Tipping is a multi-leveled scam. Not only does it allow restaurants to avoid paying their employees, the servers themselves often don't get to keep the whole tip themselves. They end up having to pool it together with other servers, and so any good tip you give someone for good service is watered down and the amount they receive doesn't reflect their actual effort.
On top of that, some people (like Church of God in Christ members - COGICs) refuse to tip based on whatever ignorant beliefs they profess.
In some industries, tipping isn't included on the bill, but yet the people working deserve them and often receive them - like bellhops, movers, valet drivers - all sorts of industries where the people work hard but are underpaid. We ought to have some sort of way of recognizing someone's contributions and paying them appropriately for their efforts, without it being fully dependent on the individual customers to pay the amount since a large number will not. Some sort of social tipping system where effort is rewarded, but that regular workers still receive living wages.
It's a tough problem.
34
IMHO everyone should experience working in retail, hospitality, and management at least once in their working lives. To do so brings in my experience a well of empathy for the person on the other side of the bar, counter or desk.
And absolutely: "Always, always, always leave a tip in a hotel room."
207
If we paid people a living wage rather than being stingy we might not have to tip. That might make the wait staff a lot happier which would spread to we, the customers. While I try to tip generously when I do eat out I find the expectation that I must tip annoying. If the service is marginal I'm not tipping. If I cannot get the assigned waitstaff to bring me an extra napkin or a new utensil should I drop it on the floor, I may not tip.
Here's what I tip for: a good meal, no interruptions unless I ask for them, refilled water glasses without needing to beg, and being able to ask the person assigned to the table what's good and get an honest answer. Thankfully most waitstaff are quite good that way.
However, I am not going to tip every person who serves me. I don't tip at the deli. I don't tip the cleaners. And I don't tip at Starbucks if I happen to buy a coffee there. I don't appreciate the expectation that I will, when paying for an item in a store, agree to pay an extra dollar to fund causes the store thinks are good. I'm not made of money.
425
Advice to the rich from a rich man.
67
I enjoy tipping the regulars; postal, delivery, barber, to name a few. They don't work for tips so they earn it. It's really a gift. But tipping waitstaff that I'll never see again makes no sense to me, they don't work for me and I shouldn't have to subsidize their salary, especially when I can't write it off my taxes.
I make an exception for hotel room workers, whom I never see. Making beds is back-breaking work and I always leave a tip in the room.
64
@Mike B, You're kidding, right?
97
Once again, Mr. Brooks, you demonstrate just how out of touch you are with regular folks.
73
Brooks, Here's a tip for you--Don't tell me what to do with MY money.
53
Stop eating out.
29
Seems to me that tipping is related to empathy. That is, if you have ever been in a job where tipping was expected to be a major part of your compensation, you understand how crappy it is for customers not to tip. For meal service, my rule of thumb is to divide the check total by an arbitrary number (say 4 to 7, depending how pleased I have been with my meal and service overall, and rounding up to the next even dollar). That usually comes out to between 15-28%. For baggage handling, on the rare occasions I use this service, I am embarrassed to hand over anything less than a $5 bill. Hotel room maid service is admittedly a big blind spot for me. However, the way my wife and I travel, the majority of our stays are one night only, and we leave the room clean enough that all there is to do it to change the bedding, wash the towels, and empty the wastebasket. After reading this article I will definitely leave something for the maid on multi night stays, or if we eat salted in the shell peanuts.
12
I'd read tipping originated in London where an establishment had a box near the door that read T.I P. -to insure promptness.
I'm not a big fan of tipping in America. Everyone expects a big one from the public. In 1970's Los Angeles, I recall a Culver City eatery called AL PENNYS where the owner had put up a billboard on Venice Boulevard that read, " Al Penny says, if you can't afford to tip don't eat out." My thought was if you can't afford to pay your wait staff, you shouldn't be in business.
69
30% tip. I'll just stay home and tip them zero.
82
Here in SF, we are drowning in new upscale hipper than thou restaurants. In nearly every one of them, the skin tone dynamic of lighter skin on the chefs and servers, (who receive the tips that triple their salaries) and darker skin on the cooks, busboys, and dishwashers, is nauseating. It's like being in the antebellum South. And it's not immigrant status or language. San Francisco is chock full of 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Latino and Asian Americans whose language and personal relations skills are fully fluent. It's institutional racism.
54
As someone who used to depend on his tips to pay rent and expenses while going to college, I have to disagree. I’ll leave an amount that reflects the level of service that I’ve received. I don’t need some well paid NYT columnist to project his self loathing into guilt tripping me into adopting his ridiculous idea.
Tip for service used to mean a job done to a certain level. Now, it’s an entitlement for just taking payment. Do your job and do it well, and I’ll tip generously. Don’t care about what you’re doing? Don’t expect me to care about leaving much of a tip.
62
Tipping exists in restaurants since the Russian Army occupied Paris in 1815 ("Bistro, bistro!") I am amazed of how "well intentioned" folks dont understand tippoing. "Service compris" ia not observed in France BTW. You always leave something. no tippong just ratinalizes greed, IMHO.
3
This is an entitled, out of touch, self-righteous, patronizing, class-ridden op-ed. At 30%, the restaurant business will be a lot smaller, which also means fewer jobs.
52
"Moreover, tipping nurtures humane relationships. It encourages servers to try to establish social connection through direct eye contact and a display of warmth."
Yeah, right. I hate to burst your bubble but that stripper isn't smiling at you cause she thinks you're hot. Nor does the waiter think your joke is hilarious. They do not want to be your new friend. They are doing a job to make a living.
Self absorbed customer gets to feel funny, sexy, smart, magnanimous. Server gets to feel like they're selling a tiny bit of their soul every time they can't afford to put a jerk in his or her rightful place.
"Humane relationships" are not the result of an imbalance of power and an incentive for insincerity.
Do we tip our doctors, professors, pilots, etc.? Why not? What kind of dynamic would be created in other professions if tipping became the norm and expectation?
113
You assume that the service is identical when saying that tip amounts are different. You lost me as soon as you did that. And I like to leave a nice tip, but 50% is ridiculous.
27
I know I will annoy the Baby Boomer readers by quoting a pre-1947 film, but it's worth quoting regardless:
Porter: "May I have your bags, madame?"
Ninotchka: "Why?"
Kopalski: "He is a porter. He wants to carry them."
Ninotchka: "Why should you carry other people's bags?"
Porter: "Well, that's my business, Madame."
Ninotchka: "That's no business! That's social injustice!"
Porter: "That depends on the tip."
36
This article is ludicrous on so many fronts, and I’ll just name a few. First and foremost, restaurant owners should pay their employees a living wage. Why should I, the customer, help subsidize the owner’s operation and net profit? Secondly, you mention your experience as a bartender so maybe (not likely) you’ll appreciate this example: My wife and are a beer drinkers. If we sit at the bar, two beers will cost at least $14 (we live in the D.C. area where the price of beer is ridiculous). Your 30% formula suggests that I leave a tip of $4 plus change. From ordering to pouring to delivery should take no more than six minutes and probably less. So if I leave a $4 tip for six minutes of the bartender’s time, I’m paying him $40 an hour. Is that really the result you are proposing. Please, tip all you want, but get a grip on reality when you are lecturing the rest of us.
65
Mr. Brooks, rightfully in my opinion, suggests that tipping encourages "social connection through client eye contact and as a display of warmth.” But that human relationship is not enhanced when to a “thank you” profferred by a patron elicits a “ no problem” by a wait staffer. Is it not true that “think" and “thank” are verbal relatives? A “thank you” bespeaks a recognition by a guest that the thoughtfulness that went into the serving presentation is appreciated. The unfortunately too frequent “no problem” response by a wait staffer suggests that the customer was not an undue pain in the neck. Mutual appreciation is sadly absent from the exchange whatever the gratuity happens to be.
10
A living wages would be the best solution. At the end of the night, servers and bartenders must "tip out" to runners, bar-backs, busser, expeditors and so forth. So if a customer believes they're leaving a large tip to a server or bartender, actually, at the night's end, they're not.
Additionally, all tips are subject to taxes these days. The advanced POS systems provide the information for W-2 forms. So the "under the table" economy in the restaurant industry doesn't widely exist anymore.
15
Hahaha. 30%?? Every time I read one of your columns, Mr. Brooks, I get this sense that you're so very out of touch. Is it the fact that you live on the East Coast? Your income? Your social circle?
I have never even HEARD of tipping 30%, much less seen anyone do it. And I'm a middle-to-upper middle class Californiana who's been around.
In fact, tipping seems out of control to me. I understand restaurant tipping, and 20% is fine, but there's a tip jar out EVERYWHERE these days.
I'm supposed to tip someone who pulls down a handle for five seconds to fill a cup of coffee for me? (Actually MAKING a drink is a different deal.) I
I'm supposed to tip 15-20% to a bartender who pulls down a handle for five seconds to get me a beer? I do but I don't like it.
I loved going to Spain. Essentially no tipping. People are paid livable wages, it seems.
65
It troubles me to have to pay the owner for the food, and then pay his/her help.
23
What's all this talk about 15% being the "standard tip"? Sure, it's the standard - if you're not a very nice person.
12
I agree completely. As a young man, I helped pay for college by bussing tables. People rarely tipped on service and we learned quickly to ignore some tables such as those with rich college kids or a huge family of a half-dozen kids. The later left the table a disaster as mom's gave their little dears crackers to smash and scatter like a debris field around the table.
I take your philosophy one step further: I tip my carpenter. He's acting like a general manager of the project to renovate my house so I tip him 10%. He would do it for free but he is burning hours making sure the electrician shows up and the work quality is acceptable.
I wish the people I have worked for would tip me but let's face it the rich and the managerial class think it's enough that we tackle their dirty work and they give us a pay check.
8
30% tip.
How about employers and other greedy sharks pay their employees a living wage?
35
But there are servers who should be doing something else. Most in the us are novices
4
As an employee of NYT and PBS does Mr Brooks expense his meals and hotel stays, thus passing along his generosity in the form of a reimbursable expense report at their corporate accounting departments ? And, if not, is he deducting the meals and hotels tips when he travels and sits to discuss worldly affairs and research books with his subjects and other pundits ? I always tipped well when I travelled for my company’s purposes.
24
If tipping is not connected to merit, as your cited statistics show, then the ONLY reason for it is to save employers from having to pay a living wage with associated benefits.
Sure, moving to a "no tip" economy will cause dislocation for 10, even 20, years before everyone has gotten used to it, and adjusted. Then good service will be imposed by businesses that care about having repeat business -- the Ritz Carlton provides a luxury experience because that is their business model, not because the owners of the business are getting tipped. People don't tip their doctors or airline pilots or flight attendants.
18
No good, Democrats have been using the constrained vision of problem solving for about 40 years and look where it has gotten us.
No real increase in wages for 40 years.
No universal health care in contrast to every
other westernized country.
Crumbling roads and bridges, aging and old fashioned railway lines.
Failing school buildings and old fashioned teaching aids.
The ironic fact is that democrats have accepted the constrained vision for 40 years helped along by republican rants about deficits and the budget (they didn't bring up the budget when they gave the 1% their tax cut.) The democrats have learned to dream small and small dreams brought us nothing in the long run.
We live in a country that is just a modern disguised gilded age. In a country that had a modernized philosophy there would be no medical bankruptcies, our children wouldn't be faced with lifelong debt for schools and we would be more prepared to deal with the future. Looking at problems through a constrained vision we are just doomed to continue the same problems year after year.
20
The most important take away for me from this piece is "The Conflict of Visions" not the tipping argument. Look up the Times coverage of the America in One Room Conference (Oct. 2nd)- an amazing event of exactly this model. Every important issue we discussed in the Deliberative Democracy model was towards the goal of solving a problem - not sticking to our own views.
2
I would like to know how many of the 1257 comments below came from people like me that worked in the restaurant business. All of us who have tip very well.
14
The idea expressed in many comments that the restaurant owners should just pay the servers more is, at best, naive, and misses Brooks' whole point: The owners are not going to do that, period. (If they did obviously they would charge that much more for the meal, but this way they hold meal prices down and let the servers take the risk.) So then tipping is a way of helping wait staff and others to make a little bit better living. There is not a realistic alternative out there at this time.
15
Perhaps some history on why people in the service industry (tipping areas) aren't included in FDR's minimum wage? The exclusion was essentially racist. Farm works and service industry folks didn't merit a Federal Wage. The reason: FDR knew he couldn't pass a minimum wage law if it benefited a class of workers who were primarily non-white.
21
What if your boss docked your pay multiple times throughout the day because they felt that you performed below par or you didn’t smile when you passed them in the hallway?
18
You're assuming that people have 30-50% to tip. They may be on the wrong end of income inequality as well and also "working hard to earn a living." A $10 tip on a $20 meal is not a small amount... and moreover, the less wealthy are probably the ones enjoying those meals under $20 (the ones who are now encouraged to tip waaay above the norm.) Maybe the flush folks enjoying more expensive meals should be encouraged to tip more, not the ones dining on low-cost items.
13
When we traveled to Australia and New Zealand we learned tipping is not part of the culture and economic system for compensating workers. Instead, employees are paid a living wage. Cab drivers and servers resisted our attempts to tip them before we figured out tipping is not part of the system. Service was excellent. People were friendly. And the pillars of capitalism didn't crumble just because these countries do things differently than we do.
44
You can correct me if I am wrong, but don't most states require a lower minimum wage for service people. If this is so, aren't we subsidizing restaurant and hotels so they can make more money through paying lower wages. If you must pay minimum wage pay that to all who work. Tipping is not the customers responsibility to pay a living wage, it is the employer, tips are given from the heart.
12
Sounds like Brooks is calling for some compromise to solve issues?
Have you thought, Mr. Brooks, about explaining this concept of compromise for the greater good to the GOP Leadership and members in Congress?
For the record, I leave tips in hotel/motel rooms, and I always tip in the 20 to 30% range in restaurants and even more at times when it has been a particularly enjoyable experience.
Frankly, I think wait staff should get better wages and get tips.
5
Ah, Mr. Brooks, there is nothing more “free market” than tipping. The party to which you belong and the values you have been advocating for decades ARE WHAT BROUGHT US TO THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE FIRST PLACE. The gerry-rigging of the economy and advocacy for what has amounted to the (economic) destruction of the middle class in America have been your party’s priorities for 30 years, and now you want to talk about tipping? Couldn’t you dig a little deeper into the issue?
11
Menu prices have steadily increased due to food price inflation. Even at 15%, the compensation derived from tips has similarly increased.
9
Q: Why don't we just cut the taxes of the rich business owners and they will give the wait staff pay raises?
A: Because that has never worked and trickle-down economics is a sham.
What is immoral is how low the hourly wages are for wait staff so they have to rely on tips to make ends meet. Also, in order to "think of the ideal system," someone has to articulate it to the people. Unfortunately, the ideal systems for healthcare are in the other industrialized countries of the world. I guess they are better than us and we will have to settle for half measures.
9
Tipping system has lost all its meaning, should have been the headline if you are going to write about this.
Instead of being a motivating factor for sufficiently paid and content service sector participants to do better, it has now become a given, regardless of the quality of the service delivered.
Poorly paid laborers and their employers expect everybody to chip in for their businesses and pay the minimum (15%) and more in many instances - taxi cab screens for example will only give you 3 options starting at 20% and never know why if they are not welcoming, not keeping a nice car or helping you with luggage etc. - the exploitation of drivers by medallion owners or by ride hailing companies is the main factor for all of that of course, and similarly waiting staff, cleaning staff, delivery staff etc. etc.
5
Fascinating. I'd never thought of tipping as an act of aristocracy controlling the peasantry. Rather I'd experienced it as a way for waitstaff to have influence over their earnings, and a way for persons served to express appreciation for a personal and quality job well done. I'd regarded tipping, too, as a sort of sales commission, with service being the product sold.
4
Talk about being a coastal elite: 30 percent for a tip? Average American take-home pay is $1,000 a week ($52,000 per year). The average bill for a family of four at a family-style restaurant is $100. I say 18 percent is about right.
14
In France, "service compris" amounts to 15% of the bill which the customer is required to pay. A typical French customer will leave a symbolic euro or two, if he or she was happy with the service. However, unlike in Florida, where the regular minimum wage is $8.46/hour for non-service workers but only $5.44/hour for service staff to reflect tips received by servers, in France servers' wages aren't reduced because of tips. In North America generally, apart from those working in expensive establishments, servers are not being paid a living wage and the tips they receive don't make up enough of a difference. A minimum wage of $15/hour should be the norm, but most restaurant owners would scream "socialism" so it is unlikely to happen.
7
Slightly off-topic: I HAVE worked on "the other side of the table." But not for too long. It takes a certain mind-set to able to cope with the MANY stresses of being a server or bartender. If it were legal, I would make a law that everyone (let's say ages 18-22) has to wait tables for, I don't know, a month? Just to see what it's really like. Maybe they'd tip more. Or at least reasonably. (Speaking of reasonably, I consider 20% or more to be quite reasonable when the service is decent. I do eat out a lot - - not talking McDonald's - - but 30%+ seems a bit extravagant.)
8
joie - There are lots of poorly paying, stressful, physically exhausting jobs besides restaurant servers, and most of them are never given tips. I know because I, too have been "on the other side".
18
This isn't an argument about to tip or not top tip. this is an argument about what kind of change we should have: incremental or radical.
Nature has its own timetable, and if scientists are correct in reading her, she's telling mankind that we have 11 years maximum left to change our ways. That means radical - radical in the meaning of getting to the root of it - change.
Nice try, Mr Brooks, but I'm having none of your argument. A process argument (similar to the one about the impeachment hearings that the Pubs are having) will fail in the face of the content we must deal with now.
4
Mr. Brooks recommendations for how to effect change sound a lot like the Agile/Lean philosophies used in business and especially in IT. We rarely agree on what the perfect solution would look like, but we can often agree on a direction that would be better to go than where we are. Making progress in that direction is far better for all of us than doing nothing. And makes a lot more sens than doing nothing because we can't jump from here to perfection.
2
Tipping for some people isn't about simply paying an anonymous stranger for "good service." It's about being part of a community and recognizing that your wait-person is a "good person." Customers become "regulars," and appreciate sharing part of their day with "their waiter." A lot of advice, compassion, and just plain old human interaction gets shared over coffee poured out in diners. There is no shame or degredation in being tipped for providing this 'service.' It breaks through barriers of class and race, not build them up.
3
I work at a hotel front desk and earn $10.50 an hour. I've only ever received one tip - from a gentleman recently released from prison to whom I recommended bars where he could celebrate his release. Yet I don't want to be tipped. I want to be paid a decent, livable wage, which I'm not.
Secondly, I lived abroad for 15 years and was shocked to find upon my return that the standard tip had at some point increased from 15% to 20%. But it's certainly not 30%.
20
I’ve spent time traveling in Japan where tipping more or less never occurs. Though you sometimes have to raise your voice a bit to grab a server’s attention in a restaurant, it’s wonderful to never have to be concerned with tipping. It also makes society feel less hierarchical. I’m happy to pay the price a business owner needs in order to pay his/her employees a fair wage.
14
Maybe Americans need more "sticker shock" for the products and services we buy. Many want rock-bottom prices but also want things made in America. You want to have your $2 burger but you also want your server to have a living wage. Corporate greed is ridiculously out-of-control, but consumers have to also be willing to do the socially responsible thing and pay an extra buck or two across the board to support their local customer service rep.
15
I believe in tipping 20% when the service is good, a little more when it's exceptional, and a little less when it's barely visible. What you're saying is, about tipping 30%, if there are three people at a table who spend $10 on a meal, the server should receive a $9.00 tip. That's no longer a tip, it's sharing a meal with the server.
18
As a Limo driver, I'll make it simple. I count on those tips each month.
On the other hand, I find it off-putting when someone who is clearly the owner takes my money for the sandwich I picked from the cold-case, and has a tip jar on the counter.
6
Ask the servers. Do they want 15 dollars an hour or the chance to earn a lot more? Most servers I have talked to don't want a flat wage because they can pick up shifts and trade shifts to make more money. This sounds like a claim on power. Mr. Brooks feels something is immoral, therefore, we must eliminate it. He doesn't seem to care that in San Francisco where the minimum wage has increased, the number of restaurant employees is dropping. Digital ordering, self collection of food, the new fast casual, is going to be the result. Again, just let the servers decide what they want to do. It would appear based on what restaurants have tried to do that employees vote with their feet.
8
No, the right wing suppression of wages and benefits that force people to live on tips instead of wages is immoral.
4
I’ve always tipped well because it makes me feel good. If you look at the restaurant pay system it seems very unfair. The people doing the hardest work in the hot confines of the kitchen are mostly making a meager wage. The people working in the more comfortable customer areas often making much more money. Why? are they more deserving than the others? Probably, the best system would be one where they all made a living wage. Tipping is basically an acknowledgment that the server is being exploited without it. All of this tipping is an acknowledgment of worker exploitation. So, rather than addressing that situation in some meaningful way, we tip.
5
This seems a good math problem to solve, which should be figured out by the employer. How much should the goods cost to support a living (minimum?) wage for the present tip-based worker to transition to no tips? As it is now, I don't know the effectiveness of my 20% tip in getting any worker to that level of compensation. What I do know is that there are laws/regulations and guidelines on the Department of Labor web site for tip-based businesses, along with numbers that vary by state.
1
In countries where servers are paid living wages (Germany, Australia, New Zealand, for instance), people still leave tips. Sometimes it simply amounts to rounding up, sometimes it's to reward excellent service. So paying people a decent wage is not incompatible with tipping.
When I first read the article, I thought 30% was high. I tip 20% (and round up). But then on small bills, I tend to be more generous.
The tip is part of the cost of a meal at a restaurant. Remember that servers are paid below minimum wage in this country; the tip is part of their regular salary. We need to change this!
1
No tipping is NOT standard in Australia, and the service-and civility-are improved as a result.!
5
I think I disagree with the idea that "...tipping nurtures humane relationships. It encourages servers to try to establish social connection through direct eye contact and a display of warmth." When this sort of behavior is basically incentivized via a cash payment, it ceases to be an authentic meaningful gesture.
11
I have always thought the tipping system in the US was absurd. I have always tipped 15% (exclusive of tax) for good service, 18-20% for exceptional service, and 0-10% for poor service. Given the absurdity of the system, I think that is “reasonable and customary.” Except for Frank Sinatra, I have never heard of tipping more than 20%.
In most foreign countries, you get a bill for food and drink that includes the service charges plus any applicable taxes. You pay the bill and you are done. Tipping isn’t expected or required, but is optional. No mental calculation required. To me, that is fair and reasonable. That is the way it ought to be done.
