Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Think less “road outside my house” and more “concept of modern roads” - those roads were built by Roman slaves, bud.
If you think I’m painting with too broad a brush here, that’s good! That’s literally the point of my above comment. If you’re reductionist enough to equate tipping and slavery, then pretty much everything can be directly linked to slavery.
People just forget there were slaves in places other than America.
The actual argument this person would be making, if they were intellectually honest, is that tipping comes from purchasing prompter service and is more akin to “premium” models of transactions than how we use it today. Today, tipping is a hidden cost of services, and people don’t like that.
That discussion should be had, but it’s never the discussion people want to have, for some reason.
Tipping in the US is literally “a legacy of slavery and racism and took off in the post-Civil War era. Almost immediately, the idea was challenged by reformers who argued that tipping was exploitative and allowed companies to take advantage of workers by getting away with paying them low or no wages at all.”
It is very relevant, within the context of the US, to point how tipping in America is a legacy of slavery and racism and that, while the country has progressed and pushed for reforms, this subversive practice has continued to this day and is in fact seemingly increasing.
The fact that complaints often come from customers doesn’t change the fact that the practice is exploitative towards workers and has its origins in the post-Civil War era and the abolishment of slavery.
the idea was challenged by reformers who argued that tipping was exploitative and allowed companies to take advantage of workers by getting away with paying them low or no wages at all.”
Ok but that’s not how markets work. Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
So like, the base premise for this idea this person is trying to correct us demonstrably flawed and predates any modern understanding of economics.
Tipping is just hiding the true price of the labor. The labor still costs what it costs, it’s just servers gamble that the variance works out in their favor. It clearly does, or people wouldn’t choose to be servers instead of other jobs.
So like if the core premise is flawed, I sort of think it’s a bad idea to promote the idea.
I’m all for raising prices and ensuring the servers make their income, I just think the prices will be higher than people expect and that the ensuing sticker shock will upset people.
Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
That may be true in part, especially with modern laws regarding minimum wages and reforms that have occurred.
Even with that being true, it’s still exploitative of workers. It allows a business to extract value from a workers labor without compensating them appropriately for that labor. Essentially having their customers subsidize their business.
I just think the prices will be higher than people expect and that the ensuing sticker shock will upset people.
People are already upset about tipping in its current form. If a business can’t afford to pay a living wage without tips to subsidize their workers pay then that business should fail.
There’s a reason the National Restaurant Association has spent decades fighting increases to the minimum wage at the federal and state levels, as well as the sub-minimum wage paid to tipped workers like waiters. It’s not because they’re concerned the workers aren’t getting paid enough.
Every worker deserves a livable wage (not minimum) for their labor. A tip, or gratuity, should shouldn’t subsidize labor costs but should serve as a bonus or a sign of gratitude for exceptional labor.
Tipped employees don’t make less money than non-tipped. If they did, they wouldn’t do that job.
doesn’t “any modern understanding of economics” predict that, in this case, non-tipped employees would quit their jobs and get tipped jobs instead?
I get that you’re trying to do a reductio ad absurdum but your post really falls flat on its face.
The Roman Empire no longer exists in any shape or form.
The United States of America is a surviving institution that has continuity to its darker history as it pertains to slavery.
The problem is not simply that slavery is causing some sort of moral taint; it’s that there are still institutions today that continue to have advantages that stem from the unjust practice of slavery in the US.
