The United States really needs to kill tipping culture off

Why? What would be different for the customer? The tip would just be rolled into the price of the service to amount to the same number, and quality of service would probably go down. Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary). So what would really be the benefit?

And I'm not trying to be dismissive at all. Coming from Europe I also thought initially that tipping was really weird, but after living with it for a decade+ I got used to it and I'm really curious as to why we should stop doing it.

Have you ever worked a job that depends on tips? Try serving a table of 20 and working your butt off and then getting no tip from the table because they "don't believe in tipping."

The correlation between "great service" and getting a good tip is nowhere near a 1:1. It sucks to go to work and not know whether you're going to come home with enough money to pay your bills this week, because you might get lucky or you might get a stream of tightwads.

I'd be OK with tipping if people made a baseline living wage and the tips were for service above and beyond the usual. I'm not OK with the current standard.

If you can't be persuaded that it's unfair to the workers, realize it's also unfair to you as a customer. Because people can't be reliably counted upon to tip their fair share, you need to over-tip if you care about people making a fair wage.

And the perception of a "fair" tip has gone up noticeably in my lifetime -- 10-15% used to be a reasonable tip when I was in my teens and early 20s. Now it's crept up to 15-20% and spread to a lot of jobs that you didn't think of for tips (e.g., somebody handing you a coffee) because wages suck.

> Now it's crept up to 15-20% and spread to a lot of jobs that you didn't think of for tips

...And, importantly, there's no way to actually know this because it's all informal.

I keep hearing that some places are now expecting 25% tips, while others are still repeating the older 15-20% figure. Some transportation workers (cab drivers, hotel courtesy van drivers) expect tips—others, in exactly the same job but a different company, don't expect them or even refuse them.

The informality of it all is one of the biggest reasons why tipping culture needs to die, and be replaced with actually paying workers a fair amount to start with.

> Now it's crept up to 15-20% and spread to a lot of jobs that you didn't think of for tips (e.g., somebody handing you a coffee) because wages suck.

A couple days ago I had my oil changed at once of those drive-through places and the payment terminal had a prompt for a tip.

I’ll counter with a question: do you tip when you buy a new laptop? At the grocery store when buying milk? If so, how much? If not, why not?

As a customer, I want to know the real costs ahead of time.

As an employee (last received tips some 30 years ago, but still…) I would like to get paid for the work I did, not that 50% of my pay would be contingent on how authentic I can make my fake smile look on a stressful day.

I usually tip 20% wherever I am because I am too lazy to figure out the local culture and because I can afford to; but I seriously hate it.

Visiting Germany 15 years ago was a bliss in this respect - the expectation was to round up to the nearest euro, if any tip at all. But I understand that now, at least in Berlin, 10%-20% tip has become the norm.

It undermines the norm that employees should be paid for their labor regardless of what the customer thinks --- that they can be fired of course but not underpaid for the labor already performed

It undermines the norm that businesses should pay their damn taxes.

To wit, we have been able to put off discussing the non-profitability of restaurants for far too long until now. Remember, it is quite arguable that Baumol's cost disease = "progress", not by definition, but by bi-implication.

The experience and price would be consistent. I would know what I'm paying every time instead of trying to figure out what the extra 20% is or try to judge based off the items. Its much nicer going to restaurants out side of the country because you can just pay. There's no worrying about if I'm tipping right or enough or judging the service.

Also covid and those ipad paying terminals have turned every job into a tip job. Every cashier wants a tip now. And they ask you if you want to tip becasue no one can touch the terminals. Which is awkward to say no to. I see/hear people leaving ridiculous tips for take out. I had one terminal for take out not have a "no tip" option. I had to manually type in $0.

> Employees would also be taxed on the "tip" (which would now be included in their base salary)

Tips are income already, and are taxed as such. You can get away with not reporting it if it's a few extra bucks from a jar on a counter. But if you're a "tipped employee" (and thus eligible to be paid sub-minimum wage) you report them to your employer, who then reports them to the IRS, and does tax withholding same as for wages.

That's a naive understanding of what's really happening at most restaurants. Cash tips are almost always significantly under-reported. It's nowhere near as low as "tip jar on the counter" amounts.

Yes, of course there is underreporting; nothing in my comment says otherwise.

I'm not following your point. Since some people cheat on their taxes, they shouldn't be paid wages instead, because then they wouldn't be able to underreport as easily?

My point was that the under-reporting is in much larger amounts than your claim that "You can get away with not reporting it if it's a few extra bucks from a jar on a counter."

> Since some people cheat on their taxes, they shouldn't be paid wages instead, because then they wouldn't be able to underreport as easily?

How did you get this from what I said? I said nothing to that effect. Not even close. My point was very simple.

Why shouldn't all workers and corporations report all income and pay taxes on them?

That may be true, but $45 already felt like the upper limit so even a $5 increment feels like too much (my hair is short afterall!)

Wouldn't $50 now be worth less than the original $45 "years ago", considering inflation?

Barbers, like tattoo artists, strippers, and relief veterinarians, freelance.

The house gets a percentage per head. You're really tipping.

So you're saying the proper response for the employer acting to raise pay to the line workers by raising prices is for you, as a customer, to act to lower pay to the line workers by stopping the tips? That'd show the greedy owner! Surely in some world that must make sense... but it's not our world.

I'm obviously not in the US, but this is a patently absurd perspective as it would then dictate that I am lowering pay to a lineworker by no longer being a customer. Where is the actual business's culpability in that twisted transaction?

I've just impoverished one barista at Starbucks because today I went to Cafe Nero instead! And I'm no longer a regular at my local Italian joint, so I've just deprived a few more people of an income.

For some reason you think this is about sticking it to the man but it's not. The staff get a stable, living wage and the business is charging prices much more in line with reality. I'm also no longer personally liable for the income of whoever served me, because the rightful responsibility for that lies on the employer.

> I am lowering pay to a lineworker by no longer being a customer

As an individual customer, not likely since line workers' pay does not directly depend on the number of customers served (at least until it's so low that the business goes under and they have to move to unemployment benefits instead). Tips depend on each customer though, so if you chose Starbucks over Cafe Nero, and Starbucks barristas don't get tips, but Cafe Nero's ones customarily do, then yes, your choice had influence on the income of Cafe Nero's barrista. Probably a small one, but it's there. If neither barrista gets tips (I've never seen anybody to tip a Starbucks barrista but in smaller shops it happens sometimes, though much less frequent than with waiters) then there's not much difference from a single individual action.