But in America, we invent ever more fatuous ways to obfuscate and exploit what ought to be a straightforward matter.
I was recently in San Jose and received a restaurant bill that included “food and drink”, a “Health surcharge,” sales tax (9.25%) on the previous two items and a recommended 20% tip based upon the total amount including tax. I inquired about what the “health surcharge” was and was told that it was an additional charge levied by the restaurant to recoup state mandated employee health insurance cost.
I thought that this was too presumptuous; The “health surcharge” was, in effect, additional income for the server. I calculated what the tip wold be based upon the cost of food and drink (15% for “average” service) and reduced the tip amount by the “health surcharge.
We don’t need ”shell games” when dining out.
13
Well, the courts have decided that a business owner can keep all the tips and use them to pad the business income. That alone eliminates any incentive. And there is no guarantee that the owner will use the tip money to increase pay.
And since Brooks shows that tipping is wildly discrepant depending on the server, the customer and the bill, it can also be considered discriminatory if certain people are making less in tips solely due to color (skin or hair!), gender, or age. Therefore tipping can be considered discriminatory and therefore illegal.
Better to just pay the wage and deal with the consequences. If the business goes out of business, too bad. It was not viable business to begin with, maybe due to poor product, maybe over saturation of the market for the service. Either way, pay the wage and let people make what they are really worth, not what some customer thinks they are worth or what business owner thinks they can get away with.
8
One likely less often noted fact is that the "suggested tip" amounts printed on some restaurant customer checks when dining out are already, at least in New York, inflated by 8% (or more) due to the inclusion of the sales tax as the basis for computing the tip. I don't mind tipping from the basis of the price of the items delivered and consumed, but I shouldn't have to pay a tip inclusive of the sales tax as the basis.
11
"customers like the tipping experience."
Not me (and clearly many others judging from the comments); I hate it. I love it when I go to a restaurant in France, see the prices on the menu, and realize that the price already includes tax and service. Suddenly something that a seemed a little pricey is quite reasonable. A couple of years ago my wife and I had dinner with a French couple at a restaurant near where they live. The meal was excellent, and so was the service. When the bill came, we split it in half, and then I asked if we should leave a tip. One of the couple said, no, it would be like we were just throwing money at them, showing off that we ostensibly have plenty of it.
12
I was raised to leave a 15 percent tip. Now it's thirty? This is a percent, it doesn't inflate. We need to inflate the other way, actually. Get rid of the different minimum wage for tipped workers and the expectation will be that service people will be getting paid by the employer, not the customer. Culturally expected tips (now 20 percent, I must admit) will be able to decline, wages will rise, and the tip custom will wither away, as it should for all the faults the article mentioned.
8
I haven't had to wait tables for a long time; I did it in college. Anyone who ever has, though, would never lowball a tip. As the article and many other commenters point out, the businesses should just pay a living wage (with benefits) to start. If that means a hamburger costs $8, then that's what that means. The French do it better, and we would do well to copy their system. Meanwhile, apparently (across the board in America), it is time for the Unions to make a roaring comeback.
8
@Malvie Agree with all of this. Above all: don't use the weakness of unions, the cheapness of employers, and the anti-labor tilt of the federal government as an excuse for lower tipping. That's adding injury to injury.
Let's do what we can now to help people who need it WHILE we fight for a system that is fairer and less degrading.
4
Tipping is essentially subsidizing a business owner so they don't have to pay real wages. Sure the price goes up, maybe, but isn't better to pay people what they are really worth than rely on some subjective formula that relies on the vagaries of the server, the customer, the price etc? And, since Brooks shows that tipping actually leads to large discrepancies in pay, it can be considered a discriminatory act, and so illegal. Not only that, now the SC has declared that the business owner can confiscate all tips to use to support the business. So why not just pay the people and get rid of that obvious absurdity.
If business go out of business simply due to paying real wages, then we can assume it was not a real business to begin with.
7
And let's not forget that tipping enables income tax cheating, and it also fosters resentment from kitchen workers, hence, the addition in some restaurants of a "kitchen administration fee" "to show appreciation to our kitchen staff!" Such added fees along with tipping for simple takeout counter services show that in this country there are no restraints when it comes to tipping policy, only continued ways to avoid paying a livable and taxable wage to employees.
14
I assumed—incorrectly, it turns out—that you were going to delve into the macrocosmic moral issue of the tipping system: that a growing number of businesses, some of them with immense resources, have realized that they can pass a share of the expense of employing waiters and baristas directly along to customers via tips, which, in turn, allows them to pay a lower wage than they would otherwise need to pay to be competitive in the labor market, since, in many instances, those tips constitute a healthy portion of their employees' take-home pay. That, to me, is the bigger moral issue.
10
Many of the comments suggest employers should pay employees, rather than customers pay employees, and I agree.
I only tip because the (greedy?) employer does not properly pay his/her employees.
7
I travel extensively in Latin America, not in high-end establishments, and across the board, service is atrocious - and only the gringos tip. Yes, ideally, paying everyone a living wage in low-end service jobs would solve the problem. But there are cultural issues (Yay for the Japanese! Nay, in this area, for the Latinos.) I agree with Brooks... let's work for good pay and in the meantime, reward good service. ESPECIALLY in hotel rooms.
Brooks' 30% tip thing is an old conservative trope that says:
"If you're so concerned about how much workers get paid, why not just pay them more yourself?"
(they use a similar trope to attack food stamps and public housing, by suggesting progressives adopt poor families if they're so "concerned").
It is a clever ploy, as it kind of sounds good, but completely ignores human nature and that individuals cannot solve systemic issues by private charity. And, that the obligation to pay workers sufficiently rests with the employer, not the customer. But it sure does allow them to argue for lower taxes on the 1%.
8
Remember that food service workers are not paid the same minimum wage as other workers. They are paid a lower minimum wage and many food service employers require their employees to sign statements that they are paid the food service minimum wage when tips are calculated in. (I know this from my years as a civil rights investigator reviewing personnel files.)
2
I'll add to the chorus.
Tipping should only be to reward for exceptional service. The baseline should be 0%. Employers are relying on tipping to not pay the wages they should. Increase your prices and pay the wages! Be explicit as to why you're increasing your prices, and your customers won't walk away; in theory, they shouldn't end up paying more, and they should want to patronize businesses that are paying good wages, just like they should patronize businesses that are more diverse and eco-conscious.
3
As public relies more and more on electronic transactions and carrying little or no cash, it has become more and more difficult to leave an actual tip. Perhaps this trend will ultimately shift the burden of reasonable remuneration from the customer to the employer.
3
So my beer costs $8.00, the meal $16.00. My wife has a wine for $9.00 and the $18.00 special. Our total is $51.00. But the meal isn't $51.00, its $61.20 once I pay the 20% tip.
Why not just charge me $61 and pay your workers more?
14
Mr Brooks exposed some privilege lurking in his blind spot today. First off, tipping 30 percent is ludicrous to most diners. Folks like Mr Brooks are compelled to tip well because they are recognizable. If they are stingy, the word ‘cheapskate’ circulates in town. Second, he totally ignores the fact that tips subsidize the system of underpaying workers. The Earned Income Tax Credit does something similar. These are structural crutches which permit medium and large employers in low wage industries like food service and groceries to get by paying minimum wage or less to their employees because the tipping guest or Uncle Sam pick up the slack. In both cases, it is the middle income consumer picking up the tab.
10
Here is why. Neither the employee server nor the employer are paying taxes on that extra 20 percent portion. No FICA tax on server, No FICA tax on proprietor, No Income Tax on Employee, No Income Tax on Business and no Sales Tax on the tipped portion either. So FIVE legitimate taxes are avoided on all the money that flows as tips rather than through the books of the industries that foist this farce upon consumers.
10
@Suburban Cowboy, That would be incorrect.
1
Let's go with "service compris" [gratuity included] and pay the staff more so they don't have to grovel for tips. I remember one delivery service that snarfed [took] the tips from the contract workers and then, finally, decided that it was not a good idea.
Just imagine what would happen if everyone in customer service had a base wage and had to make up the difference in tip [or customer satisfaction]. Perhaps the tip depends on the gender of the tipper/tippee and the way the tipper was feeling at the time.
Empathy might help [have helped] when weighing the benefits/costs of the gratuity..
¿How could David Brooks feel/think that tipping is good? Making staff depend on the largesse of the customer puts the customer in a powerful position. And then the tip bears no relationship to the service. ¿Really?
4
Ridiculous column. Agree with all the comments saying the problem is underpaid workers and corporate greed, not stingy customers. Higher tips just means the boss pays less.
30% is out of the question unless the server also cooked the food and service was impeccable. I don't buy anything in which I am expected to pay 30% more than the price.
And now there is a tipping jar on every checkout counter. Why am I tipping someone to take my money in payment for goods? It's called sales; it's the reason for the business.
Service compris is the only answer. Then if customers want to reward really outstanding service, they are free to do so. It would actually mean more in that context.
9
The tipped minimum wage is currently $2.13 and hour. That speaks for itself as it is acceptable for employers in the food service industry to pay their employees a pittance and expect their customers to make up the difference. Every employer should be required to pay the full minimum wage to all workers, and people get tipped on top of that. As it stands by law, if wages and tips do not equal the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour during any week, the employer is required to increase cash wages to compensate.
That stated, the employer is permitted to pay a pittance and should the employee not make the pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, the employer is, by law, required to throw in the scraps to achieve the equivalent. Really???
1
@Linda Burfield, Tipped workers earn in many cases far more than $15 per hour. That's why.
1
Here is Mr. Brooks suggesting a meaningful way to heip many, many worker in a fair way. How many of the writers in this column cannot afford his tip outline? How many are just too lazy to get over their annoyance? It'amazing that those who tip the least live on the coasts and that tip discrimination is still rampant there. Where are the liberal values, the compassion you preach for immigrants at the border but not the ones you interact with everyday. I would say you that because of your status you look down at these workers. I've worked any jobs with, tips. I know what it's like. Should employers pay more, yes when they can, but so should you. Get over it and open your wallets. It's everyones responsibility
2
No, I am not tipping 30%, nor am I tipping when there is no actual "service" beyond ringing up my order. I'll continue to tip 20% for table service. Enough is enough.
8
Its good advise for anyone who is doing well to take into account "...that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn."
1
I never received tips in any job,
and yet I am expected to pay them.
In my line of work, I had ONE opportunity
in a year to be rewarded (or not)
for doing the job well.
3
Unlike Mr. Brooks, I do not think tipping is a good idea. Workers should receive a fair wage from their employers. Customers should not be responsible for making up shortcomings in the wages of employees. In Japan, there is no tipping. The customer pays the stated price for whatever is purchased. This is fair to customers and relieves them of responsibility. I do not know the salaries of employees in that country, but that is really none of my business. As for good service, I expect this as a matter of course. That's why I might patronage a particular business establishment.
Employees in any line of work ought to do their jobs well without expecting extra compensation. In my working life I earned my living as a teacher. at the college and high school levels. Should I have put out a tip job on my desk or in my office so that when I did a particularly good job students could acknowledge that by tipping me? Should I tip cashiers at the supermarket when they are especially efficient? How about tipping sales persons when they do a good job helping find what I am looking for? In fact, why not tip everyone who does good work? Ridiculous, don't you think?
Pay people a decent wage and there will be no need for tipping.
6
A problematic gap in the tipping economy is learning what each service provider is paid. I ask them sometimes, and receive a direct answer almost never. One particular type experience that continues to rankle is group tours. The tour operator instructed us that the “guideline” for tipping was $500 for each guide and somewhat less for assistants. The cost of the tour was several thousands of dollars. The tour guides refuse to divulge how much they and others are paid. On one hand I am happy to help out underpaid service workers, but not to throw money at well-paid people. And I cannot get information to reach a reasonable decision.
5
Pssst DB, Tipping allows wages to be left to the whims of customers. You know, the folks ordering a skinny latte with their sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich.
4
Living in France, I am always uneasy about tipping in the US. I never know what is the percentage. I thought it was 15% and now discover that it might be 20 or even 30% and that I could be yelled at if I don’t give what is expected. Yes that happens. Whatever The percentage is, the low wages paid to the waiters in restaurants or cabbies amount to slavery. Moreover, the tenants don’t have the guts to state the real price of the meals. Oh... I forget! The tax isn’t included either!
5
If you've ever depended on tips to survive you've lived in poverty. You've been at the mercy of those with money being so gracious as to throw you an extra buck or two so you can pay your bills. While they hem and haw over 10, 15, 20 or 30% you are probably beyond exhausted, working two jobs while they are often annoyed about the half filled water glass or the latte being too frothy. These people often have housekeepers too.
There is a class system here.
(Yes, if you have a housekeeper you are doing pretty well.)
The minimum wage for tipped servers here in Utah is $2.13 an hour.
Servers are paid, $2.13 an hour plus tips.
So just tip your servers.
And everyone else.
Because no one is getting rich except the ones getting rich off the working poor.
6
I agree with this utterly, and I'll add one more reason to the bullets at the bottom of the story:
*A generous tip sends a message of compassion.
To the tipper, it's no big deal -- an extra dollar or five dug out of a pocket.
To the tipped, it *is* a big deal -- a boost. A little affirmation. Maybe it lightens their mood. Maybe it makes up for some jerk who just stiffed them. Maybe it helps buy a cup of coffee after work, or an ice-cream cone for their kid.
It says: "You're human, and you have value."
4
@Amy Biancolli
That's the paradigm that guides my tipping, esp. knowing the pitiful hourly wages allowed by law. "What's it to me?" I ask myself, not because I'm rich (I am not) but because experience on the other side of the table has taught me that rounding up or throwing in an extra couple bucks makes a real difference to the server, financially and, yes, emotionally. Am I propping up a morally corrupt system? Well, sure: but until the day when my moral indignation helps my server pay her rent, I'll tip. And generously.
4
@Catherine Exactly! And beautifully said.
The tipping system puts the onus on the customer to provide the server a decent living wage when that obligation lies with the owner of the restaurant, coffee shop or whatever it is you are patronizing. And when, for example, the kitchen in a restaurant screws up your order, you're only recourse is to take it out on the server by tipping less. All in all, a bad system.
5
Who am I tipping?
A person who carries a plate from the kitchen to the table without dropping it?
How are tips shared between server, bus boys, chef, front desk?
I have no idea what what I am tipping for or who am I tipping.
A tough steak well served?
A great steak, banged down on the table.
restaurants - pay you servers appropriately.
Now what about delivery drivers, hair dressers, grocery baggers, plumbers, installation guys.
where does it end. dont forget to tip the greeter at Wal mart - they are poorly paid.
8
Tipping from a technocrat's perspective. Who'd a thunk? Shame on us if this all too human American ritual finds itself, one day, challenged into extinction. I'll tell you why I tip willfully and generously: because of the guy who wobbled out of a New Orleans restaurant one night, smashed out of his head, and who nevertheless peeled off a C-note after I had delivered his car to him and drove him home; because of the four elderly ladies who threw me a fifty, after serving their meal, mentioning as they left that I had made them feel young again; because of the gruff, cigar chomping foreman who never failed to put two dollars in my sixteen year old hands for delivering his weekly order of twenty impossibly heavy oak doors. Because of these long ago memories of an America bound by the warmth of the human spirit, and expressed freely through giving beyond the strictures of regulated commerce.
5
It's interesting that you bring up the number 30 percent as I have never, ever even thought about tipping that much unless the service was superior. So are you saying that when I pick up my sandwich at the drive thru and he/she hands it to me and there is a tip jar there, you want me to tip 30% for reaching out and taking it? And that's the same in a restaurant where they go back and forth several times, check on me and offer me very personal service? You don't mention how tipping now applies to every aspect out there....appliance delivery, house cleaning, any kind of repair done in my house. It's crazy, complicated and frustrating. But i know one thing...rudeness, attitude, complacency...10 percent. Sorry. FYI, in Japan they consider tipping an insult. I agree with everyone who has said pay a decent wage and stop the tipping madness.
Let me also just say that the one area where I agree with you is in a hotel. If they don't wake me up by incessantly chatting with each other loudly in the hallway right outside my "Do Not Disturb" sign, then they definitely need to be left something and I'm betting that they don't get anything most of the time.
1
Next article: How much do you tip in a hotel? Do you tip each day, or just at the end of your stay?
2
This year I received a bill from a painter who did the entire exterior of my home. It included a range of tipping percentages, with 15% meaning I was very satisfied. (calculate 15% on a $10,000.00 paint job).
I refused to sign the contract as written. I told him that the contract implied that if I did not tip, I was unhappy in some way, which was not true. He apologized profusely and removed the offending language.
Tipping is a new game that many purveyors of goods and services who weren't tipped before want to play. Just say no.
7
So 1%-er David Brooks decides it is only proper to leave 30%??
You are way out over you skis here.
10
I have no idea why the author thinks consumers like tipping. I have yet to find someone who admits enjoying the agony of feeling that, either you are being cheap and stiffing a poor worker of his/her wages, or that you are being stupid because you are wasting a fortune giving an overly generous tip to someone. Even worse is the fact that now you go to a place like Panera and even if you just buy a coffee and croissant to go, the machine prompts you for a tip and suggests amounts that seem like "50% 100% 200% $1,000,000"
7
I am surprised you didn’t propose business owners do the following: Add a line item on the bill that is filled in automatically 10 percent by the company with an option for the consumer to add additional. Why is it always the consumer that takes the hit?
1
Well, one immediate step would also be to get rid of a system that allows business owners to pay below the minimum wage with the expectation that there will be tips. In theory restaurant owners are supposed to make up the difference when a servers's pay + tips don't reach minimum wage, but in practice...
5
@spiderbee, Bartenders and good waiter and waitresses make far more than minimum wage. They actually like the system.
2
Why don't we tip commensurate with the amount of effort and quality of service? This means that the server balancing plates upon plates in a cavernous venue gets $2 per plate. The bartender who turns around to grab a can of beer gets $0.25. The cost of the meal really should have nothing to do with it because it creates wealth inequality within the service industry.
3
tipping is a feudal system, a caste system. it is basically s corporation saying to a person, you are not worthy enough for me to pay you
5
Is David ignoring the elephant in the room?
4
Arggg, I can't believe I actually agree with David Brooks!!!
1
I over-tip. I admit it. When a friend objected to me tipping a bartender, I said he's gotta eat, too. Depends on the venue, but generally I tip $5 for a $12 dry martini, etc. That the scale.
5
Mr. Brooks, if you're so in favor of tipping, try having the NYT pay you $2.15/hour for a month and have a tip button next to your column so readers can contribute. Of course I'm joking, but kind of not.
6
Thirty to fifty percent? Are you insane?
6
Since Mr. Brooks is giving himself a big pat on the back for being so generous with our money, he is free to send me a check for 30% of his salary
3
Again, so true David. But will the Dems listen or shoot themselves in the foot?
1
“people in the middle of the country tip better than people on the coasts”. Laughable nonsense.
5
Taking David's wisdom to the next level...
GiveDirectly.org
Imagine a world in which David Brooks, who can't write a word about the festering, explosive racism and corruption in the GOP, and so spends all of it endlessly nit-picking my heroes, spent his time giving advice on social niceties.
1
Clever and sneaky of you, to endorse a liberal cause in the headline to persuade liberals to click so you can argue a conservative point. Well played!
4
"a 30 to 50 percent tip is a small but direct way to redistribute money"
Since when did 30 to 50 percent become the norm? Because, guess what — it's not. Seriously, what world is David Brooks living in, because I don't live there, my friends don't live there, my friends who rely on tips to make rent don't live there. Seriously, NYT?
8
"Always, always, always leave a tip in a hotel room." No!
Always tip the undocumented immigrant who cleans the rooms directly. Otherwise, the hotel employee with a master key will collect the cash in a few rounds in the morning.
4
I don’t want to look sexist or racist, i tip 10 percent to any server
2
Now you've hit a nerve. I recently felt distinctly like an idiot, tipping a server in an expensive restaurant $25, compared to the $8 I'd recently tipped at a more downscale place for service that was the same in every respect.
How about this: Instead of a percentage, all good servers (at a sit down restaurant) get the same tip, say $5?
3
You guys will fix tipping right after you get sensible gun control
7
Congressmen are subverting their own rules, Trump has set in motion an ethnic cleansing of our allies to benefit Putin and you talk about tipping. Wow, just incredulous wow.
3
Tipping is the AYCH tax: for Attractive Young Caucasian Hipsters.
The 50 year Hispanic old woman at the Subway? No tip.
Less service from the 20 year old barista with the sleeve tattoos at the overpriced trendy vegan coffee shop? 50% tip expected.
1
Oh, I get it. This is Brooks’ sneaky way of attacking the livable wage idea. And one of his excuses for tipping boils down to “it’s too confusing not to” ?!?! Nice try, but no.
4
Wow! A revolutionary discovery... LIFE IS NOT FAIR. Who would ever have believed that had you not uncovered this amazing secret?
@Rocky
Here’s a tip, Rocky. This is not about “life being fair” but man made laws providing fair wages for labor.
In most of the first world (Europe and Japan) tipping is offered in addition to a fair wage rather than a substitute for. Mr. Brooks leaves out that often the tip is “included” but Europeans still throw down a few extra Euros for exceptional service, especially at high end restaurants.
They have stronger labor laws there and a better sense of the social contract and equality than we do here sadly (for all the lip service we give it), while we have a legacy of slavery and cheap indentured servitude, and it seems we want to keep it that way.
3
I have never received a "tip," and suspect that very few of the scribblers in this column have.
2
Wow, David Brooks is a very generous tipper! My opinion of him just went up dramatically!
Fighters for civil rights in the South went with a constrained vision from when Reconstruction was rolled back until the Civil Rights movement. Fighters against civil rights were constrained in that they did not try to reestablish slavery, but in the Deep South at least were otherwise unconstrained -- blacks still had no rights that whites were bound to respect, not even property rights.
The best set of trade-offs and reforms we can actually achieve will not be enough to avoid a global warming that will end civilization as we know it. Unconstrained visions change the parameters of what we can actually achieve, so the inevitable trade-offs and reforms start from an altered balance. Social Security was constrained to exclude farm and domestic work so that many blacks would not benefit, but it came from an unconstrained vision.
Who change the world? Pragmatists!
David, these are some good tips...
(Sorry)
1
Do you tip the guy sitting behind the glass at the gas station when you fill up? If not, why, you get just as much service from them as the guy who pours me a cup of coffee an shoves two donuts into a bag a Dunkins, how about the checkout person at the grocery store? Where does it stop? The woman who did my taxes at H&R Block, why shouldn't I tip her?
Maybe I should tip my kids teachers?
