortunately, I have never encountered a tip asking card terminal in northern Germany. When I tip, I do it cash anyways. Tips don't go to the boss...
UK, a few chains tried it here but I imagine it was enough to drive people away so you don’t see it much anymore
Really? I have seen a tip window on a card terminal maybe once or twice within the last year.
I also find our German tipping culture pretty okay. Tips usually aren’t expected but welcome. Usually you just round up a bit. A 10% tip is still considered a good tip.
It’s nowhere near as bad as in the US