Should America drop tipping culture and just pay restaurant workers a decent wage?

[JustinTheGreat]

I’m a server and my income comes from tips. My checks after a full work week are only like $30-$40.
Its weird to me that America is one of the only countries (if not, the only) where servers rely
on tips.
But at the same time, if they told me “you’re gonna be getting paid minimum wage and you won’t get tips anymore” I would 100% quit and I think most servers/bartenders would do the same cause minimum wage won’t cut it lol

Updates

1 y

I worked 31 hours last week and my check was $0.29 💀

[Ευδεμονια]

We had this discussion some time ago, I think honestly that’s better to stop the tipping culture since it depends on generosity of customers and doesn’t really guarantee a decent wage for every worker. I think, in parallel, it has to be risen up the minimum wage, I sincerely don’t know how much it is and if it’s enough to make a living.
You’re now paid less than 5 dollars per hour a day, here in Italy only people working in the country fields achieve so poor wage, I think it’s very unequal to rely only on tipping hoping there’s a lot of customers and the majority of them choose the highest tip to integrate your wage.

[oneHuman]

what is certain is that u would get paid as little money as is possible for the owner.
I live in a country where they get a normal wage and we dont have to tip at all (10% is socially accepted). but that normal wage is little money in my country. mostly students do those jobs. im sure it can be hard in america but when u do a great job u might get more money out of it than with a wage.

[Anonymous]

The reason the service industry is so large in the US compared to other countries is because eating out is so cheap and you get so much food.
If the US dropped tipping culture and upped wages for service workers then the cost of that would be passed on to the customer which means less customers and less revenue for the service industry which means less service workers and more unemployed people.
I worked in the service industry in the US for 4 years. I did pretty well on tips from bars, clubs and waitressing but then I was young, thin, and had a decent set of boobs which I always wore with a push up bra.

[Aerissa_Jade]

I was one in my early college days and I made decent income back then, $20 to $50 an hour on busy nights.

There are some places here that have dropped tipping and the service sucks rocks. They don't care at all, and asking for a manager... means asking from the problem person who won't want to pass that along.

Maybe you need a better restaurant and you definitely need to report your employer to the government, that's below minimum wage... they are breaking the law.

[JustinTheGreat]

Restaurants are allowed to pay less than minimum wage since the tips are supposed to make up for it. And usually after they take out taxes, our checks always come out to next to nothing no matter what restaurant it is

[Aerissa_Jade]

See, I always had 400 to 500 a week... although co-workers sucked at their jobs were far less. People liked me, I ended up quitting when they were trying to convince management to switch to pooled tips... to take away from me.

[Shamalien]

Tipping culture is excellent because it provides financial incentive to work hard and want the business to succeed

[Anonymous]

I assume you make more money on tips than getting paid $15 an hour because if you take care of two tables per hour and they both tip $10 then that is $20/hr.

[JustinTheGreat]

On good nights, I make about $30/hr.
On average it’s about $23-$27/hr. But there are bad nights where I can make as little as $12/hr

[HippieVeganJewslim]

Yes, both, but tipping ain’t never a bad idea, just not make it mandatory.

[Blackcosmo]

Absolutely.