Where does it stop. Oh wait those that we tip are somehow deserving because we "know" they can't get real jobs and therefore don't deserve to be paid real money and they only get by on the kindness of others. An idea I find insulting.
3
This is ridiculous. Waving the tipping flag while claiming that US does it right with the tipping culture without providing valid reasons is just mere nonsense. Most developed countries sans the US have minimum wages that apply to most professions/vocations and tipping is a way of showing gratitude for excellent service.
Why should anyone be expected to tip someone who is doing their job JUST alright? Wake up America, people need living wages in line with inflation and the living costs of each state. Passing the ball to people and then calling them stingy if they don’t tip is just ignorant..
8
“The Serfdom System is Immoral”
Fixed the title for you.
1
I think those who complain about tipping have never waited tables, tended a bar or any other low wage service job. Get off your high horses.
3
I’m curious if David Brooks realizes this column is arguably a micro-takedown of the conservative economic principles he espouses?
I dream of the day when he writes a column that opens with three paragraphs singing the virtues of conservatism, and then pivots at the start of the fourth paragraph with the sentence, “But if you look at the research you find that a lot of it doesn’t buttress my priors.”
2
While we are at it, say “please and thank you” to those who serve. If it comes time to order and one just says “I’ll have the fish,” one should assume one’s dining companions are silently judging your rudeness.
2
"-- a 30 to 50 percent tip is a small but..." David, in actual America, that's not small. Before you write anymore about actual America, spend a year living on the actual American annual income, and get back to us.
4
Good start, ridiculous finish, Mr. Brooks. Tipping is indeed immoral, but the only way to change it is by eliminating loopholes in the federal minimum wage law that permit employers to underpay their staff. Wealthy New Yorkers, like Mr. Brooks. need to understand the difference between a server and a beggar.
4
By tipping we are enabling the low wages. Maybe we should not tip at all, or visit places which have a no-tip policy.
We could also vote straight Democratic and work for long term change.
3
What?!! A 30% restaurant tip!!! Are you kidding, Mr. Brooks? That's DOUBLE what a standard tip used to be!!! The Times must be paying you well. How many people do you think can afford to up their bill 30% at their local diner?
The whole idea of tipping reeks of class division. It's insulting that we, in the US, offer handouts to people who work for us instead of paying them properly.
I learned this on my first trip to China when I had a great meal at a local restaurant, left a tip, and had the money thrown back at me by the waitress (yes, this might not have happened at the Hilton). Tipping is demeaning, and asking working people to up the amount of their tips is certainly NOT a solution.
334
@ShenBowen Your comment is right on the -- well -- money. Whatever happened to the 15% standard? I must have been absent the day it was raised to twice that. And whatever happened to the idea of legislating to force restaurant owners to pay their workers a living wage so they don't have to depend on a demeaning system just to survive ?
58
@ShenBowen
Brooks wants to do away with tipping. But I bet he's against both an increase in the minimum wage and the very concept of a minimum wage. What should the servers be paid? Does he know? Care?
His 30% tip thing is an old conservative trope that says:
"If you're so concerned about how much workers get paid, why not just pay them more yourself?"
(they use a similar trope to attack food stamps and public housing, by suggesting progressives adopt poor families if they're so "concerned").
It is a clever ploy, as it kind of sounds good, but completely ignores human nature and that individuals cannot solve systemic issues by private charity. But it sure does allow them to argue for lower taxes on the 1%.
57
@Jerseytime And restaurant servers are paid less than the standard minimum wage - so tipping isn't on top of that but trying to reach it. It's truly an unfair system.
33
Mr. Brooks failed to disclose that he was paid by the service industry to write this. Or at least I suspect that he is representing the service industry in his suggestions. This is an incredibly one-sided piece.
I remember the days when 10% was suggested; 15% if service was really good. then it was 15% as the baseline. Now 30%? Really? The base price has steadily risen; shouldn't that result in sufficient increase in the tip amount?
The real solution here is for restaurants and others that employ service workers to pay their staff a real wage. If owners are afraid of the sticker shock from the extra 20% they'd have to charge, they're forgetting the sticker shock of the customer being expected to pay that much extra in tips. Always leave a tip in the hotel room? Why not just have the hotelier add a few dollars to the nightly rate, and pay their staff better?
As someone who eats out fairly frequently, I would much rather have the true cost appear on the check and not have to figure out how much to round it up.
My biggest objection is that employers use tips as a way to get around paying a fair wage to their workers. Instead, they place this responsibility on customers. It's the employer, not the customer, who should feel the guilt for workers not being paid fairly.
3
David ignores a key problem with tipping: In many establishments, tips are pooled and redistributed, so that the server you intend to reward for good service doesn't even directly receive the benefit of their good service.
4
I've never disagreed with David more. 30%?? Wow, he must not have kids or other family expenses. I tip generously if the service is great, and I will not tip at all if the service is abysmal. I am also disinclined to tip at places where all they do is hand the product to me or place it on the counter. I increasingly find tipping to be a coercive societal mechanism....for example on the electronic pads where they recommend percentages and make the "no tip" option hard to find. I'd rather pay taxes than get guilt-tripped or tricked into paying undeserved tips. David's opinion here reflects the thinking of a rich guy who is trying to buy affection. I'm not going to pay for courtesy or respect, I'm going to project those qualities and hope they are returned for free. If the service provider genuinely upgrades my experience, I will show my gratitude in a manner that commensurately reflects that experience, not some NYC formulaic approach.
4
Another problem. I usually tip 20%, even if service is somewhat poor. Why? My sister was a waitress for years and would have unending stories about many of her peers living in near poverty, without family support and other personal problems. So the day your wait person did not bring you a second coffee or forgot part of your order may have been the day she (usually she) and her kid got evicted. The problem with personal service and the system of tipping is you don't know the context leading to his/her doing a good job or bad job.
when I do want to do more than 20% I am not sure that the wait staff POOLS all tips and distributes equally, without asking which is not an easy conversation.
And lastly please do not cheat the waitress because the cook messed up.
1
Mr. Brooks, maybe you have the money to be able to leave 30%. Most of us don't. Most of us try to leave what we can. But what I've heard from waitstaff is that the most generous are often those who are not the richest. Why? Because we understand how hard it is to remain cheerful to customers, to serve people day in and day out especially when there are always more than a few who are not easy to serve or satisfy. And some of us feel quite bad that we can't tip generously.
The answer to all of this is to pay everyone, no matter "menial" or unskilled we think the job is, a living wage. That means a wage that covers decent affordable housing, allows them to support themselves and their families, buy food, pay for medical care when necessary, save for the future, and yes some small luxuries like a paid vacation. But this is America where the voices of the richest run the conversation because they buy and sell our legislators like they are widgets. And they treat most of us like we're disposable.
5
A few things:
1. Every restaurant computerized-bill I have received includes the sales tax in their suggested tip calculations.
2. More importantly than that, there are restaurants which put all tips into a "pot" and then share them equally among the waiters. So the extra amount given for good service goes partly to those who gave average or poor service.
3. Some of them don't pass on the tips to the servers, but they keep them.
4. I agree with all the others who say that a living wage should be paid in the first place and that the customer should not be expected to subsidize wages.
5. Because of the above, when I receive excellent service, I indicate "no tip" on the credit card slip and then give the waiter cash, quietly and unobtrusively, and then tell the person to put it in her/his pocket.
1
@mathlady 2 and 4 seem like don't go together that well, do they? You say you think your servers should receive a living wage but then you worry about someone getting a tip who gave average or poor service.
I've worked at tip sharing restaurants before, and we didn't do it to cover those who didn't deserve it -- the service is better for everyone if all the staff works together to provide service, rather than spend a lot of their energy trying to game for the best tables.
2
Brooks attributes a cause-and-effect relationship between tipping and sexism, tipping and racism, and tipping and class division. But he has it backward. Tipping doesn't inflame or widen these things (his words). It simply reflects them.
If a guy tips a young woman more, it's because he's fond of her. He doesn't become fond of her because he left a big tip, n'est-ce pas?
But if messing around with the outcome is easier than correcting the underlying cause, if it simply helps to neutralize the end result of sexism, racism and class division, that's certainly worth discussing.
Yes, the tipping system is immoral. The worst offender is the tip credit, which allows tipped workers to receive less than the minimum wages,as low as $2.13 per hour, expecting that tips will only bring them to the minimum wage.
It affects women, low income workers and people of color, and it needs to stop.
2
Not paying a living wage is immoral. Those tips you call immoral can make or break someone trying to make ends meet on that meager salary.
1
David Brooks is impersonating Scrooge with a velvet glove on his fist.
Organize. We have $15 an hour minimum in Seattle and the predictions of restaurants closing never happened. Our economy is growing.
Yes we still have 8 billionaires hoarding their fearful dollars creating homeless people who have too few. But this too shall pass.
The right wing will say the sky is falling if people get paid a living wage. But what actually happens is more working people have money in their pocket. They spend that money here, and everyone benefits, including my small business.
The tipping economy is cover for the Hoarders Without Borders fear and control based economics that Brooks and Sowell prop up for their masters. Feudal power insists on Brooks moral clarity around you and me tipping more and more as we cover the living wage gap of brothers and sisters. Tipping's corporate cousin is Medicaid for Amazon and Wal Mart workers, our $6 trillion since 2001 on war paying for Big Oil security forces. Other symptoms? Suicide off the charts and opiod addiction by Big Pharma drug dealers. Picking up Coke, Starbuck's and Pepsi's waste stream on public tab.
I run a small business and look forward to President Warren breaking up monopoly capitalists empires, and Green New Deal investment for our people and planet. I love her standing on picket lines. Organize!
Make herstory.
6
I'll tell you someone who deserves my gratuity (annually), the guy who invisibly delivers my NY Times to the driveway each morning, often on dark and miserably cold mornings. This is a real service that deserves a generous "thank-you." As for the person who grudgingly brings my sandwich to the deli table and can't be bothered to say hello or refill the water glass, I don't feel I "owe" them more than the token 15%.
2
I tip based on service. Why give money to terrible service?
3
A long winded defense amounting to a Trojan Horse for Incrementalism. Hard pass.
3
Liked dining out while living in Belgium: "Service compris" (included).
1
A very nice woman came to my home for dinner recently. She is a waitress, and commented several times that the money is really good, esp. compared to other jobs she has had. (35 with a college degree.) When is the last time that 60 year old cashier at Target got a tip to add to HER low wage job? How about the guy in 7-11 or the Mini-Mart? The woman from Dominica who changes sheets at a nursing home? When is the last time a teacher commented that at least the money is good, talking about her job? (Yes. I understand the wages for restaurant work is below min. wage.) Somehow, waiting tables has gotten special status as a job that deserves decent pay, and many friends say they like to tip cash so it's tax free to the wait staff. Why should a waiter's wages be less taxable than the guy who rotates your tires? Let's see everyone, esp. those who work full-time, with a decent take- home salary that allows for a decent life, with food, clothing and shelter a given, not a maybe.
3
Funny thing about the tipping economy is how distorted our views are of the inherent classism and reconciling our good guy self image with our behaviors.
My fave tipping tale is from a lunch my husband and I had with a former college roommate and his girlfriend at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Berkeley, the former from a blue blood East Coast family with an endowment and a well-paid research job at Lawrence Livermore, the latter a multi-generational San Franciscan who owned rental properties, both practicing Buddhists, contributors to charities, and subscribers to the portfolio of traditional liberal values to which I shamelessly subscribe.
The check came and it was so embarrassingly low that we left something like an 80% tip, still almost nothing. Our dinner partners sat back with big eyes and said,”That’s too much,” as they put down their pocket change. All we could say was, “This is how I honor labor. I expect to be fairly compensated so how can I do less.” They sat there with their mouths opening and closing like fish. Just hadn’t thought of that server as having anything in common.
BTW: My husband and I aren’t the heroes of the story, not any more financially saintly than the next guy. Below sources have plenty more.
Barbara Ehrenreich, “Nickled and Dimed: on Not Getting by in America” and Arlie Hochschild, “The Managed Heart,” an exploration of the toll of “emotional work” on people in fields as disparate as food service and grocery checker to medicine.
Really Mr. Brooks? This is what they pay you for at the times?
This is a perfect example of how an argument is formed in order to give the owner/manager/republican a way to make the case for their benefit, yet make it sound as if they are formulating their argument based on egalitarianism instead of pure greed.
4
"Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn."
If we all believed that the advantages we enjoy are products of privileges we didn't earn Mr. Brooks would not have had a topic to write about.
And always promise "just the tip".
1
Certainly an immediate issue to our daily urban lives but really recent left leaning Republican, what are you avoiding? Respond to the Sorkin piece if nothing else or do you think DeVos' family could afford to pay off all of the student debt from the Corinthian fraud and still have enough to tip thirty percent ?
Similarly, when we have one of America's "better angels" in the White House, the ACA is more than adequate. However, the second Russia installs our president -- under whom our of/by&fors have no chance of ever "belonging to the ages" -- medicare for all ain't 90% half bad.
Where did 30% come from?
1
Odd how the typically liberal bent of NYT commenters takes a decidedly illiberal direction on the subject of tipping. The real culprits in the system (besides cheap tippers) are federal (FSLA) and state wage laws, which allow employers in certain industries to pay below state minimum wage as long as they report a "tip credit" (max $5.12/h) to make up the difference. For example, here in Utah, where the minimum wage is $7.25/h, employers pay tipped workers $2.13/h. Combined, these laws create conditions in which employees working a 40-hour week will receive a paycheck that grosses--in every sense of the word--$85.20. The net pay is even lower, as state and federal laws also require taxes to be deducted (or claimed) for the tip credit.
While counter help (e.g., Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts) do make full minimum wage, consider how these business models have morphed to become "restaurants," where counter help does more than pour a cup of joe and ring you up. Watch a DD employee making sandwiches, pouring coffees and cashiering while being paid the same as they did before DD became a "restaurant," and maybe that tip cup doesn't seem so greedy.
The solution is to change federal and state laws that virtually guarantee that the server we want to be so smiley is impoverished. As long as the current lawmakers retain power, though, sheer mendacity and gerrymandering will prevent any positive changes. In the meantime: dig deep and fork over the 25 or 30 percent or eat at home.
1
The other issue is to increase Federal and state minimum wages to, say $20 within next 5 yrs, for both tipped and non-tipped employees in each and every industry. Only 7 states have the same minimum wages for both. Currently, the Federal and my own state of WI's minimum wage for tipped worker is $2.13/hr. and $7.25/hr for non-tipped workers. Both of the wages are far too low and below poverty line for a full time employee.
Service sector including many in IT industry is increasingly adopting that practice of low wage contract workers, high pressure work culture, with one time bonuses. It must change and change asap.
3
I have never understood the rationale of calculating the tip you leave as a percentage of the cost of the food and drinks you ordered. Say I go to a fancy restaurant and order an entree that costs $50 and $6 drink and then the next day I go to a less fancy restaurant and and order a $25 entree and $3 drink. Lets also say that in both cases the waiter came to my table 4 times (once to take my order, a second time to bring me the food and drink, a third time to refill the drink and finally a fourth time to bring me the check). Both waiters did the same amount of work, but I am supposed to tip one them twice as much as I tip the other. Why is the value of one waiters labor higher then the value of the others when they both did essentially the exact same thing?
6
Let us face it: tipping is just the restaurant or other business saying they don't want to pay their employees a living wage so they expect you and me to.
This is the same muddled thinking that has brought us self-checkout. I don't work for the store. I will always go to a register with an employee there.
If you can't support your own business you should be in another kine of work.
4
I recently traveled to Sydney and experienced a bit of sticker shock. But when I learned that the minimum wage there is quite a bit higher than in the U.S., and that tipping isn't required or expected, I thought that was great, even if the prices were still rather high. Perhaps the resistance to eliminating tipping that some restaurants have experienced shows only that this can't be done effectively in a piecemeal fashion. Try implementing a living wage and phasing out tipping and see what happens.
I haven't seen mention of the situation when the person buying the product doesn't earn much themselves. Now in addition to buying a $4 coffee Mr Brooks expects them to leave another $1.25 or more for a tip. There isn't table service, just a counter person doing their job. If everyone leaves a $1-2 tip just for a cup of coffee then the server will make a hefty wage. What about the cashier at the supermarket? Do they get a tip? what about the counter person at the auto parts store? They often give good advice and spend real time with their customers. Tip them too? Maybe people in NYC don't go to auto parts stores but many other Americans do. Where does it stop? Just pay people $15-20/hr and reduce wages at the top.
1
Tipping is not a comfortable experience for me. I would rather let the corporate America pay the living wages and increase the price of their products and services. If I will like/not like the increased prices then I would gladly pay/or not pay for those products and services. Make capitalism transparent and I don’t want to see hungry/poor faces of waiters/waitress when I am having my lunch/dinner.
1
Mr. Brooks doesn’t mention how the system has been further thrown out of whack by services that seek a tip even before you’ve been served. Consider, for example, food takeout and delivery when you order and pay online, and the system automatically asks you to choose a tip amount before you’ve received your order. If service is slow and the food is lousy or the order is wrong, how does that a system “to insure prompt service?”
Its interesting that only liberal/progressive ideas are subject to the constrained vision actuality. Perhaps that is because liberal personalities are too nice, and easily manipulated into tacit acceptance or even support of the most insane conservative ideas (I know! Lets invade a hostile country halfway around the world for no valid reason!)
Perhaps a better solution to the tipping dilemma would be to apply a 10% sales tax to hotels, restaurants and bars, with the money to be used to fund health insurance and housing for service industry workers. Any reduction in tipping would be offset by reduced demand for cocaine, which in turn would lower the price.
To quote Mr. Pink: “What about McDonald’s? You don’t tip them.”
Tipping has little to do with the services rendered, and everything to do with social statu. That’s why you tip when you got out to brunch at a nice restaurant, but not when you grab a breakfast burrito at Taco Bell. You tip your Uber, but not the bus driver. You tip the busboy who carries your bags from the elevator to your room in a fancy hotel, but not the UPS guy who carried that 25-pound package up three flights of stairs to your door.
So, please, let’s not pretend this is wealth re-distribution. If it was, we’d tip at McDonald’s the same way we do at Chez Panisse. And if everybody who tipped their hairdresser was also willing to support Medicare for all, now that would put a dent in social inequality. Giving the waiter who kept the mimosas flowing during your Saturday brunch an extra 5% is perhaps a nice gesture, but looked at objectively it’s just an antiquated custom that, rather than address class inequalities, perpetuates them.
4
I hate tipping. First of all, never tip on the TAX in a restaurant. The tax didn't do anything for you. Second, when you stay in a motel one or two nights, and put, "Do not Disturb" on your door, and the person who makes the bed etc never enters your room, it seems unfair to tip because the bed was made and the room was clean when you first entered, after paying a substantial price. Lyft here in Denver told me that some people tip and some people don't. And didn't add that, hey , you should always tip. I often tip but only if the driver is a good conversationalist. Also when you go to a fancy coffee shop and the price for your cappuccino keeps rising why should tip because they made it for you? I do tip, but not every time. I mean a dollar on four dollars is 25%!! I see soliciting routine tips for basic service for the only product available as a form of hijacking. And if the service is terrible, don't tip, but then tell the server WHY you didn't tip. Yes, I'm a piker .
I hate tipping as it can be confusing and sometimes feels uncomfortable in terms of knowing just how much to tip. I've seen people cheat their servers and not tip or tip very little on a large bill. Some people are cheap and it's unfair to those doing a good job, expecting a tip as part of it. I'd prefer to see people paid what they deserve for the job they're doing, then charge accordingly. It takes the guess work out and removes ambiguity.
Over 10 years ago in addition to teaching at university, I owned a coffee house which offered meals in addition to fine coffee and lattes, etc. I paid our workers well above minimum wage, and all tips were shared equally amongst the servers and those who worked in the back of the house. Morale was good and everyone benefitted. Further, I also waitressed and cleaned and did everything else the workers did, and did not hold myself apart from my employees. (I did not take any of the tip money.)
I retired from teaching and sold my business, but I still keep in touch with some of my former employees. For those who have never worked in a restaurant, I will say teaching was far easier than working in a restaurant situation.
IMHO, tipping is a "gratuity" which shows respect for a job well done. Tipping aside, one thing that should be done however, is to abolish paying below minimum wage for tipped employees.
Restaurant owners are only required to pay $2.13 per hour to their employees. which is the federal standard minimum wage for tipped employees. Some owners can even demand a portion of tips. This is abominable. Some states do require paying the full minimum wage, and it should be required in all states.
Stories about tipping always seem to assume that the waitstaff is poor and the customer is affluent. That's not necessarily true.
2
A 3 course dinner out for 2 people in Petaluma, CA with a glass of a less expensive wine at a nice, but not a "special occasion", restaurant will cost at least $80. A 20% tip adds $16.00 and sales tax here is 8.25%, or $6.60. So, all in my dinner has cost me $102.60. You are seriously suggesting that I increase the tip to $24.00? Why is it my responsibility to pay that for about an hours worth of service when there are several other tables in the servers section? The same dinner at home would cost less than the combined tip + tax $22.60. It's decided then... I'll just stay at home to dine.
1
As always, a very thoughtful analysis of tipping. Just one thing: I never carry cash, surely we can find a method of non-cash tipping for hotels and similar services. Could cleaning staff leave a Venmo barcode in the room? What about a tip payment app or clearinghouse that I can issue from my mobile?
Until we solve that, I’ll bow to the wisdom of this article and start bringing cash on my business trips.
Mr. Brooks, you're correct that the tipping system is immoral.
I'd add that one reason it's not immoral but a distortion of the efficiencies of capitalism, is that only some people get tipped but not others.
As you said, the front of the restaurant gets tipped but the back does not. Is that fair?
Also, at times in my life I have worked extraordinarily hard, solving problems that others could or would not. Was I ever tipped for my efforts? No, never.
I think of it this way: much better than tipping is a *transparent* system with *honest pricing* of services (e.g., Uber rides or restaurant meals) and a *living wage* paid to those who might or might not get tipped.
So, sometimes I do not tip. I pay the price on the menu and taxes, and I get the service I expect generally expect.
If fewer people tipped, we could move towards the better, more honest, more transparent and livable system. But, getting from here to there is not easy.
2
Perhaps i am just behind the times, but I strongly disagree with many of the points in this piece.
First, the amount of tip I leave is almost exclusively determined by the quality of the service I have received. The gender, race, or hair color of the server does not enter into my calculation. It is based on first, the quality of the service I have received and second, the amount of effort put into the job. A counter person who takes my order and hands me a bag is going to be tipped less than a server who comes to my table, tells me about the daily specials, and brings out an array of dishes, attractively arranging them at my table and periodically returning to check on my satisfaction.
