Americans got the tipping culture from Europe before it faded away in Europe.
The onus is on the employer, not on the employer's customer. Implementation varies by state: http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
Some states have a higher minimum cash wage (before tips) than the $2.13 mandated by federal law. e.g. in California this is $9 per hour.
In many places, the employer (restaurant) is responsible for topping up the employees' wages if wage+tip doesn't reach the state's normal minimum wage.
That's only if the tips don't make up the difference to get to minimum wage.
The US is unique in a few ways because it has oceans on either side of it, and is otherwise isolated. In most other respects, what works anywhere else should be expected to work there. If other nations can make restaurants work without forcing employees to take less than a pauper's wage from the owners, and thus depend on cultural norms and customer's generosity to live, then so can America. If other nations can get all their citizens health care, then so can America. If other nations can have elections without spending many billions of dollars, then so can America. And so on.
And if Americans for some reason can't make these things work, it is about time for its people to start looking for the fault within themselves, their government, and their society, rather than discarding the ideas as unworkable, because the rest of the civilized world has already proven them out.
I've worked in restaurants and I've waited tables at a very high-level. There are your entry-level Applebee's servers who have no experience, are in the "survival career" category, or have no aspiration to do anything but work at Applebee's. They should earn 3-4x minimum wage, or about $24k a year.
Then you have your more respectable chain: Ruby Tuesday's. 4-6x or about $40k a year.
Something in the middle: Longhorn Steakhouse, 5-7x.
Above that you start talking about restaurant professionals, where they expect to see at least $80k a year. Prices are now 14x, but your server? They're damn good at their job. Never seen a professional in action before? Go to your city's equivalent to Manny's Steakhouse[0].
Yes, it is an absurd system. Basically, employers offload the responsibility of paying their employees on customers. So a tip is not a tip, it is an expected surcharge. Sure you can not tip, but its incredibly socially unacceptable. Furthermore, most people leave the same tip no matter what. Even if you had an exceptionally good or bad server, many places pool tips anyways.
When I was about 15 my friends and I accidentally forgot to leave a tip for the waitress. It was truly an accident. She followed us outside and to our car asking us for her tip. We got her to go back inside and then ran away because we weren't going to give her money after that...
In the US, it takes fairly extreme circumstances to not tip (by most people's standards at least; some people just never tip, but they're a tiny group), like if the service was extremely bad or the waiter was insulting or hostile.
Employers are legally required to chip in if the employee doesn't make minimum wage for a pay period, so it's not completely insane, but it's still a rather weird system.
[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Ho...
I find it hilarious how much intelligent and smart people rationalise the US tipping culture. It's always justified as you need to tip because the staff are paid low because they make it up in tips. It's circular reasoning.
Tipping is about connecting the buyers and sellers of services directly. How does sending the money through a manager/owner result in better or more cost effective services?
IMHO, one of the employers responsibility is to pay their staff. I don't think that's really arbitrary, it's commonly accepted across the world.
If you're in the service industry, it's your job to be nice. That's what their employer (hopefully) pays them for.
If I have a good or bad experience, I exercise my discretion by choosing whether to go there again. If the employer notices a trend downwards in customers, it's their responsibility to assess what that is - hopefully their in touch enough with their business to identify if it's because of their employees service and 'apply pressure' if need be.
I guess ultimately it comes down to culture. I (and the large majority of the non-US world) isn't accustom to paying 10%+ extra for bad or rude service and it would be very hard for us to understand why that happens.
Nope. I pay so someone else cooks my food and I have a nice selection. In fact anytime I've eaten at a restaurant in the US I hated the service. They just won't leave you alone because they want to be your friend so you will tip them. I don't need you to check how I'm doing every 10 minutes.
Why, as a consumer, am I making a decision on how much the staff will earn that day. That's the employer's responsibility. Why doesn't the restaurant owner set the price of what they sell accordingly to cover all costs (incl. wages)?
In Australia, the price I see on the menu is the price I'm charged and the price I pay. That includes wages!
Japan has the right idea.
Maria Shriver now has a compaign to guilt people into tipping hotel maids (more?).
If you're in the service industry, it's your job to be nice. That's what their employer (hopefully) pays them for.
If I have a good or bad experience, I exercise my discretion by choosing whether to go there again. If the employer notices a trend downwards in customers, it's their responsibility to assess what that is - hopefully their in touch enough with their business to identify if it's because of their employees service and 'apply pressure' if need be.
I guess ultimately it comes down to culture. I (and the large majority of the non-US world) isn't accustom to paying 10%+ extra for bad and rude service and it would be very hard for us to understand why that happens.
I'm done commenting here as long as this site remains this unfriendly to differing opinions.
And that's after years of participation and over 15,000 karma points. Something has changed, and it's not at all for the better.
In my experience, they're not tiny. I'm a young male who owned and worked in my own bar in a poor area of the bible belt, so there's those caveats--but I averaged about 8% in tips over 2.5 years.
My niece, on the other hand, averages over 20%.
My service was in all likelihood better than hers--at the time, we had fewer customers and therefore I was literally able to do more. Further, I'm well-liked by my customer base, and by my own measure I was an excellent bartender.
Anyway, I had a very large amount of customers who did not tip. I'd say > 30%.
Can you clarify the circumstances here, namely:
- does she work in your bar? If not, how similar is the place she works (same city? Same type of neighborhood? Same type of services?)
- did you work the same hours / days / crowd demographic? (There may be a difference in tipping expectations on Wednesday mid-afternoon when people are getting a single drink after work, vs Friday night when they're getting multiple drinks and food and trying to impress their date.)
- were there significant changes in the surrounding area, such as a factory opening or closing, that changed customer demographics?
- are there other wait staff you can compare to that would show a pattern? For example, are women in your establishment generally better tipped than men?
Yes, same bar.
Over time our clientele has changed (we intentionally changed it, mostly via pricing and what we carried, like nixxing 'Best Ice'), however that has just led to increased sales, rather than an increased percentage for her.
My nephew also works in the bar now, and he is tipped well, though not as well as my niece. I would venture a guess that the old crowd tipped women better than men, and the new crowd tips based mostly on service.
Either way, I got the short end of that stick.
Were you able to figure out why?
But no, just speculation.
There's a ton of factors to consider, of course. Some people get angry when drunk, some get loose with their money, some try to impress. Some people are surprised by large bar tabs and feel cheated. And all the normal factors, like that certain groups are notoriously tight with their money.
My own (very uninformed) assumption is that employers would be reluctant to make up the difference and employees would hesitate following this up in fear of getting in their employers 'bad books'
How is the average/median less than the federally mandated minimum wage law? Could the waiters themselves be under reporting tips?
It's very possible a waiter could be making $4.00 in wage per hour but average out to something like $18/hour when you account for tips, and I think this is pretty common in mid-tier restaurants and up. (My numbers may be way off for that; I've never worked in a service industry.)
Waiters serving establishments in wealthier areas can potentially make a lot of money from tips.
As an Australian, in a country that doesn't have a culture of tipping, I find it very amusing that you would tip a server who was noticably rude.
Edit: For context as well, tipping is on the rise up in Australia, but only at classier/fancier/modern/hipster places, and the extent of a tip would be to round up to nearest $10 (or note, if paying cash)