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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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The price on the menu isn't anywhere near the bill the expect you to pay at the end.
Bill = menu-price + taxes + 20% tip
(where 20% is just a rough average)
North americans are so stupid that some restautants tried in canada and the US to simplify things
menu-price = food + taxes + 20% tip
Final bill ends up being the same price as before but people saw bigger number and freaked out...
They'd rather be lied to by the menu price and then scammed for tips at the very end rather than have clear and transparent pricing....
I dont want to live on this planet anymore
a while ago, I wanna say 2010ish, the new CEO of JCPenney had a bold new vision for the brand. Instead of things being marked up and then perpetually "on sale," what if they just... marked things as the price they are? Sales collapsed by 25% and the company lost a billion dollars in a single year.
There is a reason things are the way they are, no matter how stupid they look. Consumer psychology is a trip.
Edit: and the thing is this probably works on the reader of this comment as well. Consumers, when asked, will say they prefer transparent pricing structures. But their real world behavior is the exact opposite.
Should be the employer paying their employee for doing their job, not the customer
America is a broken country that rewards the rich few and has no empathy for the rest
This is just one symptom of that
Exactly. Also just write the price you got to pay, including tax, service, the whole. Just the full price!
(Either that, or I wanna see a full break-up of the costs /s .... how much the farmer charges, transport, wholesale, sellers cost & profit, taxes ... everything)
…but that doesn’t make it “confusing”. I’m not sure why any adult would find +20% confusing. Is it fair? That’s a different question.
Most of the rest of the world expects that if you have 10 money, and see something that is advertised as costing 10 money, you can buy it.
Right and here in America we don’t piss on the streets as a matter of culture and toss trash out the window. Like a lot of the world. So, it’s bit like “the rest of the world” isnt a good metric.
But “the rest of the world” has good metric
The US is known for the clean city streets and good access to free public toilets, after all.
I learned this at a kid in the US. This fast food place had cookies labeled "99¢!” so said "mom can I have a dollar for a cookie?" and she gave me one, as a treat. I hope to the register and the girl says "ok it's actually $1.06".
I don't think I got the cookie that day. I don't remember it, but if I did it was soured by capitalism.
The American bait n switch
That's literally the reason given in the article why it's confusing. It didn't even have to exist if the employer paid the employee as I wrote above. The existence of the expensive tipping itself is confusing.
It’s not though. American employers don’t want to pay a living wage, therefore a 20%tax is issued to the diner. That’s not confusing and can be summed up in one sentence. If the idea is make other nations seem like idiots then… ok, I guess but it’s not “confusing”. Oh nooooo, in England I have to pay a tax on television? I’m so stupid and confused.
Why is it 20 now, it used to be 15?
It’s been 20 since before I was a server and that was 25 years ago. Fucking cave dwellers.
I'm an American. I was born here. I'm used to the taxes and the tipping and all of that stuff.
I don't find it confusing, sure. But I'm also used to it.
But as an analogy, imagine that the posted speed limit wasn't the actual speed limit. Well, in fact, it sort of works like that because you can usually but not always go 5 to 10 mph over.
But let's say that it was a little confusing. That it was more like 20%. Or it depended on some sort of. I don't know how to make this analogy work, but maybe sometimes it was 20%, sometimes it was 25%, sometimes it was 15%. The point is that having to calculate that all of a sudden when you never have before is difficult and a pain in the ass.
And if you come from a country with a speed limit, is the speed limit or it's like always like five over would be safe or something like that. This percent thing is bullshit to you because you've never had to deal with this stupidity before. Doesn't matter that the natives have no worries about it, this is weird and different and bullshit and there's no good reason for it.
Not the greatest analogy, but if you try and use it to you know get an idea of how they feel about it. I hope it helps a little bit
It's not only about confusion for me, it feels wrong and uncenessary abusive. This shit is illegal on most of the first world for a reason!
So basically the history of tipping comes from post-slavery times. When frankly whites were trying to keep blacks down. It has a terrible history, a terrible purpose. They were trying to not have to pay people who deserved a living wage.
So while I'm not certain, I think the practice should be strictly illegal, it certainly is bullshit. So I have a hard time disagreeing with you LOL
Yes, it’s confusing to say something costs $X then charge the customer $X+$Y.
Almost like it’s deceptive.
We can do the math for sure, but we are not interested in the break-down of the costs. Just tell us the final price, that's all that matters. We are used to be presented with the price we are gonna have to pay. Not some math at the end of the meal figuring out what the local tax rate is, guessing the expected tip of 15%-40% not based on actual service but ..... just the waiter's expectations (or more frequently the waiter's demand)
Not based on actual service but based on social mores and one’s ability to cold read the waiter?
Sounds like just what I need when all the blood has just gone from my brain to my belly
These days I've seen people trying to push 30% to 40% as the minimum tip. Either that or they sneak it in with service charges or gratuity fees with a suggestion of a 25% tip on top.
Taxes not included is insane.
Yeah the combo of tips + taxes is enough to throw any european off. 13% where I am, so mentally disregarding the final price presented and then adding 33% on top of that is a huge difference than paying the number the items added up to on the receipt, and then tipping if the service was excellent.
I think State taxes are lower than my provincial tax generally, but its a big shoft mentally. You have to fundamentally accept and financially reward a system that considers underpaying its employees completely normal and actively resists improvements for those employees.
i do not tip the tax.
Hold on. Is there no tax on the tip?
Only as of the bill last year the president passed, but that no tax on tips, a campaign pledge, is temporary and will expire. I think after this year.
As of last year, for the most common scenarios, yes, up to $25,000. https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/no-tax-on-tips
Well that explains why it's so prevalent
Whats prevalent? Tips have been included in everything since covid.
Tipping is prevalent.
Only if the server reports it as income (in Canada, at least).
Almost all tips are by credit card now in the US so most all of them you can't underreport for taxes anymore.