This brings me to my second disagreement. I am not going to set a fixed percentage for my tipping, because some situations deserve a greater or lesser tip. The only implicit bias in this is that I am biased towards getting superior service.
1
Clarity: In CA all service employees make minimum wage, same as if they worked in an office or a factory floor. (an exception is the "rent-a-chair" segment of the beauty care work force) The tips are on top of that. All these folks declare the tips as income that come through on a credit card or by check. They do not declare the tips that are in cash. So in addition to allowing the service industry (mostly food) to pay their staff at just minimum wage, we the people also lose out on the tax dollars we desperately need to run the nation. Personally I tip people who actually perform a service, though I agree in principal that their wages should not be on me. This is primarily servers in a sit down restaurant, hair stylists, and manicurists. Personally I never put money in a jar at Starbucks or the local deli. For one, those dollars are not taxed. Also I know that some businesses the owner or manager takes all or most of that money. Moreover, the input of those servers is not a significant contribution to my overall satisfaction, so why the tip? If it's justified, why not a tip jar on the counter of Macys?
Mr. Brooks, thank you. This is the best quote I have read all week: "Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn. " If you formed a political party based solely on this maxim, I would dump my current affiliation to join it. This maxim could be the basis of every decision. Healthcare reform? Go to Mr. Brooks' maxim. Immigration? The maxim. Environment? Consider the maxim. It is the perfect balance between ego and selflessness, hubris and humility, fanaticism and realism. I love it.
For me outstanding service is when the wait staff do NOT address us as "you guys". We live in the midwest and it seems even in some of the finer restaurants in the Twin Cities, that term is used.
Problem with paying "a living wage" is that in most places $15/hour is not a living wage. That works out to 2400/month before taxes. In my neck of the woods welfare payments are about $1800/month. Where in the real world can one live on that piddly sum. Certainly not in any major city in the US or Canada. Back to the drawing board everybody!.
Having worked for tips most of my life, I appreciate seeing this article in the New York Times, but I mostly feel the need to echo other readers' sentiments. Everyone deserves to be paid a living wage (which is typically not the case in most service industry jobs) and the right to unionize.
When we rely on tips to make our living, that makes our income unreliable. One week I might do great, and the next week not so much. I'm tired of this model and agree we need to move towards abolishing the tipping system. It can start from the top -- from corporations, who have the economic power to increase wages, and then from smaller businesses who can follow their lead. And it can also start from the ground up -- it's well beyond time for service workers to unionize and fight for our rights to make a living wage and have access to the same benefits that other workers in America appreciate.
"In the unconstrained vision, you ask: What’s the solution? In a constrained vision you ask: What’s the best set of trade-offs and reforms we can actually achieve? The constrained vision is wiser."
Well, of course, the constrained vision is wiser if the unconstrained vision cannot actually be achieved. But is that really what conservatives like Sowell are arguing? I think not. I think conservatives oppose even those changes that CAN be achieved if achieving them overrides traditions and mores that a portion of the population would like to maintain.
We progressives may disagree with that position because it often tends to settle for policies that cause continuing harm or suffering to another portion of the population. But it's a position that at least makes some sense, unlike Brooks's silly argument that what's achievable is better than what's not.
While not disagreeing with many general points, my experience as a tourist in Germany lends itself to a different conclusion; i.e., that tips are necessary to obtain good service. I can still recall sitting at a table waiting to order with up to three servers chatting nearby while I cooled my heels. When it became clear I wasn't going to leave, one of them did me the favor of taking my order. This would rarely happen in a system where tips form a significant fraction of the servers income.
1
Since when did customers enjoy the tipping experience maybe if they are the type that feels it gives them some type of power or superiority over the server. Pay the people a fair wage and at a minimum a living wage.
Tipping, by its nature, both increases and spreads. I can remember the days, way back in the 1940s, when 10% was a respectable tip in a restaurant. Then it grew to 15%. Now, many people say it is 20%. David Brooks says it should be 30%. Nevertheless, increasing rates of tipping are a minor problem compared to the fact that there are always new places where tipping is expected. Why should we have to leave a tip when we stand at a counter and wait to be served a cappuccino? Will stores be next? Or will the day come, in our ever more money-oriented world, when we will have to worry about how much to tip the doctor?
1
Tipping doesn't bother me as much as every place that hands me something such as a cup of coffee or a pastry expects a tip. It has gotten bizarre in who expects a tip today.I live in a college town and they are bloodthirsty when it comes to tipping. So I have learned to make my own lattes and can cook anything. I just don't go out. Which I think is going to have to be the solution to the tipping problem.
3
I much prefer the European system where the service is included,and if you are satisfied you can leave a small extra tip.
By the way ,do you know many restaurants in Manhattan where you can eat for 30 dollars?
2
Can we stop for a moment and ask ourselves why is it so clear we would never consider tipping a banker, a lawyer or a doctor?
For one thing - it has nothing to do with the quality of their service.
So perhaps it would be wiser to add the average monthly tip to the minimum wage and reimburse business owners with tax deduction for the same amount.
Those who will choose to pay beneath the minimum wage should be taxed for the difference.
@John How about letting the market...and the quality of service decide?
Minimum wages and taxation cost jobs.
And good servers get good tips. bad ones don't.
No way do I leave a good tip to a surly waiter who screws up the order, tries and rush me though my meal, or generally fail.
You leftists need to enter reality sometimes.
The disingenuousness of David Brooks can be breathtaking sometimes. What appears to be a critique of tipping that is sympathetic to workers ends up being another attack on Medicare for All. Guess what, Mr. Brooks. All reformers have to settle for what's possible, especially in a democracy. But unless you push for the ideal, you'll never get the best outcome you can. Elizabeth Warren, if she becomes president, will never get any of her plans passed unaltered. But at least we know what she stands for and what her vision of an ideal America looks like. We know she will not stop fighting until she gets the best possible job done for the American people. Contrast this with the cynical Republicans, who have always been the servants of the 1% at the expense of everyone else, and you'll understand what Mr. Brooks really dislikes about people like Warrens and Sanders.
4
@Mark I'll pay for my own health insurance that I choose, thank you. I do NOT want my taxes to go up and be robbed of MY money to provide healthcare for everybody else. They're NOT my problem.
@Terrence Jeffrey Johnson
Geez, how do you feel about educating other people’s kids? Or paving roads in other communities? Or providing clean drinking water in other states?
For many people, myself included, the increase in taxes to fund universal health coverage would be far less than what I currently pay for high deductible private health insurance ($2400 a month for a BC family plan). And knowing that it helped others would be a huge added benefit. We’re all in this together.
4
@Terrence Jeffrey Johnson You clearly don't even understand how your PRIVATE healthcare plan works if you think your premiums and deductibles cover only your particular healthcare.
1
Two things, first watch the opening of Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", not only is it funny but also spot on vis a vis tipping.
Second, if we believe the word TIP is an acronym for "To Insure Promptness" then the whole concept falls apart since the tip is proffered after the service is provided, hence its insuring nothing unless its a place you visit frequently and want to maintain a congenial relationship with the staff.
1
Why in a restaurant does one tip on the entire bill? Never made sense to me. If I order the bone in tomahawk steak ($100) and my table mate orders the chicken breast ($25), where is the work differential in this equation? It takes the same skill and physical endeavor to place those orders and deliver the plate to the table. Does it make sense to tip $20 on the steak versus $5 for the chicken when the same effort and skill is involved. And why not tip more for soup? After all, isn't it harder to serve a bowl of soup without spilling compared to a plate? Why not tip the same for a $300 bottle of wine versus a $50 bottle? Doesn't one have to get glasses, open up the bottle, examine the cork, pour the tasting, the pour the glasses for either the $300 or the $50 bottle? What is one orders a bunch of small plates and someone orders one regular entree. Isn't the effort to serve the multiple plates more than the single entree?
If I'm having a massage in a spa in Aspen after skiing, why am I expected to tip? Yet when I receive a massage from a physical therapist for a similar fee (if not less), you would never consider tipping? Was not the same service rendered? I realize that you are also paying for real estate and ambiance as part of the cost. Business owners can obviously take this into account when setting fees.
It is only rational and fair to just pay people a living wage.
5
I'm not surprised when I read a column of Mr. Brooks' that reveal the utter decency of the man, for I feel certain that this is the true measure of his worth. This is in stark contrast to his political columns, but that's not the point I wish to make. David makes reference to Thomas Sowell's book, "A Conflict of Vision", where it is apparently argued that trying to forcefully enact change inevitably leads to needless conflict and resistance. I agree with that viewpoint, but I couldn't help noticing that Mr. Brooks mentions choosing between capitalism and socialism. Why must we choose, David? I believe that our future lies with a hybrid of both capitalism and socialism- a uniquely American system that combines the freedom of capitalism with the compassion of a society that cares for all of it's members. This is not unlike my view of healthcare, where a fully implemented public-private Obamacare is our country's best option, which combines freedom of choice with healthcare for all. Open your mind, David, a better way is possible.
1
Require a living wage be paid by minimum wage laws. Legislate "service compris" and require the percentage to be printed in boldface type 4 points larger than any other item on the menu. Don't settle for less.
I'm glad Brooks' salary and contracts have put him in a place where he think a 30% tip is appropriate to atone from his fiscal sins. Most of us, particularly those who spent a lifetime in public service, are not in that position. We still travel and eat out. How virtuous of him to tell us how much to tip.
Noblesse oblige is no substiutute for social justice; any conservative who thinks it is is a fatuous dilettante. A livetime in North America as an ageing boomer has driven me from the GOP to democratic socialism. Like FDR, I hope a little social justice may prevent much, much worse than higher taxes and lower incomes for the rich.
3
It seems everyone wants a tip as prices go up and up. As a senior living off of SS I’ll tip for outstanding service in a restaurant but mostly we no longer go out to eat. For coffee, zero and small items, zero.
If the hourly pay isn’t enough, move on to a decent paying job. I still work seasonal jobs at age 82 such as Amazon or Costco. I don’t get a tip but I enjoy the work. If a person
doesn’t make $15 an hour or more, move on until success.
3
As a restaurant worker in the U.S. our entire 'front of the house' staff relies on tips. We are in this business because we enjoy it- but we train and educate ourselves, often teach our guests, how to enjoy what they are consuming- out of our own pocket. We culminate years of service to shape the experience for the guest.
We are not uneducated service workers. We are not 'trained' by our employers to offer excellent skill/service. We seek out restaurateurs, chefs, sommeliers, food and beverage programs to learn from and work for that push us to be better and strengthen our skill set. Many of us hold college degrees.
I feel a stigma from the public at large around the subject of tipping. I sense ignorance toward what the 'tip' is really for... Bottom line- my hourly pay rate is $2.13. The tips I make are taken and redistributed to service assistants, bartenders, hosts, dishwashers, and myself. The guest's tip is paying far more staff members than they realize. So until we get that 'living wage' issue settled. Please tip accordingly.
4
Having been a teacher all my life, I feel strongly that teachers should be better compensated for what they do. Tipping, of course, is totally out of the question when it comes to teachers for a number of reasons, and apples don't help much. It seems unfair that waiters think we owe them so much for what they do in a few minutes, whereas teachers give so much for so little day in and day out.
3
I think tipping has been affected by credit card transactions which provide a tipping option, often for less than full-service situations, such as ordering at the counter and then picking up your own food. I generally feel compelled (inappropriately) to leave a tip even though there is really no "service," other than ringing up the bill. Coffee (espresso) is an exception, a tip for a good barista is entirely appropriate.
One important aspect that you forgot to mention; always tip in cash. Some additional information that make tipping a bad idea. Many tipping establishments require their employees to pool their tips. Which means that the excellent service that you want to reward your server gets distributed "evenly" to all servers, sometimes including the host, bartender, bus people and the kitchen. So your well intended tip is just another means by which the employer is allowed to under pay their staff. Some restaurant owners appropriate tips left on a credit card and do not distribute the full amount of the tip that was intended by the client to the server. Make sure you read the fine print so you are not double tipping. In the past a job that provided tips was a lifesaver to many single moms. Now they can barely make ends meet. A living wage would be preferable. They manage to do it in Europe, why can't we.
One of the reasons low wage people say they like tips is because tip income is highly underreported for tax purposes...so they keep more of their small incomes... It is long past time for employers of all kinds -- those whose employees rely and tips and those whose employees do not (ie Walmart) to pay living wages ....so everyone else does not have to subsidize the owners. I have read that the Walmart family received - annually - about $3.2 BILLION dollars in dividends, which are subject to about the lowest income tax rate. There's lots of money out there to pay decent, living wages.
3
Tipping is analog. It depends on complex factors that can offset or reinforce one another, It's also confusing. I hate it.
Politics is binary. If you believe in the climate crisis and democracy, you choose Democrats. If you don't believe in science and approve of voter suppression, you choose Republicans. Simple.
Tipping permits (typically) male check payers to pompously display their largess or critique. It is a performance for their fellow diners.
Take that performance away and men lose that opportunity to pompously display their wealth and so-called discernment.
I don't disagree with incremental change, but as a researcher of human origins and diversity (i.e., an anthropologist), this comment raises red flags for me: "Think of the ideal system, then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature, and our own situation."
As apologists for the status quo often do, Mr. Brooks treats "human nature" as an ill-defined and implacable obstacle to change. However, as anyone who has bothered to look abroad can clearly see, tipping is not a human universal. It's very much a particular cultural practice that arose in our own society during a specific time period and it has lasted so long because it benefits those with power (employers, who get to pay their employees lower wages--even below the minimum wage in most states; and wealthier consumers, for whom tips may be an annoyance, but as Brooks points out, they provide leverage over servers--with all the sexism and racism this may entail). The TV series Adam Ruins Everything has a good breakdown of the history and function of tipping in our restaurants.
In short, we can (and should) debate the merits and demerits of tipping--or "expanding health insurance or choosing between capitalism and socialism"--in any given time and place without relying on the bogeyman of "human nature" to salvage our arguments.
4
Commenters seem to be ignoring the main point: What can YOU do NOW for the people who serve you daily who are not making a living wage. You can tip generously. The majority of NYT readers can afford this.
The argument that owners should pay more is nice, but it won't work as a voluntary measure on their part. Why? Because their prices would be higher than their competitors, and YOU (yes I am talking about you) would go to the cheaper places. The owner who paid a living wage would be out of business. Result is still no living wage jobs.
While it is good to support better mandatory minimum wages, you still owe the people who wait on you NOW to have an improves standard of living. Your declaration that wages should be improved by someone else does not buy their baby's diapers. If the wages were higher, your meal would cost more, so just buck up and pay the increase that will appear if we ever have decent living wages in your tip.
1
I disagree with your tipping suggestions, the tipping is done if the service was great, just because a cashier serves you a loaf of bread at the local bakery doesn't require a tip. If the cashier uses a nice box and bag to handle you the bread, then a tip is required.
If the barista, puts extra coffee or foan in your latte without requiring extra payment a tip is required, the tipping is to compensate the server for any extra service. Last week I went o a expensive restaurant and the tip was in excess of $70.00, the tip was excessive because that is what my electrician charges for a service call that involves more than carrying four plates and two bottles of wine.
1
As a musician that has worked extensively on the West Coast, tipping musicians that perform at a venue which advertises live music (and therefore, a service that is used to attract customers) is not typical. These venues pay musicians a wage. Tips are welcome, of course, but the expectation of the venue's customers is the live music is offered by the establishment, at the expense of the establishment. Very importantly, It is quite often the main reason a customer chooses to visit the venue and purchase the goods and services the venue offers.
However, in South, and particularly in Nashville, the customer is expected to tip the musicians. Venues on lower Broadway typically pay only $20-$50 to each musician for a 4hr job. The musician relies on tips to make up for what the venue does not pay. This is very common all throughout the South. Interestingly, the customers of venues in the South always applaud a performance, regardless of the quality. This rarely happens on the West Coast. No applause. It could be that customers in the South that are unable or unwilling to pay the tip feel that applause is #1 - polite, and #2 - that applause is the tip.
Nashville advertises itself as the "Music City". Among musicians this is a long standing joke. And a very bad one at that. It's more like "the city of musicians that sleep in their cars".
Bartenders, wait staff, kitchen staff all make more than most musicians in the South. Without exception.
1
"...explores the virtues of working realistically within constraints, and the evils that ensue when people ignore or try to run roughshod over them."
How do you know where the constraints are if you don't push? "Working realistically within constraints" sounds like an excuse to not try very hard to improve.
Your point of view is an interesting one. I grew up in an era that people didn’t use credit cards and were very concerned with living within their income. Take a look at attitudes today. Too many young people believe that living in debt is natural. I feel sorry for them. For our capitalism without rules to work, we must be a consumer society. Have you noticed how many storage warehouses have sprung up to hold all the extra stuff we don’t have room for in our homes?
Living within the realities of a constantly changing economic world must be analyzed. David Brooks thinks those who eat at restaurants should pay a 20%-30% tip or more to solve the problem of the high cost of living and low wages. Maybe the diners put it on their credit card to avoid later.
I would assert that we’ve gotten ourselves into a predicament by burdening individuals with birth to death debt. High medical bills at birth, education loans, car loans, home loans, unpaid bills, on and on until despair drives us to the relief of drugs.
President Obama worked hard to lower government debt; our current president gleefully adds trillions to national debt. Does anyone notice or care? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren offer very tough medicine, but it’s needed.
Good government is the answer to insanity.
1
Some restaurants already add the 20% gratuity for certain large parties, I don't see the problem with simply adding a service charge for all customers. Nobody likes it, and in fairness, the burden of a living wage is not properly the customers, but here we are. It eliminates all potential bias problems, plus also makes all those tips taxable. That's one thing I don't hear anyone talking about.
3
As compared to voluntary tipping in Europe, take France for example, tipping in US restaurants is extremely impersonal. You leave the tip and almost there is a rule that the server must see the tip after the customer departs the table. In Europe you usually hand the tip to the server with the knowledge that the bill had already included an amount for the service. In Europe, you hear the word "Thank you" for the tip.
If the impersonal custom in the US is changed to become similar to the European one, I believe servers would realize a larger amount in their tips.
1
David, you should revisit more of your ‘priors’. The ‘free market’ system doesn’t address many of our most pressing societal issues. Not to be repetitive, but it seems many conservatives change their minds when their long-held dogmatic beliefs suddenly come home to roost. Now that their sons and daughters are the ones depending on tips, this is an issue. We’ll address a reasonable and just healthcare system when it fails the solidly middle class. Global warming will be an issue when farmers start having issues, increased insect infestations become a suburban health crisis.
I applaud your realization that fair compensation for work should be one goal of a society. As America experiences more fair opportunities for minorities and the advantages of being part of the majority subside we will likely find more support for fairness in compensation and benefits. Maybe you can look at our voting system next. RC
1
Of course in David’s case he said he worked as a bartender. So it comes from his own past experience, not from kids growing up. I also agree with David that tipping based on percentage of cost of meal does not reflect the actual work of serving.
I cannot tell you how liberating it is to spend money in places where tipping is plain abhorred (Japan, New Zealand), or not regarded as a key issue (most of northern Europe). Here, I am afraid of being physically hurt, and forbidden to enter the premises again, if I tip less than 20% of the bill. Even the take out order that I physically pick up myself shamelessly asks for a tip in the receipt. It feels like a shakedown, in addition to all other objectionable issues you cite.
4
Is the idea of the title that tipping is a system, an entrenched aspect of our economic system? If so, then our economic system
needs looking at, to see if it is equatable in the first place. The implication here is that aside from a few little ruffles of conscience
in the part of people well off enough to even have to worry about
tipping, everything is going dandy because everybody has a part,
however disadvantaged. Ah, nobody means to be insensitive.
Or, never tip. Cost should not be included as a separate line item. Restaurant and other employers of traditionally tipped staff should pay what wage is required to hire and retain staff and price products and services accordingly.
2
Tipping is out of control. When I patronize a coffeehouse where the barista flips a Square screen around and tips start at 20%, followed by the options of 25% and 30%, I'm appalled. I'm my own waiter in such circumstances; I've had to go to the counter, place my order, stand around waiting for the espresso drink to be ready, and then ferry my order to whatever spot I can find to sit and drink it. Why in the world should I leave 30%, 25%, 20% -- or 15% -- much less, any tip at all!!!???
Suggesting we should leave 30% is absurd unless the service has been excellent. As is 25%.
Leaving a tip for minimum wage maids who clean the room once I leave, people I rarely or never run into and so have no personal engagement whatsoever, is equally absurd. That's a job the hotel should pay for. Why should I, the guest, be charged for such a fundamental service at a hotel?
I spend a great deal of time in Spain where tipping follows sensible guidelines. Tips are based on relationships. If you patronize a restaurant, it's imperative that you cultivate a friendly relationship with the waiters and the owner. It's all about the relationship. Waiters are paid a LIVING WAGE and don't expect more than 5%. They scoff at strangers (usu. Americans) who think nothing of dropping 20% regardless or nothing due to guidebook advice, which rankles them. The norm is 5%, but if you have a relationship, the sky's the limit. The tip is an actual reward for great service, NOT AN OBLIGATION.
9
A related issue is that many jobs pay so little that fully employed people are still eligible for safety net programs such as food stamps. This means that both customers who tip and government benefits subsidize employers who rake in often huge profits on which they pay relatively little in taxes relative to those who make their money from wages. People who don't tip should also be aware that the IRS assumes that people in certain occupations are tipped, and requires that income taxes be withheld from their meager wages based on assumed amount of tips, even if these tips do not actually occur.
I graduated from culinary school and have worked in the industry in Germany and the US. My actual take home pay and satisfaction were better in Germany than in the US.
In Germany my employers gave me a free meal. Usually they encouraged me to eat the special of the day. No prob. It's all good. If we had a busy day and I had to stay overtime to help the last, late customers, my employers usually rewarded me with a bottle of wine or time off the next day or in some other way to show their gratitude. Because ALL restaurants show prices with tax and tip included, customers have no sticker shock.
Interestingly in the US, people generally do not tip fast food workers, nor catering staff, gardeners, cleaning people in the gym or in hotel lobbies, etc. These people often make even less than front of the house restaurant staff. But imagine a world where you had to tip everyone, including your gym trainer, your teachers, the janitor in your school or office building, the garbage collectors, etc. Where does it end? And who has so much money?
I vote for the French or German system any time.
8
Australia has the highest minimum wage in the world, where tips are not common or expected. The standard of service you receive in Australia is also typically high.
Businesses should just pay their staff a livable wage.
5
Tipping, while a feeble attempt to show gratitude, simply shifts the burden of pay from employer to customer. And in all cases, the customer is already paying heavily.
I suspect tipping was invented by Republicans to shift the pay burden away from small business owners.
Brooks uses food service as an example. But there are others. Take for instance significant home improvements or other ‘big money’ purchases.
A patio addition, pool install, or basement finish will cost thousands of dollars. Using an average outlay of $50,000-$100,000, with 3-8 workers involved, it is not unusual to tip an extra $50-$100 per worker for the job. And I’m probably low.
Do many of us not tip sanitation or other workers $50-$100 at Christmas? Perhaps you have a nanny or full time housekeeper? It adds up.
I appreciate good service and hard work as much as the next person but enough is enough.
At the end of the day, the small business owner is left with his business, often a multi-thousand or multi-million dollar asset, while all I have is pockets that are more depleted than when I started.
Wages alone should cover the cost of service or work. As the customer, I end up paying either way.
1
?.. I was a house painter for 17 years and never once was tipped. Since when is every service worker supposed to bring home a little off the books backshish?
I have experienced no tip expected cultures and greatly prefer those. When you do leave the occasional tip for great service, the receiver is both surprised and gratified.
My favorite story on tipping, however, involved a customer at a diner who received poor service but left a huge tip (way beyond the price of the meal). He felt the waitress must have been having a bad day (she was) and could use some cheer. I don't know how the ends of the story came together, perhaps it was just a made up story, but the tip apparently did its work and helped someone who was having a rough go of it. Unfortunately few of us are so well off we can contemplate doing that on a regular basis.
2
Where did you come up with your algorithm to tip 30% when the bill is under $25?
This doesn't make sense to then tip a waiter- waitress $6.00 on a $20 meal, yet $5.00 on a $25 meal.
While I don't live in NYC, Breakfast these days are typcially within this range at most diners, and to be quite honest sometimes the servers don't even deserve 15% when they just place the food on the table. No offense to anyone here, but this practice is not a one way deal.
4
My mother taught me to be kind and be generous. I try my hardest to follow the creed in my life and when tipping for service.
Many good comments here (I will keep this short). I do support a living wage as a good starting point. When you have a living wage, if you like the service, you can add a tip of your choice as an extra compliment.
Another point, if you have an issue with the quality of the service, let the server know. If you have an issue with the quality of the product (for example a meal at a restaurant), do not take it out on the server, let the manager know about the issue and do not penalize the server for it. Often servers get penalized for issues that happen in the kitchen and outside their control.
I noticed the majority of servers in restaurants where I live are no longer young college kids wanting to make extra money for gas and beer. Some of these jobs are now populated by career workers who are older and have families to support- often women supporting single parent households. So, these jobs are no longer only filled with young, transient and seasonal workers, keep this in mind as it is important.
Be kind and be generous- karma.
4
At the most recent Women in the World conference in NYC, a speaker noted that the tipping system normalizes sexual harassment in ALL workplaces because a huge percentage of young women start out in part-time server jobs as students, are subjected to inappropriate remarks etc and a sexualized environment, and come to assume that this is to be expected on the job.
In other news, where is Brooks getting the idea of tipping 30 to 50 percent? Seriously?
2
I wonder, what has the research indicated about generational views on tipping? I would greatly prefer to dine at restaurants where the staff are paid well and the prices on the menu are the prices I will see on the bill.
What I would think immoral is the notion that health insurance coverage/access should be "constrained". Another false equivalency.
Tipping has gotten out of control in this country. It was one thing when it was just waiters and bellmen, now you're expected to tip nearly EVERYONE. You step inside a cafe, order a taco at a food truck, and after taking your order the employee swivels this screen over at you on which you are expected to choose between 20, 25, and 30 percent. Your waiter might be making $2 an hour, but the barista's not. I was in Savannah not long ago and my partner and I paid $80 to a tour company for a two-hour tour of Bonaventure Cemetery. At the end, we were expected to tip the guide! Who got that $80?? The problem is that in 2019 the rules for tipping are unclear. If I'm expected to tip, I want to know how much your boss is paying you. Not that that solves the problem. What tipping is, really, is an excuse to pay your employees a laughable wage because "they work for tips". The bottom line is that if you tip, you are helping foster an increasingly unequal society. How long until the boss decides the barista only needs $2 an hour, because they're "making tips"? Across how many industries is this plague going to spread? I worked in tipped positions for years, so I know what I'm talking about when I say the only way the situation is going to change if there is a concerted movement of people refusing to tip, for the GOOD of people working those positions. One person can't do it on their own because they'd be seen as a jerk. As cheap. It has to be organized. Such a movement is long overdue.
5
Mr. Brooks:
Here's a tip: there is an impeachment process going on. Members of the Republican party are trying to obstruct it. What do you think that's worth. Evidently, not your time or this space.
4
One of the advantages to being a writer is that you can write about a variety of topics. (I know because I am a writer). Plenty of other writers and reporters are covering politics. It is refreshing as a reader to have something different to read. You needed to lighten up a tad. I am sure David had an inspirational thought and went with it. It is also not always easy to write a column. I am sure there are some weeks when he does not feel like writing.
1
So tip an Uber driver who doesn’t offer me water, doesn’t ask me about the music type or volume, and doesn’t ask me about the ambient temperature, the same as one who does? I don’t think so.
1
The problem with saying "leave 30 to 50% tips" is it will go to 100% tips...then 500% tips etc. Remember it was only a short time ago tips were considered generous at 15%.
By leaving larger tips you forestall the workers uniting and demanding a fair wage and the end of large tips.
2
I see so many comments that restaurant owners should just pay servers a living wage. The problem is that the tipping system is integrated into the restaurant business model. I own a large restaurant in New York and increasing the servers wage from $7.50/hr to $15/hr would increase my expense by over $400,000 per year. This is more than the profit made by the restaurant. The fact is that with the 20%+ tips that the servers make give them an effective wage of over $30/hr, so of course they're no complaining. Most restaurants lose money. This is not a situation of greedy restaurant owners exploiting their workers. The system of tipping is terrible, I agree, but changing it is so difficult because of misperception by the public. So the system remains status quo, though moving to the European system would benefit both the owners and the servers
5
It seems to me Republican's like tipping because they can choose to not tip. Whereas a living wage, a meal priced to pay servers enough to thrive, forces money out of their pockets. It's like the argument that churches will solve social issues. Churches can choose to tip to help people, it keeps the money in pockets, keeps taxes low, keeps control. The Democrats, however, want that money unionized, forced, taxes raised, people paid, the poor in more control through more systemic pay, not subservient to the whims of tips and churches and gifts.
5
I recently had a glorious lunch where tipping is not done. The service was spotless. The happiness of the meal wasn’t suddenly ruined when the check came. Pay servers an honorable salary!
4
It would be so easy to ban tipping at the national level - eliminate the "tipped worker minimum wage" and cover waiters and other service workers under the regular minimum wage
5
Mr. Brooks, Yes, tipping is denigrating. Years ago I worked in a hotel bar, a jazz club and a country club. I was subjected to bartender harassment, customers trying to pick me up, meager tips (once doused in ketchup as a “joke”), obnoxious drunks, wealthy entitled customers not leaving the tips they could afford. My service was friendly and good. I also lived in Europe. Eureka! No tipping. Servers for whom serving is a profession and who most often stay in their jobs for years and don’t expect but are gracious about accepting an extra thank you on the tab for great service. I hate tipping with a passion.
8
Soon you will be arguing for tipping reporters, doctors, dentists, nurses, pilots, bus drivers, subway operators, judges, cops, etc. I'll put a square terminal on my desk at work and ask the boss to swipe a credit card and not be stingy if he wants that report this week, cuz you know, it's hard to make ends meet when I've got to pay the mortgage, the babysitter, MTA, and $15 (plus tip) for lunches in midtown.
8
Until we fix tipping for good, we really, really need to tip workers who are in traditionally tipped sectors of the economy because the minimum wage law allows their employers to pay them A LOWER MINIMUM WAGE. A LOT LOWER. It's not just an extra for good service.
Technically the employer is supposed to track their tips and pay them the difference if they end up netting less than the regular minimum wage. Yeah right.
We really, really need to fix tipping. The law as it exists now allows the employer (who is subject to all employment law with its anti-discrimination protections) to transfer a substantial part of the compensation obligations to the customer. The customer is not subject to employment law and can tender the tipped portion of the employee's legally recognized compensation in as arbitrary and discriminatory fashion as the customer chooses. The employee has no redress.
I worry that the ubiquitous iPad screens suggesting tips even for transactions that are not traditionally tipped may end up throwing more trades into the low minimum wage sector. That would be moving backwards.
1
Tip as much as you want. I do but not usually 30%.
1
Running a restaurant is a harsh business to be in. Net profits average around 5%, with the best, the top tier around 10% (a level few restaurants ever hit.) Margins are razor thin. Even the top chefs in the world commonly have restaurants that ultimately fail.
Food spoils. Equipment breaks (a lot.) Liability insurance is big (people get hurt - kitchens are full of objects that are by definition either very sharp, or very hot.) Staffing is a continual issue, as (with exceptions) there are very few people that want to be a waitress/waiter or dishwasher as a career. Utilities are big (imagine the sort of power it takes to keep grills, fryers, gas ranges and ovens continuously hot for 18 hours a day.)
The average restaurant owner makes around $40K -$60K a year. In other words, the lower end of middle class. For quite commonly working 7 days a week, often 10-12 hours a day for a lot of those days.
Before anyone talks about greedy restaurant owners who don't pay employees a living wage, try running one for a week. Labor costs are above 1/3 of the costs. Raising hourly rates by even $2 - $3 and hour is enough to wipe out what little profits a lot of restaurants make. Passing laws requiring that invariably means staff will get cut, or restaurants will close.
And adding a 20% service charge insults a lot of customers. I tip 20% for great service, 15% normally, and less when the service is terrible. There's good reasons why many restaurants that went to that model discarded it.
5
@JRC Many restaurants are corporate chains. Sorry, disagree. Better to unionize and get a living wage.
1
In half a decade of waiting tables in my youth, I don't recall the social exchange between me and the customer being enhanced by the custom of tipping, at least not in an overall positive way.
I remember smashing the windshield on my truck after serving a very large party that took most of my evening and then leaving less than a 5% tip, even though a few of them, including the "big tipper", praised me for my service and thanked me before I discovered what my efforts "earned" me.
Perhaps the large bill made the small tip seem adequate, but I would have made much more money by getting average tips from multiple but much smaller tables.
In the end, the custom of tipping provides more humiliation for even competent waiters than a guaranteed wage. Why should the waiter be the one with no power- the customer HAS to pay the restaurant owner for the meals purchased.
No wonder it is the custom of European restaurants to write the "tip" into the bill. Then customers can express their appreciation by adding another 5% or so and you have the best of two worlds. A customer can always complain to a manager if the service sucks.
3
Don't agonize, organize! Fix the labor laws; stop allowing employers to fire workers simply because they are trying to organize labor unions. If workers are organized, then they have leverage to press for improvements and employers must negotiate instead of dictate. This will go a long way toward solving every single problem of the working class from healthcare to wages to flex time to environmental and safety regulations. Corporate America may not approve but that's the point. Corporate America should not always get its way if we want a better country.
Too often the constrained version is used to justify shoring up a fatally flawed system.
Consider health care. We continue to shore up a system based on making every effort to retain private insurance. Yet we know that private insurance, by its own confession and by its nature, deliberately makes every effort possible to deny those who need it, provide as few goods and services as possible to those who need it, and when possible charge vast sums to those who do not need it, only to dump them or penalize them when they do fall into need.
In other words, it's an open attempt to scam the customer. We KNOW that. And yet, under the 'constrained' approach, we are repeatedly entreated to do anything we can to retain a system we know is damaging and dishonest.
Sometimes you have to throw the bad system out--over and over and over again, if necessary. The American tipping system sucks. So does the American system of private insurance. Let's get rid of both, for keeps. Neither is an example of good, healthy capitalism, but of corporate greed and manipulation.
When a system mostly works, mostly fairly, that's one thing. Sure. Go for constrained change. But when the system is simply evil, it's time to go for unconstrained change. Go for what works best, not for what sticks another patch of duct tape on a broken system.
1
The implementation of no-tip in the U.S. by the few restaurants that tried it was completely botched.
In French restaurants, the prices on the menu are net, including tax and service. This is always indicated at the bottom of the menu with the words 'prix net' or 'service compris'. The diner of course has the option of leaving more, usually 5 or 10% for really good service. This is referred to, usually accurately as the 'pourboire', or 'for drink'.
Servers in France are considered professionals. I do business in France with a winegrower in a village of 2000 people. He was the mayor. When he retired in his 60s, the consensus was that the waiter in the town's only restaurant should be the next mayor. He ran unopposed.
When service is seen as a career, the problem diminishes or disappears.
Dan Kravitz
1
And there's disparity among the workers tipped at hotels. Why does the man who hails the cab outside the lobby entrance receive larger tips and many more tips per hour than the maids who make the beds, clean the bathroom, vacuum the floors? Many of those poorly paid maids probably receive no tip.
1
A few missed or overlooked points.
1) The inflation of higher end restaurant meals far exceeds that of everyday cost of living. The reasons for the increases include larger kitchen staffs (who are forbidden from sharing in tips), construction costs, municipal and state fees, ridiculous construction costs, the cost of luxury produce, PR investments and other expenses which have nothing to do with server performance. It is often in these restaurants that servers try hardest to upsell and vie for attention. Higher wages caused by supply and demand.
2) Many cities and states do not participate in tip credit. The base wage for a server in San Francisco is above $15.
3) Many urban restaurants now assess a charge for insurance and other state or municipally mandated services to tipped employees. These are included in the basic tip algorithm, as are often, incorrectly, taxes.
3) To further complicate things, there are very few servers with the skills required by high end chefs receiving minimum wage. Most command much higher compensation.
4) The basic tip was once quite low. It only increased to $20% in New York in the early nineties, having been 5%, 10%, and 15% over the years.
Actually, it's the servers who like the tipping as they rarely include all their tips on their income tax. They far prefer a cash tip than one added to the bill paid with a credit card - that will involve taxes.
A good server in an upscale restaurant certainly makes a "living wage". A server in a coffee shop? Maybe not.
If servers were paid the way other workers are, then prices would be far higher and customers would be very unhappy. Most good restaurants offer benefits to their servers; they often are declined - servers tend to be younger and think they're invincible so they don't want to pay for health insurance.
As for a 30% top - well, clearly Mr Brooks needs to get out of NYC more. In most places, 15% is still standard, with 20% for exceptional service.
3
Workers should be paid for their work--a living wage. Period.
6
This is ridiculous. I don't know whom you're talking to, but "customers like the tipping experience" doesn't include any customers I know. And 30-50%? That's absurd.
When I was young, a tip was 10% if you had good service, 0% if the service was awful. Then somehow the standard crept up to 15% as a minimum. Then it was 20% if you weren't a cheapskate. Then 25%. Now, you're suggesting 30% as a minimum, and up to 50%?!
That's ludicrous on its face. Most countries don't have substantial tipping, and they get along just fine. I far prefer economies like Oregon's, where there is no 'tipped minimum'; everyone earns at least the minimum wage, tipped or not. I want to know the price of a service, and pay it. If a driver takes me from point A to point B, that is the service; there's no reason to pay extra. Same with bringing the food to the table; that's the service. I liked Uber initially, because it had no tipping.
I'm fine with paying more if it's the whole price of what I get. Adding half again to the cost of a simple meal is insane. I think we've reached the point where we should just stop tipping entirely, and let prices and wages adjust.
5
can we give Trump a tip if he resigns? That would be a real service.
9
Tipping system may be immoral, but is merely a reflection of crony capitalism, of which your GOP thoroughly enjoys--even though your Christianity sure seems to enjoy it as well. Your Yin, to the Yang of the rest of America that doesn't thoroughly enjoy--or "Christianity" or "Fundamentalism".
Tip I do, in amounts that satisfy myself---and the recipient does as well. 30% might be your choice, but mine fluctuates from 10% to 100%.
It's nice to know Mr. Brooks is so well compensated by the Times that he can afford to leave such munificent tips.
For those who cannot, 15 - 20% will have to suffice. Once employers pay a living wage, a tip of that size will be just "a tip" (i.e. an expression of thanks for services rendered) and not the balance of the amount a worker needs to live on.
5
Herein lies the elitist heart that has always sustained American conservatism. That you need to pay people to be civil to you is fine as long as they understand their place.
4
I identify with David's perspective, but i'd be more aggressive in my pursuit of economic justice. I regularly go to a diner for Sunday breakfast with two friends because it's the best value. The food is good & the service is friendly & efficient. We tip well. During the week I might stop for lunch at a fast food place. Tipping is not expected, but these workers are working for less than at the diner & mostly relying on foodstamp assistance to survive at taxpayer expense, while the big corporations they work for rake in the bucks & avoid taxes like the plague. Workers should be paid a fair wage for their work. The idea of working poor, too poor to eat themselves, while serving food & collecting public assistance, so that big Corporations can make bigger profits is anathema.
3
Nearly a decade in the service industry trenches has left me strongly biased against tipping. It’s a terrible system, even more nefarious than Mr. Brooks points out. It doesn’t simply demonstrate racisms and classism, it engenders it. If you’re a waiter making $2.17 an hour and you get someone lower on the economic spectrum seated in your section, right or wrong you will probably resent it.
Philosophically I agree that every customer should be given the same courtesy and service regardless of what tip you may expect them to leave, but when you need good tips to survive, you will learn fast to apportion your attention in ways to maximize your earnings. This typically results in upper class people receiving preferential treatment, and lower class people (usually minorities) receiving inferior service.
6
@Thad That's a sensible explanation for what Brooks calls "implicit bias".
30-50% tips? I think that is way off base.
This is the first time I ever heard of a 30 percent tip, except in truly extraordinary circumstances. As a child, I learned in NY to double the tax (around 8% at the time) And in recent years I consider 20% of the bill (controversial as to whether to include the tax in the tip calculation) to be a standard tip.
I eat out a lot and have never seen any suggestion that a 20% tip is low, even from other diners at my table when we calculate the total amount to be divided when equally splitting a check.
Only exception I have heard of is if you are "comped" by the restaurant or with a coupon for something you got---I add in the amount of the comp to the check to calculate the tip amount.
I really enjoy eating places where a 20% service charge is included in the check and no tipping is allowed and no calculations are required.
2
With all due respect, 30% would be right but in California there's nearly 10% in taxes on your bill. That amounts to a 40% higher bill. With the price of dinner so high to begin with, we're forced to stay home. Who can afford that?
A simple meal of ONE dish along with tip and tax can come to $30 easily.
2
Do servers always get all of the tip? I've heard some employers require their servers to turn in their tips and then the tip is spread around to other employees, such as cooks.
3
I find it laughable that tipping is now viewed as demeaning. I can guarantee you that those receiving the tip do not find it demeaning in the least.
I have tipped generously my whole life. The only adjustment I sometimes make is when to tip. When parking my car at a hotel, I always tip both the runner and the car staff ahead of time. In cash. Same when traveling. Even in Norway.
When at a restaurant, I very often tip the waiter or waitress ahead of time "to insure proper service." In cash.
I think many folks forget that twenty dollars in cash, or if appropriate, even a hundred bucks in cash can have an Immediate and Positive effect on the lives of very hardworking people. That money is gas money home, groceries in the morning and a good meal for the family the next day. I will continue to TIP in cash as long as I live. May my politically incorrect habit be adopted nationally.
4
I don't know anyone that tips 30% unless they are trying to impress the server. David Brooks is a media celebrity and has and image and reputation to uphold so he tips big. All the others that are hard working Joe's just like the server need not
tip 30%. 15% is the norm and is just fine and will be very well appreciated by the server. Yes very attentive service or taking a liking to the server may warrant a bigger tip. But those times are usually the exceptions and not the norm.
1
We've now entered the tipping age. Where everyone with an ipad and a square account gets a tip. Everyone gets a trophy, too. Everyone gets to follow their passion and make an obscene amount of money, and yes, every server gets a 30% tip because it's now our personal obligation to shrink the widening gap between rich and poor. The problem is entitlement -- between the rich who want their entitlements (tax loopholes, low capital gains) and the socialists who want to give the poor everything -- guaranteed income and a free 4 year college degree -- no need to pay-back your loan. The problem is entitlement.
1
Tips are expected in some situations, and patrons should be as generous as they can be, but it is tiresome to continue to subsidize businesses. I don't receive a discount for checking out my own groceries or pumping my own gas, and I have a hard time justifying a tip when I am handed a cardboard cup and expected to pour my own coffee. I think it's time we stopped trying to guilt people into solving problems that we elect people to solve, such as income inequality, climate change, etc.
3
My standard rule is this: if the bill is less than $25 per person at my table I pay $5 per person. Carrying plates with the $6 breakfast special to me takes just as much work as a $24 dinner. Anything higher than $25 I tip at least 25%.
1
It is an interesting thought experiment to extend this excellent tipping system to other business. Perhaps CEO’s can be paid less than a living wage and gain income from customer tipping for providing excellent service. In fact, recognizing a tipping economy to be such a wonderful model I am surprised the executives are not straining to embrace it now.
7
Tipping -- I'm OK with the concept, but when paying via "the machine" as everyone calls it, when the machine figures the amount, be it 15, 20 or whatever percent, it bugs me that taxes are included in the base amount. So the food is taxed and the tip is taxed. Fie on that.
2
30% tips?? Eating out has lost all its charm. My solution: Stay home. When was the last time a meal out and its service were better than your own home cooking and hospitality?
Often here, my restaurant servers have been former students who had squandered years of educational opportunities to end up unskilled and with few other employment prospects.
4
I understand the need to tip. But the sad fact is there are huge numbers of people in retail that get none and barely get by. Capitalism is great -- but so many people who work very hard are not making a decent living. Many families need two breadwinners to get by. Then we have a small percentage of people who make huge money. No balance anymore. So. yes, tip, but minimum wages should be higher. The market is not working for too many people.
3
The constrained version, a/k/a incrementalism, could work if you are on the right path, but it will fail if you are on the wrong path. In many cases, we need people to ask: What’s the solution, if we are ever to get to the right path
1
The tipping expectation has gone overboard here. "Gimme, gimme, gimme," everywhere all the time. Every person has their hand out and a tip jar at the ready. I went to the TX Renaissance Festival and was astonished that many of the booths had tip jars at the cash registers, even retail shops. They wanted tips for, what? Doing their job? Must be nice to get salary plus tips just for breathing the air at work. The rest of the universe only gets a salary. Who exactly deserves a tip? A barista? A cab driver? A server? Shoe shiner? Porter? Nail person? On and on it goes. How do we draw the line between a person who deserves a tip and someone who doesn't? Novel idea: tip no one and leave wages up to the employer. They are the ones responsible after all. And 30% is excessive, much less 50%.
7
Mr. Brooks and others who advocate against tips are actually advocating for LOWER wages for restaurant employees. Commenters who complain that customers should not be responsible for paying the wages of the employees who serve them might want to stop and think for a minute--in what kind of business is the "income" from "customers" not utilized to cover the expense of "labor?" Ask the server at your favorite restaurant if they would rather make $15/hr or the $20-$60/hr they earn with wages AND tips. If a restaurant does $2 mil. a year there will be about $400,000 in extra tip income devoted only to employee compensation. In order to replace that $400,000 in tip income the restaurant would have to raise prices in excess of 40%. It's just math. Do we think the business that raises prices that much will survive? Why do folks who know nothing about the economics of a complex industry think they know better? Why is it "moral" to advocate for LOWER wages for employees?
1
Tipping isn't going away and we're a long way from paying a good living wage to service people.
What gets me are the inflated restaurant prices for mediocre quality and the exorbitant charges for beverages, so you're tipping based on prices set to finance ridiculous rent and other overhead. So everything has to come down.
2
"Understand that the advantages that you enjoy are products of both your individual efforts AND privileges that you didn't earn".
I never thought I'd hear a conservative admit that people's wealth and privilege are not entirely of their own making! Thank you for admitting that, Mr. Brooks.
1
Clever how you snuck that in about health insurance. In this instance, the private insurers are shake down artists -- robbers, if you will. So what you're saying is we should give them all our cash if they will "let" us keep our credit cards. Every payment on a health claim is considered a loss for these companies. If we who are insured by them get sick, they have every incentive for us to die as quickly as possible. If you are dealing with bad people who have bad motives, who are shaking you down for their own greed, how much do you want to compromise with them? Paying private insurance companies is to tipping like paying the mafia protection money is to hiring a competent police force.
1
I regularly tip 20% when I go out to eat, so a couple of burgers and beers can cost me about $60 after a tip, but I do it, regardless of the looks, gender or age of the server, because I know they need it to make ends meet. Luckily, I can also afford it.
When I was in Europe earlier this year, the credit card slip had no line for a tip and the cost of a meal was lower compared to the US, service was good and so was the food.
Why can European restaurants manage to break even when US restaurants cannot?
If your business model relies on not paying your staff at least minimum wage to start, then your business model stinks and you should not be in business.
3
I agree that tipping is not the best system for paying workers.
One question, though: What is David Brooks's speaking fee?
4
I basically agree with all you say, David. There are places where I encounter problems in our “cashless” economy. Before any trip I find it necessary to stock up on cash to be able to compensate bellhops, chamber maids, etc, Sometimes i just run out and wind up debating what to do with the $3 left in the wallet as I am leaving the hotel room and dashing by the maid, bell hop, doorman, etc.
1
So Mr Brooks question and takeaway from his observations on American society as it relates to tipping is "The smart thing to ask is, how can we make the best of a bad situation?" I would start with the racist, sexist and ageist attitudes systemic in American society which continues to allow for privilege. He points out so many real problems for many marginalized people, yet ignores real solutions to these issues.
I hate tipping. Not that I'm cheap -well okay maybe a little-but at the end of every meal I have to pass an exam which covers math, human resource management and etiquette. And there seems to be tip inflation and tip "creep". It seemed to me that when I was a kid (1970's) and my dad tipped, it was 10% was basic decency, 15% was fair and 20% was quite good. Now 15% is basic, at best, 20% is fair and you have to be at least 25% to be good. Now Brooks has established 30% as basic. That's crazy to me. We all have to get by, too. Then there's tip creep, with electronic payment systems we're being asked to tip for things that to the best of my knowledge we were never tipping for before: takeout, a cup a coffee at a convenience store, etc. It's all a bit much. It's also unbelievably unfair, I know of an establishment that sort of follows a "Hooters" model of business and apparently the girls are making six figure incomes. I know of middle aged women working in less glamorous establishments who barely scrape by. Is this reasonable? Raise the wages, I understand that will be reflected in the prices I pay, but that's okay, and let's get rid of tipping. The Hooters girls won't make six figures -but should they be in the first place?- and everyone else makes a decent living. And I won't have to do math with a few cocktails in me.
3
30%-50% tip? What universe do you live in, David? 15%-20% is considered a very generous "tip" in my universe, and though we do know that servers are grossly underpaid, it's ridiculous to have a system where the customers are expected to pick up the slack on wages where the owners have failed. Demand fair wages for restaurant workers!! Demand that the real price of the meal be stated on the menu!!
4
I continue to be amazed at the bad arguments made against Brooks's column.
"Focus on eliminating tipping and making sure employers a living wage." Of course, focus on that, but your servers and hotel cleaning staff are trying to survive NOW. We might get national tipping reforms years from now, or *never.* Supporting political change doesn't obviate the moral issue you face today, much less the far more important "how am I going to feed my family" issue *they* face.
"I want the right to reward good service and punish bad service." Brooks has shown you data that says the overall result of that system is widespread discrimination against non-whites. And he has shown you data suggesting that the incentive of tipping usually doesn't get you better service. What are you *really* buying by supporting a discriminatory system? The perception of power?
"Why are we talking about this when we should be talking about impeachment / Syria / global warming?" Because this is something you can do *right now* to help someone who needs help, and because as civilized human beings we can talk about more than one thing at a time.
1
I have not even read Mr. Brooks ed. yet. I am just fuming at the title. Why, tell me why should we (as usual) pay for employers who do not and will not pay a living wage and expect the public to once again pick up the rest. So along with the Walmarts, the Amazons,etc. the public is to help with inadequate salaries with their tips.
And what if we do not? Does that mean these poor workers go home with sore feet, exhausted bodies and a pittance in their pockets? And we suffer from guilt at paying less than a 30 per cent tip and the owner is left to point fingers at us. Nice!
What is wrong with these people that they do not want to pay a worker for what they contribute to society???
1
The entire concept of the "tip" is a scam by employers, so that they can pay their employees less and have the difference subsidized by their customers.
5
The smart thing to ask is, how can we make the best of a bad situation?
Don't eat out!
1
Tipping allows the continuation of inexcusably low wages for servers, something like $2.15 or around there. It is supposed to be made up by tips. Ludicrous. Pay a decent wage then tip only if the service warrants it, not because it's considered mandatory.
1
A couple of times when I first arrived in China, I tried to tip a cab driver. They were offended. Tipping in Norway? Unheard of. In France, there is a service charge. Ditto in Italy. This is a civilized system when you pay people for the work they do. I resent the fact that I need to add to the amount I pay (which is not low) because...why? Human connection? I don’t get to a restaurant to get a human connection but to get a meal. When my Lyft driver tries to chat me up, I tip less or none. Tipping is obscene. Pay your workers more or add a set amount to the bill. But if I am forced to tip, I’ll use my money as I want and give more to people I like. So yes, a pretty smiling waitress will get more than a sour-faced overweight slattern - and I am a heterosexual woman.
A few things you might consider, Mr. Brooks:
1) You say, "Tipping inflames a sexist dynamic. Some men use their tips as leverage to harass female servers." This sentence is, itself, sexist. You fail to acknowledge that tipping is VERY often used by WOMEN as leverage to harass MALE servers - especially bartenders. And, handsome bartenders get treated like they are some kind of meat - just up for grabs for rich, lonely, women to hit on and try to take home. These men, like the female servers you mention, must tolerate - and in some cases ENCOURAGE the behavior. Otherwise, they are at risk of receiving no tip at all.
2) You neglect to even mention bartenders. Almost no one pays a bartender a full tip. Most people think that "$1 per drink" is a "good tip." When a glass of wine is $12 - $15, $1 is not even 10%. When a pour of high-quality scotch or bourbon is $25 - $50, $1 is a joke.
3) Something must absolutely be done to pay servers and bartenders a living wage. Most people do not realize that servers and bartenders at paid WELL BELOW MINIMUM WAGE! The thought is that YOUR TIPS will make up the difference, but they seldom do because people do not tip properly.
4) Worse, servers and bartenders are TAXED based on their credit card SALES and the incorrect assumption that they always receive a 15% tip. So they are often taxed on money they never received.
1
Um, no. Restaurants should pay workers decent wages, instead of putting the onus on diners. Same goes for cashiers, baristas, etc. For this article to state that most Americans like tipping shows how out of touch the author is.
3
Hi David
True that tipping subsidizes a non-living wage, but watching
people suffer without doing whatever small things you can is not the way to change that.
My rules for tipping:
1. Always tip in cash, not on the card - I want the all the $$ to go to the person, none shared with the credit card company. Also, if the business has a record of tips, they can be used as a basis to deduct from wages.
2. Do not participate in adding the tip to the payment for services - give $$ directly to server - otherwise the business management then determines distribution of funds (and will take a piece without a doubt).
3. I tip in two tiers, base because the person needs the $$ and is working for it and additional for good service. If service is bad, I politely let the server know the problems if I feel they can benefit from the information.
My mother, wife, grown children and self have all waited tables at some point and "get it" so to speak. Myself and wife as well as kids are all aware that one's situation in life is the result of many things, and good fortune is certainly among them. Hence now being financial able, it is incumbent to share (even in small ways) with others also trying to navigate these rough seas.
jd
1
Maybe if we start tipping our TSA workers too they will stop telling me to "move it gramps" every time I'm in a transit hub.
3
Some economist found that the more tipping a country has the more corrupt it is and the US fits that bill. Everywhere you go there are tip jars all because our lousy politicians on both sides continue to take massive bribes to keep wages low. Yes the wages have gone up for some but we have a long way to go.
2
Tipping is a poor substitute for a living wage.
Brooks and friends like tipping as an excuse to pay intolerably low wages.
3
As another another commenter observed, tips allow the owner to understate meal prices on the menu. Here’s an idea. Just rename tips “service fees” upon presentation of the bill and all of us sheep will fork over without a bleat. Ever paid a “document” fee when buying a car? How about a baggage fee when purchasing an airline ticket? Or what about all those phony fees tacked onto your bill from your internet/phone/tv provider? I’m looking forward to another column taking a deep dive into my pet peeve.
It seems that most responders have missed the point Mr. Brooks is making. Everyone agrees that people should receive a living wage and the best option is for them to receive it directly from their employer (who would then build it into the advertised price). But...since that seems to be impossible in the US what is the next best option? The economist's answer would be for people to not take jobs that don't pay enough, forcing the employers and customers to "pony up". I know that this is naive so I will admit to not having a good answer. I don't know.
As an aside, Mr. Brooks notes that one should always, always leave a tip in the hotel room. I'm almost 60 years old and have stayed in a lot of hotel rooms in my life. I've never done this nor do I know anyone who's every done this. It's not out of stinginess. It has literally never occurred to me. Am I that ignorant?
Is this just another nyt article positioned to discourage our expectations for progressive social change? Work within the constraints of our current health care system - a tangled medusa’s head of waste, bloat and corporate greed? No thanks. American health care needs a massive jolt not tinkering to keep everyone calm.
1
Brooks op ed might just as well titled “Let them eat cake.” Many low middle and lower income people use services that involve tipping. If a person orders a sandwich and coffee at a lunch counter for $10. according to Brooks the tip is $3. or $60 per month of taxed income. For a minimum wage earner that could represent hours of work, for the mere dignity of sitting for a decent lunch. It helps explain the successful alternatives, no tipping zones, of fast food and self service. Someone at the times should take a look at Brook’s spending account, its doubtful he tips with his own hard earned, then taxed, cash.
1
You have so much tipping because American continues to have the most polarized society in the developed world, with obscenely rich and very poor. They continue to subsidize corporations....Why would I tip someone %15 to pour me a coffee? Do we want to encourage insincere behaviour such as phoney smiles just in the hopes of securing a tip?
1
The wisest thing David has said: "Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn...." Understanding the origins of one's privilege determines in large part which side of the divide you sit.
Many hotels and cruise lines have a policy of not allowing their employees to take something from a guest's room whether or not the patron has checked out. Give your tip to the steward or maid personally.
Here’s a tip for a sincere man who has staked a claim on ethical and moral behavior: Pay attention to the destruction of our government and the triumph of Putin in Europe and the Middle East. This week Trump gave Turkey permission to murder Kurds, seize territory, give Russia a port and hegemony in Syria, and give Iran a route to Israel. Last night, Barr opened a criminal investigation of those agents and agencies that investigated the Russian assault on our election, that further undermines our alliances and seeks to exonerate Putin and Russia. This week the “freedom caucus” broke security and took over a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee on the pretext that a closed door hearing by the Committee violated transparency, while GOP House Rules mandated secret hearings to empower the Benghazi investigation.
That’s my tip. Stop playing to the GOP. This look over there column does not serve any purpose other than satisfy your contract to write a column.
3
Yes, David, as your photo shows, when the barista floats a foamy heart atop my cappuccino, I will tip a dollar for the artistry. But otherwise help businesses, large and small, pay their counter employees? No. Hopefully, soon, this nonsense will stop. However, I suspect it will not have reached its apex until bank tellers have their own "Get jiggy with my piggy" pencil cup on the customer's side of the glass. From what I understand, they need it.
People in the middle of the country tip best??? Not in my experience. When I waited tables here in the mountain resorts of Colorado we dreaded when the people from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, etc., showed up. 10% at best, sometimes just the change from the bill.
1
A 30-50% tip is usury that simply subsidises corporate greed, sort of like giving Walmart employees taxpayer-funded food stamps because the company won't pay them a living wage. Pay them what they should be paid and a 20% tip is gratitude enough.
2
Or pay people a living wage and encourage employees to unionize. It’s not tipping that’s immoral, but rather allowing employers to underpay their employees.
1
What are your thoughts on this:
You buy a bottle of wine that has been marked up sometimes 300% so that you are now paying $40 for a $14 bottle. Am I really supposed to leave an $8 dollar tip for that? Restaurant critic Seymour Britchky thought drinks should be tipped at a lower rate. He also thought you shouldn't have to pay a few bucks for the privilege of hanging your coat.
2
Tipping for good service makes no sense. Restaurant owners should expect thrir employees to provide good service.
2
Really dislike the wine pushing by servers to get me to order and drink more in expectation of a higher tip. I don’t actually need them to fill my glass after I drank a few sips and consider this both poor and rude service.
1
When the syndicalists ran Barcelona in 1936 they outlawed tipping because they considered it (correctly, I think) demeaning to service workers.
I try to give the tipee some tip in cash sometimes to make sure they actually get some it and leave a smaller tip on the bill or check out desk. I’ve read that owners are not alway scrupulous about how the tips are given out, especially in nail salons with immigrant workers who can be taken advantage of.
1
Mr. Brooks, I generally like your column, but, respectfully, this one was a dud. I am just back from visiting family in Britain & giving talks in Europe. I can't tell you how nice it was NOT to be constantly hounded to give ever bigger tips. You do a good job pointing out all the bad things about the "tipping culture" but then you go on to say not only keep on doing it, but increase your tips no matter what. I frequent a local bakery. I pour my own coffee, I carry it to the table. just WHY should I pay an extra 30% to the person whose only role was to press the "coffee" button on the cash register? Simple answer: the owner isn't paying their employees much at all but promises them "possible big fat tips". This is worse than silly. It has "exploitation" written all over it. Oh, and for what it is worth (N of two restaurants) one of my Behavior students watched tipping behavior last year: Women tipped more than men in general. Men tended to tip if the employee was young and female. Go figure.
Reading this reminded me of a terrible truth - you usually get more opposition in trying to do something good than you do in trying to do something bad.
Mr. Brooks should look at a map of minimum wages for tipped employees by state. He could then survey wait staff and see if they would prefer $2.13/hr plus tips, or a straight $15/hr. In few states is the requirement the full state minimum wage PLUS tips.
https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
1
I offered a tip for an after midnight ride to a taxi driver in Paris. He would not take it.
1
How often have I seen, tip suggestions, you know 15%, 20%,.. for the mathematical challenged or stupid foreigners. And, of course, the tip calculation includes the tax!
Percentage is inflation prove, so what is it saying, when the tipping percentage has to be upwards adjusted?
Else, obfuscation of prices is good business. You never know the price until the bill arrives.
A price should be a price and not left to the willingness/prodding of the customer subsidizing a bad business model.
Constrained vision just sounds like a way of settling for middling, mediocre outcomes.
Yeah and the bigger issue just seems to be labor exploitation.
1
The president and the attorney general are Russian agents subverting the justice system, the intelligence apparatus of the country, and the Constitution, and this is what you are writing about?
1
Tips are for suckers. Only suckers work for tips.
" So put the prices up enough to cover the additional costs, and allow the customer to decide what the service is worth,"
IF any business is operating and still in "business" then their prices don't need to be raised in order to cover additional costs. The proprietor gets away with paying their labor next to nothing. Where does that money go? In THEIR pocket. And they LOVE this system, pushing the real cost of their workers on to the consumer.
Good service is always recognized in ways such as with frequently returning customers.
Here's a novel idea. Pay your employees a wage they can live on. That way. your employees make more. Your customers return more frequently spending more. You, the business owner, make more off your obscenely overpriced food and beverages. That "more" allows you to purchase more inventory, which allows manufactures to produce more and the middle men to deliver more. Everyone makes out this way, rather than being hamstrung buy an old-world, anachronistic system designed expressly for getting people to work for next to nothing.
What would JFK have done with a 'constrained vision'? Sent astronauts halfway to the moon?
1
Finally an article written by David Brooks I can agree with, didn't see that coming.
Next topics, the joys of subcontracting, Uber, Lyft, and all those Amazon ambassadors and speedy cheerful "team members".
“The choice between capitalism and socialism,” I think you meant to write between oligarchy and regulated capitalism”
When you talk to your Republican colleagues about the constrained vision, try to sneak in a comment about ACA and see what happens.
1
Religion is a bigger factor in human lives in the middle of the country than along the coasts; therefore, tipping is better there. I doubt that anyone is surprised.
Maybe that explains the thousands of homeless drug users flooding Austin, Texas, too?
Lost in Brook's latest prevarication is the roots of racism in tipping.
When African Americans moved North, they encountered stiff competition for jobs, and many became porters at train stations where their "employers" felt they didn't even have to pay them, and demanded they work for tips.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/why-tipping-is-wrong.html
Tips are bribery. During the Great Depression, you'd bribe someone for an extra piece of bread with your soup.
The last bullet point should be everyone's outlook on life, always.
The mention of Sowell says it all.
1
Wow! Mr. Brooks please take the blinders off and get in the game!
While this is a problem, your powerful voice is needed in these turbulent time!
1
Ask Danny Meyer and Andrew Tarlow how their no tipping experiment worked.....two leading NYC restauranteurs.....hint, their “no tip” conversion at their restaurants lasted less than a year or two before it became clear to them that closing their restaurants would be worse for their employees than bringing back tipping.
Until the system changes, spread the wealth and the word ... #tip30
This is pretty rich considering David’s beloved GOP is now legalizing the garnishing of tips by employers.
Now the expected tip is 30% to 50%!!?? Who decides these things?
Tip your ski instructors too!
1
Tipping is not practiced everywhere. In some countries service workers are paid decent wages so employee reliance on tips is not a standard business practice.
Mr. Brooks might note that in China it is expected that workers will have decent pay (no tips). Elsewhere, in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, New Zealand and tiny French Polynesia no tipping is expected.
Local customs vary in different countries across the political and economic spectrum. I fail to see how "constrained vision or unconstrained vision" makes a difference to workers with bills to pay for rent, healthcare insurance, transportation and other costs of living. A living wage for a day's work, week's work, or lifetime of service is not only "fair" but necessary.
1
The move to a service economy over the last several years has left a lot of people in the dust, as the one-to-ten percent have profited. Tipping is a sign that we don't know what the heck to do with those millions and millions of working people who are barely getting by serving those who are pretty much getting by really well.
Electing someone who can eventually move the country to a better taxation system is the best answer right now -- and a constrained vision of doing it is fine with me. Guidelines for tipping might be helpful for some -- but for most, it comes down to an individual, situation-by-situation deal. As an elder, I would, however, like to have those iPad screens no longer flipped in front of me at the moment of purchase -- my God, I've just handed over my credit card, and I'm supposed to decide what percent to give? Let me save my 50% for someone who's really helped me out.
There is a gaping hole in your otherwise elegant argument. Workplaces and occupations that traditionally encourage tipping are the ones the pay the LOWEST wages and benefits. Why don't we target the real culprit--exploitative employers that are seldom unionized and rely on a desperate, less educated, non-union, work force? TG
595
@Thomas Givon To begin with, the policy of tip credit (Google if if you do not know. ) Should really be abolished. Creating a realistic supply and demand market for qualified staff should theoretically then ensue.
5
@Thomas Givon I agree with one caveat. The restaurant business runs on very low margins, which is a reason those who work in the front and back lines aren't paid well. Tips make it possible for the community to have places to go to eat out. We are, in effect, shouldering payroll costs so we can eat out. I am not sure what can be done about that economic reality, but tipping does serve a purpose AND tips need to be spread to those in the kitchen actually preparing our food.
4
@TDHawkes Regardless of method, we shoulder payroll costs. A true market for labor would benefit good workers through salary, not the whim of tips. In any case, no restaurant will stay open if they can't pay employees, suppliers and landlord with income from sales.
8
I just finished a "travel" list to invite international delegates to a US meeting in 2020. In addition to the electricity, hotel list, airport transportation, and currency, I included "tipping" and the addition of sales tax to the price.
"Tipping" is one of the more confusing aspects of visiting the USA. I truly enjoy countries where service providers are paid a living wage and tipping is the exception, not the rule. Yes, the food costs a little more, but every profession and job is meaningful.
Our system of "tipping" is immoral.
We recently visited Scotland and Ireland for our 25th anniversary, and the tipping picture remains muddled in both countries. Some restaurants and pubs encouraged tips, often including a line on the machine-generated credit card receipt for a gratuity; other places, tipping seemed out of place and unnecessary. Some servers seemed surprised at our offer of a tip (we’d leave one anyway); others either seemed to expect it out of hand. One cab driver was nearly shocked that we tipped. I chalked it up to the presence and influence of American business and tipping culture, but from place to place it was confusing. I believe American customers are still expected to subsidize what employers should be paying, and yes it’s borderline immoral and breeds more inequality, but at least we know the rules of the road.
1
The ideal system is...wait for it...the one that exists in a given culture. In our culture, tipping is the ideal system because it works ok here. Everyone over the age of 8 or so knows about tipping. It is the way we identify ourselves - with total freedom - to people around us.
1
I despise tipping. It is demeaning, leaving "scraps" to those beneath you. Pay workers a living wage and be done with it!
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@gregoryf Egalite is a foreign concept.
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@gregoryf are you saying that you despise tipping, so you don’t tip? or that you do tip but do do resentfully?
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@gregoryf
As a bartender I can assure you that I do not find a good tip demeaning; it is, rather, an act of gratitude.
And if you want to know what we in the service industry find demeaning, it’s the attitude from customers like yourself who consider us “beneath” you.
25
Tipping is an essential way the average American can ease the crippling aspects of income inequality. If you receive service from someone who is probably making minimum wage or close to it give them a tip. Starbucks employees? You don't need to pull out a buck, just toss the change in the cup, if 20 people leave $.50 an hour the employee just got a $10.00 an hour raise which starts to bring it up to a living wage. I was a bartender in a tourist trap and not only would people not leave a tip they would pick up as little as a dime change when they left, it was always like if they just left the $.25 cents on the bar this job might pay minimum wage. How about gas station attendants? I always give them at least $.50 usually a dollar. I've done that job and I can tell you it can be crushing, out in all sorts of weather for pennies. As far as people who make the argument that they don't want to supplement corporations, they are just selfish, no friends of mine. Don't complain about how unequal the US economy is, do something about it by tipping the least fortunate workers in the country. Tip well and tip often, it will all come back to you.
When thinking about tipping, it is helpful to recall that it is a system invented by predatory, racist businesses after the American Civil War. Because they were so accustomed to low-cost, coerced labor prior to emancipation, the racsts did not want to pay African American employees after they were freed. So, the racists left that duty to their customers in the form of tips. Some 150 years later, most restaurants still fail to pay their employees a living wage. Racism and class bias is why American service workers must depend on tips whereas that is not a custom in most of the rest of the world. I prefer to patronize businesses that have a more generous labor compensation model.
3
After my joint replacements, I could not drive for 6 weeks and had to take a lot of taxis. There is absolutely no reason to tip a taxi driver who doesn't even get out of the car to open the door for someone on crutches.
I would not mind paying a set fee for extra services like helping with luggage.
I much prefer the European system of better wages and little tipping.
And FYI in my experience the BEST tippers by far are women who worked as a waitress at some point in their lives.
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I always hated tippable wages. I once worked as a server in an upscale restaurant. I got paid a $5 shift pay plus a percentage of the waitresses tips. Usually between 10-20 percent. You could only work double shifts. 11:00 to 11:00. There were days when I literally walked out of there with less $20 dollars for 12 hours worth of work. It's not my fault people don't want to eat Veal Caponata in the middle of July. The owners certainly weren't paying me for their menu failures though.
Tipping is also bad for morale. Leaving aside the various arguments about racism and sexism inherent in tipping, there's also a simple logistical problem. Some shifts earn better tips than others. If you're a bartender, weekend night shifts are a highly sought after prize. Working Tuesday lunch, not so much. Naturally employees will fight over the difference when your compensation is determined by shift. Management needs to schedule very carefully or your wait staff will turn into a turnover nightmare.
My favorite tippable job was the one where I didn't have to care about tips at all. The restaurant would pool the tips and share them out at the end of the night. There was no way not to work hard when it was busy. If we had a busy night, you got a little something extra for effort. My wage paid the rent though. I worked hard to see that wage rise. Cleaning out food traps and bleaching closets doesn't produce a lot of tips but it does keep the restaurant open. Food for thought.
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My additional suggestion is tip in cash because tips added to the bill using a credit or debit card are reported by the employer and taxed by the government.
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My mother had a wealthy friend who drove an expensive car and lived in a very upscale condo. But this friend never tipped when they went out to eat. "She puts money where it shows." My mother summed her up for me.
And I instructed my children and now my grandchildren not to put money "just where it shows." I explain how hard servers work and how low the pay usually is.
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“Which brings us to the real reason I’m writing this column. It is common these days to think that the way to do political and social change is: Think of the ideal system, then move to that. But the better way to make social change is: Think of the ideal system, then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature, and our own situation.”
There you have it. This is not a column about tipping. It’s a column about healthcare disguised as a column about tipping. The analogy I believe is that under the current system healthcare is a benefit - a kind of add-on tip, distinct from income - and that, given Brooks real reason, is one of the current, and significant, restraints of our situation.
So, Brooks suggests we start from where we are and work toward our ideal. Well, let’s look at that. How, has that worked out with tipping which is no longer connected to service but has become more widespread and increasingly expensive with each passing decade? It seems instead of starting from where we are and moving toward the ideal, we are moving in the opposite direction. Is there any reason to believe incremental healthcare “reform” would be any different?
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It may be hard for a conservative like you to hear this, but the solution to the tipping problem is a simple 2 step process.
1. Raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage of $15 per hour and include automatic annual increases tied to the rate of inflation.
2. Get rid of the insane $2.13 minimum wage for tipped workers. Make it the same as everyone else.
There, problem solved.
4
Counter-intuitive as it sounds, service in the tip oriented USA is worse than service compris societies. The waitperson will be cheery, but you will often have to ask for at least one item (a fork, a napkin, salt...) that should be there. Lately, when ordering a beer, I have to ask for a glass. The problem may stem from not recognising service as a profession: it's seen as something not taken seriously while waiting to start a real job.
How you can write this without mentioning that restaurant employees are paid less than minimum wage and count on tips to make a living wage is beyond me. The restaurant owner is not really paying his or her servers. You are, so yes it's important to tip decently. But one of the big reasons that servers like being tipped is that most of them do not report the majority of that income. And the reason owners like it is because it makes the meal look less expensive than it is.
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Why do the ultra rich benefit by an exuberant tax break and the uber not-rich get a measly tepid suggestion of maybe giving them a little more pocket change? “It is common these days to think that the way to do political and social change is: Think of the ideal system, then move to that. But the better way to make social change is: Think of the ideal system, then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature, and our own situation.”
I don't mind tipping, and I tend to leave at least 25-30%. A bit more if the bill is fairly low. But I wouldn't mind if the practice went away. When I'm traveling on business and using the company card, I'm a bit hesitant to be generous with my employer's money. So I usually supplement the credit card tip with my own cash. It's a bit annoying when I either don't have any cash on me, or all I have is $20 bills.
Also, it's mildly annoying when there is an expectation to tip for services I don't really want. A few years ago I took my daughters to NY to see a Broadway show. We only spent one night, so all we had were light backpacks, which we were wearing when we walked out of the hotel. We saw some cabs on the corner, so walked down to them to get a ride to the airport. The cab driver was opening the trunk when the hotel doorman caught up to us from the hotel entrance half a block away, and explained that it was his job to handle cab hailing. I rolled my eyes and let him load the bags, tipping him $5 for a service I would really rather have done myself. Everyone's got to make a living, I guess.
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Bullfeathers!! I'll leave 15% every time - and if the service is particularly attentive and good, I may up the ante to 18% or even 20%. But employers should pay servers a living wage and quit making them depend on the largesse of their customers to be able to keep body and soul together.
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Why is it that in certain industries the customer is expected to directly pay wages to the employees while in others it is unheard of? Nobody would consider tipping the cashier at Walmart $3 when one buys a $15 pair of jeans or the cashier at Macy's $10 when one buys a $50 pair of jeans yet we're expected to tip the server at a diner $2 on a $10 hamburger or $10 on a $50 steak dinner at a fancy restaurant even though the work involved is the same (perhaps arguably more at the diner). It used to be that fast food and similar restaurants didn't expect customers to tips but now there are tip jars and if you pay by credit card the system prompts the customer to tip. I would never stiff a server or hotel maid or Uber driver but the fact is that the employers should be paying fair, living wages. There are protests of stores like Walmart to pressure them to raise wages but you never see the same outside chain restaurants demanding that they, too pay living wages instead of having customers subsidize their businesses. Yes, the tipping system is immoral and no, there's no obvious way to change it but at the very least, we need to get away from having a lower minimum wage for tipped employees. We need a campaign, perhaps with a "fair wage" logo so that businesses that historically relied on tips could advertise that they pay their employees a fair wage so that customers could chose to patronize those businesses.
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I had wondered over the past many months where the David Brooks' whose writing I loved had gone. He's back - even if it might be temporary! And I'll cheer to that!
David hints at his real motive for the post toward the end - I suspect it is to champion the cause of the moderates among the democratic presidential contenders and to tweak the "progressives" - Warren after all seems to have become his favorite punching bag. But here's the question David - if you are able to cheer for those who want to move America to the "ideal" no-tip system, even though you think it isn't practical, why is it you hesitate to cheer for the vision that Warren and Sanders lay out? Those too are visions...
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Working for tips year after year seems to change a person. Eventually everyone is viewed through the lens of stingy/generous and other interactions gain a calculated transactional nature. Not healthy.
Being routinely served and deciding on tip-worthiness year after year changes a person. They systematically undervalue the real work that others are doing for their benefit. It builds a belief in their own of entitlement. Not healthy.
So many jobs are done well without the tip incentive. These workers may be motivated by keeping their job or climbing the ladder. But critically, these jobs are also done well due to an intrinsic motivation. People want the satisfaction of a job well done and a sense of pride. There is no reason to believe that waiters, cashiers, bellmen, drivers, etc. could not be motivated in the same ways as other people are to do a good job. Probably a historian could uncover the reasons why we have ended up with a system of tipping in certain jobs and not others. I suspect that we'd find extreme inequality, sexism, and racism at the root.
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The National Restaurant Association donates generously to the GOP, and is adamantly pro-low wages and tipping. Failing to pay a living wage for workers who receive no benefits is what is immoral. I am in favor of tipping generously for good service. I am in favor of raising the minimum wage. I am against ringing up and bagging my own groceries because low wage cashiers are being let go to reduce labor costs.
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Thanks. You make a strong case for moderation and incremental change in public policy. I live in a community in which political decisions are too often all or nothing. Some of my friends don't vote because they consider the options too much of a compromise. They participated in the installation of an incompetent and corrupt regime. Now many of my friends draw red lines around most of the Democratic candidates for the Presidency in 2020. As dire as the situation is, they will participate in perpetuating it.
I also appreciate your specific suggestions for making tipping more fair. That's useful in our fundamentally unfair society.
I tried a well rated restaurant in Austin that eliminated tips by adding a service charge. The service was awful, and I haven't gone back
1
"Moreover, tipping nurtures humane relationships. It encourages servers to try to establish social connection through direct eye contact and a display of warmth."
What?! Warmth? Is that what you're calling obsequious behavior intended to put money in their pockets?
You've just listed yet another excellent reason to banish tipping: Ridding both the diner and server of the burden of having to endure this phony relationship for the duration of the meal.
1
Many good arguments and reasons for tipping, and upwards toward 30%. But the logic of gratitude presented here is marred by what it does not confront: low wages! Many who are in the kind of work that is routinely tip-able are seriously underpaid. To the extent that this is the case, tipping is public way of compensating (and socializing the wage-deficits) for a private flaw. Raise workers wages!!!
1
Left out of this discussion are another category of service workers who depend on tips - barbers and salon workers. I’ve had my hair cut by the same woman for more than 20 years; over that time, the cost of a haircut has risen from $25 to $35. It’s been at $35 for at least 10 years. So I’ve started tipping more to compensate. Yes, I’d rather have the cost of haircuts go up and have her paid a better wage, but in the meantime, I’ll do what I can to be fair.
1
David,
The deeper you dig into studies about tipping and it’s socio-economic impact the deeper you see the way racism, sexism, and a multitude of social prejudices are allowed an economic platform to proliferate. It is with this is that I wholeheartedly agree with the title of this piece of not its content. It is also the reason why when my business partner & I opened our restaurant, L’Oca d’Oro, in Austin, Tx three years ago , we did away with tipping. We add a 20% service charge to all checks. We did this to protect our employees from the prejudice of the tipping system and to guarantee them all a living wage, the responsibility of which my partner and I believe is the job of the employer who should be held to account for the wages of everyone they hire. The system is working. We are routinely written of as among the very best restaurants in Austin, we have an extremely low employee turn over rate, and the restaurant is profitable. The pathway for better business practice exists this is what we should be talking about.
My fundamental issue with your article is the premise that tipping is still there because we like it.This is a false and unsupported narrative. Our federal wage policy around tipping is largely shaped & influenced by powerful restaurant lobbies (predominantly fast food corporations) whom have used their power to suppress the wages of their (and everyone else’s)employees. Tipping doesn’t still exist because we like it, it does because corporations say so.
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As someone who relied on tips to raise my family for almost 20 years of my life, I think tips are still important to this industry. My hourly pay was far below minimum wage (I last waited tables over 20 years ago and it was 1.90 per hour when I left after getting my degree) I counted heavily on that money to earn enough to feed my children.
My husband's salary paid the mortgage, car payments and insurance and utilities etc. I paid for our food and gas as well as any incidentals like field trips for the kids, fees for playing sports etc. Without tips, our family would have been in a world of hurt financially. I was able to earn approximately 12-15 per hour when minimum wage was around 6.00. I would have likely earned about 8.00 an hour in a "pink collar job" such as receptionist/clerical work.
Tips were never a big deal until America started eating out 4 times plus per week. All of a sudden, it is getting dissed by all manner of people earning a good if not great living. I never forgot what it meant to work my tail off in a restaurant and I am a great tipper as a result. I no longer work in that industry since earning my degree, but I owe a lot of my people skills to waiting tables and bar-tending.
Tip people! It is part of eating out and should be budgeted accordingly. If you don't like the service, lower the amount but don't gripe about the fact that tipping is part of the experience.
Off my soapbox.
1
Mr. Brooks, you don't say *who* makes the change when you share your change model: "Think of the ideal system, then move to that. But the better way to make social change is: Think of the ideal system, then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature, and our own situation." I don't quiet see the difference. but in either case, making change is better when everyone involved has some say in it, even at an individual restaurant level.
Imposed from the top--perhaps this is what your first method implies, change is rarely effective for long. In your incremental method, some people will never go along (in either method), but when the 'majority' goes, most people eventually follow (civil rights, ACA, LGBTQ rights,and so on). Consensus is hard to build at any level, and it is slow. But people are more committed to the outcome.
What other industry do workers pull in 20% of the gross revenue of the company? Also, wages are tied to inflation and price changes without workers having to fight a new round of pay raises every year or two.
1
Back in the 80's I worked as a waitress in a fairly nice restaurant. The wait staff and bartenders made more money than any other employees, with the occasional exception of the head chef. Granted, we went though more stress, but 30% sounds overly generous to me. I was happy to get 15%. I do agree that in diners and luncheonettes it's nice (and easy!) to be more generous.
Just got back from Italy where coffee costs about $1.50, there is no tax on your restaurant bill and tipping isn't done. Alcoholic drinks are priced at least $30% lower than they are here and the house wine is just fine, thank you. Restaurant owners in the US face enormous costs in rent and provisioning. They make no money on food and survive on the bar bill, when they survive. Why can't we get it right?
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There is much greed here to go around but, Restaurants are businesses and should pay their staff a suitable as well as a living wage
1. If the above statement was policy the customers would not need to leave tips to be divided among all that have allowed this meal to be placed on the table, clear the table, etc.
2. How much skill is needed to leave of menu, take an order, place the order via computer and deliver the order to the table?
3. This should end the practice of leaving tip jars for counter service and in bathrooms.
4. Wait staff would not make the mistake of pocketing their cash tips and fail to pay taxes. Which would allow them monies for when they are laid off or retire.
5. In Manhattan we encounter a situation that had a space for the Capitan's tip, we were unsure who the Capitan was or did but there was a demand for a tip.
"Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn’t earn. Tip accordingly."
This--unearned privileges--is a contemporary political way of thinking about people one regards as better off than they themselves are. It is a formulation that invites perpetual, and morally unfounded, resentment and hostility.
In the case of tipping and servers simply remember that we are equal in God's eyes and meant to be loving and charitable to one another.
Mr. Brooks should know this.
I agree with David on this one. I wish our servers were paid a good living wage, but they are not and they depend on tips. I have a daughter and a son who worked as bartenders for living expenses through college (I paid tuition and dorm). They helped me learn to be a much better tipper.
I now take my two young grandkids out to dinner almost every Monday and Thursday. They pick all the hot spots like the Waffle House and a local Mexican restaurant. In these places I tip at least 30% and often more. The bill is small—and the servers help a 6 and an 8 year old. Not easy. On the few occasions I go to an expensive restaurant, I tip at least 20%.
As my daughter once told me, if you can’t be generous with your tip, stay at home.
3
I am grateful for your mention of leaving a tip in a hotel room. I worked as a chambermaid while in college and I worked hard. Poor pay and few tips were what I got. So many women who need to help support their families get stiffed--poor pay and few tips. On the luxury front I once stayed at a luxury resort in Antigua (long story as to how I got to go) and there was absolutely no tipping. Your bill covered everything except expensive wine and spa trips. It kept people from slipping the bartender a hundred bucks for stronger drinks. I have friends who work there and what would be considered tips are shared equally by everyone, chambermaids and waiters alike. Great system and also fair. I like your asking people to tip more for a lesser bill. Whether high scale or low scale restaurant the waiter still has to take orders and carry trays.
1
@amp I am glad you brought this up. Nearly everyone will tip the bellhop or those who take the suitcases up to their room. Something that takes a small amount of time. But forget the staff who work hard to keep their room clean and lovely —something that takes much more time. I have wondered if gender played a role in this, but I think it is just a lack of thoughtfulness. I always leave at least $5 a night for the cleaning folks.
If I can make someone's day with a couple of extra dollars - what an extraordinary opportunity for me. People in these job categories work hard, often at multiple jobs. Pony up, people!
4
In NYC, I tip every grocery store clerk and bodega employee a dollar to two. When I need to a ride, not often, I go to the cab/livery drivers around the corner from my building: I always tip above what's standard. I don't eat out much, if so, usually locally: my friends and I tip generously.
,
I live a relatively simple life. Yet I was in a union. I have a pension. My stable life is luxurious compared to those whom I tip. Until we address income inequality, corporate greed, the obscene wealth concentrated among a small percentage of Americans, I'll tip.
And vote.
6
Asked to pay a $15 tip on a $50 three people dinner. Server not even shy about it. Amazon and Dollar Tree here I come.
Tipping reeks of classicism. I tip big, so I am wealthy, important and have much money to throw around. I can expect good service because I am ABLE TO tip BIG. My colleague, a fantastic person, doesn't have much money because of unfortunate financial circumstances. He CAN'T tip big. The take: he's cheap (or poor; perhaps uneducated, of a lower class). Meanwhile, the business owners pocket the cash they don't fairly pay to their employees for the labor. Dogs get treats (tips) when they perform well. Humans...not so much. Tipping reeks of classicism.
6
I'm on a fixed income; 20 percent is generally what I pay whether you're good or not. This goes for take-out as well as dining in. Is 30 percent a wealthy urbanite standard?
My hairdresser owns her business, but never refuses a tip.
When does this stop?
Many commenters agree: why can't this country do what other countries apparently do, which is to pay a living wage and provide health care for its citizens?
Finally, I am female and tired of reading that we tip less. We e also are often paid less than you "generous" males.
7
We haven’t factored in that a restaurant charges $15 for a glass of wine when the entire bottle was bought for around $10. And, as my Italian mother always says, why are you ordering pasta for $20 when it costs less than a dollar to make?
I’m a generous tipper, but let’s not blame the patrons — it’s the restaurant owners who should start paying living wages.
And don’t get me started on fair taxation... until a flat tax is the law of the land, nothing will be fair for non-centi-billionaires.
5
What an interesting comments section ion this article!
When I was 15 in the summer of 1962, in my small rural New England town, my first summer job was waitresssing at the only eatery in town (other than a small beer tavern), a small diner specializing in chicken right on the premises of the chicken farm. (Technically it was just over the town line in the adjacent, equally small town). The job included waiting on and maintaining the tables and the counter, dishwashing, some kitchen prep work, and short order / griddle cooking.
i (or the owner's 19 u.o. daughter, on the days/shifts I wasnt there) was the only waitress. Most patrons had mercy and left a tip and kind smiles. Imagine my shock at the end of the first day when the owner said as my shift was done, "ok, give me the tips." Obviously, a conversation ensued - in which she insisted that the tips were for her as the owner and the one who held the whole thing together. She seemed to truly believe she was right.
Later in the summer she got the bright idea of making her younger daughter, the 16 year old, quit her summer job at the A&P over in the nearest city, to replace me - 100% free labor. Postscript: at summer's end this daughter eloped in the night with her boyfriend.
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P.S.: As to Mr Brooks recommendations though, for most of us 30% is just way too big an ask! Maybe for a super-duper, over the top meal and service but as the rule of thumb? Not doable.
Thanks for reminding me how much I dislike tipping as it is done in the U.S. Tips should be dispensed for exceptional service after I have paid the price of the goods or services that I was provided at a fair market rate that included labor costs. And remember that eating out is a choice one can make to not do. It is not like the hardware store where I have to have that p-trap for my sink. Give me a choice where I know what the price is when I walk in the door and look at the menu, not gambling on having to pay for bad food and /or service by feeling I have to tip or the employee will not be able to pay rent. It is a bit like extortion, at the least it is a guilt trip being placed on the customer.
I probably will not give a tip to a salesperson at a Home Depot where the staff is trained and is especially nice and helpful most of the time, but I might. It should be the same with my server at Appleby's. The server or the salesperson, who already has a decent paying job, will REALLY feel they had a good day. And that makes me happy too and makes up for how bummed out I was about the bad service I paid for yesterday, though I probably won't go back to that particular Olive Garden.
I tip 7.50 or 20% and better. I don't tip at counters unless I'm seated.
1
If it is a large party with a lot of special needs tip more and make sure they get it. There are always a couple of stingy folk.
If it is a soup and salad lunch 20% is fine. I tend to put my change from my order in the tip jar at counter take out, rarely pay by credit card for those meals.
And I think suggested % on IPAD is cause they know Americans have poor math skills.....
1
I tip well because in that moment I feel fortunate being served. I also feel I am compensating someone who is in the unenviable position of dealing with the general public.
First employees must revieve the required training for the work management expects them to perform - especially in restaurants and all other work when the employee performs a service with direct face to face contact with consumers.
Second, management should be paying employees a livable wage - a reason I applaud States passing legislation like NYS for a $15.00 an hour minimum wage.
Restaurants, fast food companies & Corporate America are in business to make a profit. When they pay employees a poor wage like they do in restaurants they add to their profits because they depend on consumers to leave a 'tip' that may help their employee earn what he/she needs financially.
I prefer the European system where in restaurants there's a service charge included in the check that covers the employees tip. No pressure on consumers & everyone is satisfied.
I'm tired of seeing a plastic cup at a fast food counter for 'tips' when I stop in for a take out paper cups of coffee to sip on the subway on my way to work.
Let's not forget that women who work for tips are often exploited in the interest of earning a living wage. Waitresses have been forced to serve male customers who enjoy teh pleasure of momentary domination. They have to smile politely while being leered at and pretend to be good sports while being catcalled. It's a degrading way to earn a sub-living wage. At the very least, large chain restaurant companies should be mandated to pay at least minimum wage.
The U.S. president is arguing in court that he is completely above the law, including freedom from investigation. The Justice Department is running a criminal investigation on itself over the Mueller Inquiry. Republican politicians are making a mockery of the separation of powers by holding protests in committee rooms. America just ceded control of part of the Middle East to Russia. Trump is retaliating against California and automakers for wanting to increase fuel economy. Air pollution is on the rise after decades of improvements. But by all means, let's discuss the critical issue of tipping practices. Bold choice.
4
Tipping is demeaning. It just is. Please charge me more for my food, my service, whatever, and then pay a living wage. Works pretty well in much of Europe, why not here? Tipping also encourages tax evasion, big time. What if i was allowed to just tell the IRS what my real income was, no proof, just my word?
6
The restaurant owner hires and fires the employee.Restaurant customers directly pay the employee and sometimes subsidizes back the house staff also.Doesn't make sense to me.
1
Many, many people don't tip at all. The "system" was gendered from the outset whereas breakfast and lunch tended to be served by women and dinner by men (and dinner, especially in higher end outlets, was and is priced higher and, hence, yield higher tips and income). Serving food was also "pink-collared" in that gay men were disproportionally relegated to this job section. I tip 20% or more (rounding up) for normal service at night and more for good or excellent service. At breakfast and lunch, whether the server is a man, a woman or gay or straight I tip at least 30%. The system continues to be flawed for reasons given in this article and more. Abolish it and pay people a living wage.
2
The suggestion that you should tip 20, 30% is excessive. Moreover, if you order a $100 bottle of wine (which is worth $25 or less) you should tip $30? And what is the difference in service between this bottle and one that costs $35? Question seems to be that if you can afford the higher price, you should tip more. So, it is not a question of service but of capacity to pay. I suppose that it comes down to this: if you cannot afford to eat out, limit it to festivities or consider it entertainment, for which we usually pay more. Also, recognize that you are not paying for the food alone, you are paying for the overhead of the exercise: cook, waiter, dishwasher, silverware and china, electricity, taxes, etc.
David Brooks is usually brilliant, but not this time.
Traditionally, tipping was for good service. Today, it's mostly because: 1. modern custom mandates a tip regardless of good service; 2. it helps those who don't make a livable wage regardless of good service; or 3. it's built into tablet payment devices and seems embarrassing (with the tippee watching) or more time-consuming to eliminate the tip choice on the device, regardless of good service or regardless of any service.
So maybe there should be two opportunities for voluntary payments, a tip (only for good service) and a SIP (support for increased pay).
1
We went to Australia for the first time last year and when we asked about tipping expectations we were told that everyone makes a living wage and tipping was not a practice. It was a nice change of pace.
8
What is sad about the whole situation is the tip often depends upon the quality of the meal and the cost, what the server has no control over, short of getting a new job.
My Depression era-raised father left no tip after a meal that was incredibly late, cold, tasteless, and with no apology from anybody. He said it was the second time in his life he had done that, and he had no regrets at all. He was 90 at the time.
I took Miss Prudence's advice years ago and remembered that for too many people tipping is a big source of income. It shouldn't be that way, but until we do something about inequality, I will follow Miss Prudence's advice but remember my father's approach and realize there are sometimes compelling exceptions that the server can control
We're old enough that we split nearly every meal - except for the drinks, but we tip as if we'd ordered two full meals, plus a little extra because usually the servers just take our half-order with a smile. We tip for the time, the ambience, the food, and the kindness. And, we're very glad that we can.
1
This makes me crazy. As long as they pay their fair share of taxes like we all do ok. But let’s have a living wage.
1
So, we should move away from tipping but in the meantime make sure to always tip everyone just like before? That will change nothing. I tip servers who make less than minimum wage, and that’s it. Tipping is increasing an increasing trend, not being phased out. How do we stop tipping? I’d suggest this: stop tipping.
1
The hospitality industry places the burden of compensating the staff on the customer. It is that simple and awful.
10
Old habits, like a 15% tip, are hard to brake. I don’t know where it came from but I accepted as a general rule for tipping. When the service is bad, and the food not well prepared, there is no tip.
David: Maine’s referendum was not DIRECTLY on the issue of tipping, as you imply. The referendum was to require restaurants to pay minimum wage to their servers. (As if minimum wage was such a great deal.) It would not have precluded leaving a tip.
2
Some states have allowed the businesses to take a percentage of the tips. I'm already subsidizing the business. Pay people a living wage and quit making me feel guilty. If the tip is for service why am I expected to give a tip when I get poor service. I tip at 20% but it does not make me happy. I never make the tip part of the bill but give cash to the person who has provided the service. I don't want the business taking a cut.
4
It is immoral for a tax system to scrutinize and tax the tips earned by service personnel, while overlooking the tax avoidance schemes of corporations and the wealthy.
3
No, I don't 'like' the tipping experience. In fact it causes a little spurt of anxiety after every meal when I have to make a decision. In some cases I have woken up in the middle of the night in stress because I left too little a tip...or did I? I like the French alternative better...'service compris'...and if the service was exceptional than you add a little more. The American system just rewards the greedy owners and makes a class of workers into circus performers for the benefit of the wealthy.
3
In an ideal world "the constrained" vision is wiser, but we have to take into account the extent that in our actual experience it is often corrupted to justify suppression and maintain status. Our actual experience requires us to take into account that corruption. Then there is the use of "constraint" as a justification for timidity. Fear of possible ills is irrational when it paralyzes decisive action against monstrous existing ills. That too we recognize as the world we know. So, no, the constrained vision is not always wiser. It too may represent a longing for a world we don't inhabit.
I remember how annoying tipping is whenever I travel and don't have to. Having worked as a waiter, tipping just adds stress to the job and sometimes unsavory divisiveness if the restaurant doesn't pool tips.
4
Careful readers will observe what has been been elucidated in academic research on charitable giving. Middle America and men generally tip more than women and people on the coast. Thus it is fair to say conservatives (generally middle America and men) are more generous than liberals (women and people on the coast). Not surprising.
@Dady -- Actually liberals in Middle America were those who tip more and it found that conservatives on the coast were those who tip least. It's fair to say.
3
WHY did somebody have to make tipping about liberals vs. conservatives?
But I’ll play:
If servers were paid a living wage, as in European countries, we wouldn’t have to tip. I think conservatives don’t like the idea of living wages.
2
@Wendy " WHY did somebody have to make tipping about liberals vs. conservatives? "
Exactly.
In Europe, tips are for only given outstanding service and special thanks, and yes, there's a service tax but that doesn't go to the servers. Waiters/waitresses make a fix pay, that is meant to be a real pay. It has been like this forever. Not a big deal.
And I'd suggest sadly that you carry enough cash to give a cash tip. It seems many restaurants don't distribute some or all of tips to employees. A restaurant near me in a rather upscale shopping district was charged for keeping tips. Restaurant was rather good. It's now closed. The local customers were outraged over the behavior and would no longer patronize the restaurant.
2
Great column. One of the most pervasive and least acknowledged forms of discrimination in this country is the enormous social advantage conferred by physical attractiveness. Brooks notes that young women get bigger tips than older ones. Attractive people are far more likely to get more lucrative jobs in not only higher-priced restaurants, but in many higher-paying positions across our society. Americans mostly take this form of discrimination for granted. Especially when it comes to jobs and pay, they shouldn't.
2
I hate tipping. I expect good to excellent service everywhere all the time, without the necessity of paying a tip. I worked for some 50 years and always (almost) tried to do a good job, and I witnessed the large majority of my fellow workers doing the same - and we didn't receive tips. The tipping concept is no more than a feature for restaurant owners and cab owners to increase their income, it allow them to advertise a lower price than the customer is expected to pay; we all know that, yet we continue to tip, even me. In Europe many if not most of the restaurants include "service" in the bill; that's fine with me. If I choose to give a buck or two to a panhandler, that's a choice that makes me feel good, but leaving a tip at a restaurant only gives me a negative feeling. Whenever I leave a tip I suspect nothing but hypocrisy in the server's smile.
When I was a kid I delivered newspapers for a "salary" that was so small I am compelled to put the word in scare quotes; our tips were everything. It was total exploitation of children by the newspaper industry. Maybe that was good, very educating to me of what capitalism is all about.
3
Having spent a good bit of time overseas, I must say that the restaurant service in Germany, France, Japan, Korea is consistent and generally better than in the US. Servers in the US are paid a pitifully minimum wage, allowed by US law. By minimum , I mean $2.25/hour because tipping is expected to bring them up to the legal minimum wage, or higher.
There is NO correlation between the amount of tip and the service. The amount of tip is directly proportional to the income of those being served. At the twilight of his career, Mr. Brooks, a multimillionaire, may believe that a $7.50 tip for a $25 lunch in a dinner is the moral thing to do. But for the individual earning $800 per week, not so much
5
Tipping would not be an issue if employees paid a living wage.
2
Seems the consensus is “pay the waitstaff a living wage.” I absolutely agree. I would compare servers with other kinds of people providing customer service. Would you pay call center staff a low wage and expect them to depend on tips for the rest? Would you expect the try-on room greeter to depend on tips, while being paid less than other employees? Toll takers at bridges and tunnels?
The whole tipping system is out of whack. A good option for the time being is to include a “service charge” on the bill, but the real solution is to pay the servers a living wage.
3
Tip jars are immoral.
The tipping option on credit card machines at self-serve counters is immoral.
Calculating tips as a percentage of the cost of the order is immoral. An entrée and dessert at a middling restaurant costs far more than a meal at a diner, which can entail significantly more labor.
The tipping parameters Brooks discusses are related elements of a singular dynamic and should be evaluated as such.
A significant dimension of the pleasure of tipping is to reward attentive, attractive wait staff or drivers, male or female, old or young. Brooks's desire to proselytize this aspect out of existence is heavy-handed and silly.
Practice explicit bias in favor of polite competence. This habit will encourage salutary social change.
I agree with the adage that the less expensive the meal, the larger the tip ratio.
The tipping guidelines Brooks suggests in the opening paragraph are exhibitionistic, a flexing of one's economic puissance.
No Asian country promotes the custom of tipping. But service is far superior and the most labor intensive because of the nature of the cuisine--lots of small dishes and tea refills.
Instead of tipping, a reasonable service fee should be incorporated into the cost of the food. Perhaps this would eliminate the phenomenon of pouty and vindictive wait staff, whose quality of service is contingent upon their perception of the size of your purse or wallet.
"[P]rivileges you didn’t earn" may be observed of Op-Ed columnists.
6
Great article. I own a restaurant and realize that the system is broken. A career server with 30 years of experience makes the same tips and therefore the same pay as a 19 year old. In my experience over 21 years with 100's of servers who have worked for me is that tipping is fairly consistent, averaging about 20.5%, will all servers. In my restaurant all the servers average over $30/hr with tips and wages. I would rather be able to pay the career server more and the newbie less, while offering benefits to the entire staff. But Mr. Brooks is correct, the public outrage (misplaced in my opinion) prevents me from implementing any changes.
4
Mr. Brooks:
Even if tipping was valid, why would anyone think 30% was minimum?
This from the land where people who work (say at WalMart) have their hours trimmed to just below the amount where the employer is required by law to pay benefits (like health insurance), where the employees are subsidized by the taxpayers - you and I - because their wages keep them below the poverty level.
This where restaurants and other food services have a separate and lower "minimum wage" from everyone else, where the employer often requires employees to "pool" the tips - and then takes a cut themselves.
This where the ability to get basic medical care depends on the coin in your pocket. Eat? Or get well? Hmmmm.
The good old USA isn't so good since the wealthy have taken over - at least not for most of us. Reagan started it, but it has continued its decline - and mostly under Republicans (although I won't give the corporatist democrats any slack).
When "We the People of the United States" (capitalization as in the original document) get to return to a government as begun and outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
Mr. Brooks, I suggest you read those documents.
7
How much tip income is never reported to the IRS? I don't know if the amount is significant or not, but the potential for under-reporting certainly exists.
Also, I wish I knew the rules for tipping. Do I need to tip the guys who installed my dishwasher or hooked up my satellite dish? I paid a company for installation, but some installers expect an additional tip--yet some say they are not permitted to accept tips. What are the rules??? (And again I ask: If I do tip an installer, will this be reported as income or simply pocketed?)
@AL, FYI, sometimes servers get taxed on tips they don't even receive. Many restaurants will automatically report anywhere from 8% on up of a server's total cash sales as earned tips. So if a customer stiffs their server or tips less than this (which sadly, happens quite frequently in my experience), the server is out of pocket for the tax on their non-existent tip.
This is not the case for your dishwasher or satellite installers, however, as they are not considered a tipped-wage category and so do not normally report gratuities. It isn't necessary to tip installers, but it's always appreciated should you choose to do so. Most working people are struggling nowadays and a few extra bucks here and there can make a big difference.
And really, if we're concerned about unreported income, perhaps we should focus on all of the big businesses with fancy accountants and millions in tax loopholes instead of servers and installers with their lousy $20K a year...
The phrase "constrained vision" is the same thing as "satisficing" and is the hallmark of conservative philosophy. This teaches that we should "Just be thankful for what you are given by those who posses the wealth and the power." So immensely happy that labor leaders and civil rights leaders of the past did not practice "constrained vision" (satisficing) and instead swung for the fences. It is the only reason we have come as far as we have, although there is much left to do.
3
I tip, but it kind of irritates me that when getting counter/drive up service, you tip BEFORE receiving the service. Quite often I get the wrong cup of $6 coffee plus tip and only find out when I take the first sip after I've driven away. The tip should still be related to the quality of service, not just simply a supplement to the bill.
1
There was a joke going around on email after the Enron case that was a plea to donate to a fund for Enron executives wives. They asked for only $700/week. "That may seem like a lot to you, but it doesn't to them" was the "punch line".
And therein lies the bottom line. Let's tip heavily so that the owners can continue to get their cut. If capitalism is an economic system in which workers "own their labor", why do "we" devalue that labor in the name of "capitalism"...
4
@Reader, tipping heavily benefits the servers (most of whom are being paid $2.13 an hour), not the owners.
Some long years ago I came across an explanation for the acronym "tips." It was "to insure prompt (or proficient) service." If you are in the business of providing a product and a service, both should please the customer. The customer should pay a fair price for a positive experience. This might well include a tip for the server. If, however, the service is poor then no tip seems appropriate. That only works if you are dining alone or with like minded people. Otherwise a tip is give irrespective of the quality of service. So you are subsidizing a less than optimal experience.
As to the tip suggestion on electronic payment devices. I ignore them and tip or not tip as I had intended.
1
Tips are a great way to show appreciation of excellence... BUT because of the system, we are expected to make up for ridiculously low hourly pay in service industries.
It is a bad system. Service workers need to be paid better and not have to rely on large additional tips to survive. I applaud the author's 30-50% but although I always do at least 20% most people will not.
3
I much prefer the French system (and it exists in other countries as well). The problem here is the servers often rush you out, snatching away the plates you are still eating from, so the next tippers, I mean diners, and be seated as soon as possible. In many other countries, the table is yours for as long as you like. Here the bill is often thrown down with the server asking “Anything else?” while you’re still eating. We rush through the meal, more concerned with the time than with the food or the conversation. I much prefer the French system.
5
Talk to Danny Meyer David. Ask him if he has problems with lack of customers or staff turnover.
Tipping used to be about service in restaurants back when I spent 20 years working in kitchens. We kitchen workers were well paid for the time, now, 30 years later, kitchen workers are paid the same as I was back then (without adjusting for inflation). Why? Because the front of house tips are "pooled" and split among the entire staff. Back then, dishwashers did much of the bussing, and they were paid; now bussers are considered front of the house and paid sub-minimum wage plus part of the pooled tips. This new way of compensating restaurant staff was just beginning as I got out of the business. We had a new manager who came to me and asked if I wanted the kitchen staff to share in the tips she'd decided to pool. My answer was, "Are you insane?"
On the rare occasions we eat out (most NYC restaurants are far too loud to even step into, let alone enjoy a nice diner in) my wife (who also spent about 20 years working in kitchens) and I will overtip, as you suggest. Unless, of course, we go to a non tipping restaurant; Danny's not the only guy to go that route.
2
I am not surprised that those of us who live in the middle of the country are better tippers because the odds are we know the person serving our meal, or know the proprietor, or know someone who works there, or have become friendly as regular customers.
The same is true with uber and taxi drivers, they live in our communities and we generally strike up conversations about sports teams or the weather. It's the Midwestern way to be friendly and thus leave better tips.
I disagree that the standard is 30 percent, the general standard is 20 percent for excellent service and 15 percent for so-so. And do not blame a server for a bad meal, that is on the cook.
Also I agree that carry-out should include a tip. The server still has to place the order and packaging it can be more labor intensive than just placing it on the table.
Lastly, women in my experience are good tippers assuming they have their own jobs and income. I hate that stereotype and I read the Uber study and it was inconclusive about women.
1
"Understand that the advantages you enjoy are products of both your individual effort and privileges you didn't." Wise words, too often forgotten. David, I appreciate your effort to explore the moral implications of our behavior and cultural systems, even if I don't always agree with your conclusions.
4
Yes, there would be sticker shock if restaurants just paid their workers a living wage. Would they be put out of business? Doubtful if their food is any good since every other restaurant would be comparably expensive.
While I do leave a tip for the hotel worker who changes my bed linens, I resent it. Most hotels are part of large chains whose corporations are making money hand over fist and giving the money back to their shareholders. Pay your workers a living wage!! Even the ones that are franchises are usually part of a corporate chain.
Every time the little citizen (us) are forced to subsidize someone else's job, there is a CEO somewhere rubbing his hands in glee.
I say abolish tips once and for all.
4
Why not ask the next few servers (of anything) if they’d rather depend on “tips” for “performance” or a bargained rate of pay leading to a living wage?
It is conservative dogma this would lead to laziness and job loss but why is it only employers that employ these arguments? It is also insulting to the workers’
dignity that they can’t be trusted to operate in a free market that takes them seriously as integral players in their own right.
If YOU had to choose between collective bargaining and voluntary rewards to budget meager resources, which would take. With the former you can earn both, with the latter you might get neither.
1
@Matt I would choose the one that paid me more. And for many servers, tips pay them substantially more. Notice that whenever there's a protest, it's mostly fast food workers who participating (who rarely get tips at all) yet people/media try to conflate them with servers who get tips who don't even get minimum wage. You're fighting a fight for people who don't want your help. Help that will lead to lower wages. The fight against tipping in the name of servers is specious. It's really a fight for consumers who don't like doing simple math, and not liking that they feel obligated and unsure about how much to tip.
@Al
Why not put tipping as an addition to a living wage? I would also think it reasonable some workers at low wages might make “more” with tips but that is obvious and accepts low wages as inevitable. And your statement that I am fighting for people who don’t want higher wages is pretty weak.
Not sure if you are a worker or what you do, and respect your right to opine, but I have worked under collective bargaining most of my adult life and advocated for better working conditions for almost 30 years.
I have seen it work, and it is worth the fight.
It also helps the economy from the bottom up as higher paid workers have more to spend, and they do.
1
The "constrained vision" may turn out to be wiser, but we must be inspired by ideal visions in order to do anything at all. After all, the ideal is the ultimate goal. Constrained moves are then simply a step-by-step methdo to reach the ideal.
Back when Obama was trying to pass his healthcare plan, his proposal of a public option was viewed as radical, and he had to back down from it. But people like Bernie and Elizabeth boldly pushing an ideal vision of healthcare has moved the ball. It is the reason we're all now discussing the "constrained" idea of a public option rather than Medicare for All.
I was in England for the first time.
Mostly took public transportation but got a cab for a trip to the train on my last day.
At Paddington Station, I asked the driver, “I haven’t used cabs here. Is tipping customary?”
The driver said, “Tipping? No, sir. This is England. I’m paid a proper wage.”
Et voila.
16
Tipping is nothing more than a business transferring part of their labor costs to their customers. Fortunately I rarely go out for meals, so this is not a real problem for me, but I hate the system non the less. I also dislike the idea that we somehow can't change because "this is America".
7
The thoughts of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II expressed in his article "The Racist History of Tipping", published in July 2019 are important to know when we discuss the pros and cons of tipping.
"You might not think of tipping as a legacy of slavery, but it has a far more racialized history than most Americans realize. Tipping originated in feudal Europe and was imported back to the United States by American travelers eager to seem sophisticated. The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as U.S. employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid paying formerly enslaved workers.
One of the most notorious examples comes from the Pullman Company, which hired newly freed African American men as porters. Rather than paying them a real wage, Pullman provided the black porters with just a meager pittance, forcing them to rely on tips from their white clientele for most of their pay.
Tipping further entrenched a unique and often racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer to earn anything at all."
8
@MD
The irony of the Pullman Company making black porters rely on tips was that being a Pullman porter become a highly desirable job among black men in that era. It was one of the better paying jobs a working class black man could get in that era.
The thoughts of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II expressed in his article "The Racist History of Tipping", published in July 2019 are important to know when we discuss the pros and cons of tipping.
"You might not think of tipping as a legacy of slavery, but it has a far more racialized history than most Americans realize. Tipping originated in feudal Europe and was imported back to the United States by American travelers eager to seem sophisticated. The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as U.S. employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid paying formerly enslaved workers.
One of the most notorious examples comes from the Pullman Company, which hired newly freed African American men as porters. Rather than paying them a real wage, Pullman provided the black porters with just a meager pittance, forcing them to rely on tips from their white clientele for most of their pay.
Tipping further entrenched a unique and often racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer to earn anything at all."
1
From the essay: "It is common these days to think that the way to do political and social change is: Think of the ideal system, then move to that. But the better way to make social change is: Think of the ideal system, then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature, and our own situation."
In other words, think of free (or as close to free) college, health care for all, the highest standards of conservation and renewable energy, etc., then get as close as you can, given the restraints of human nature and our own situation.
Now, David, help us understand, just why is it that you're not supporting Elizabeth Warren?
4
I worked in the service industry for years (both bartending and waiting tables, in fine dining, a hip-but-downscale "pub," and several places in between). One of the lesser-noted, but very real, issues with the tip system are not only the wildly variable notions of what constitutes "good" tipping, but the fact that some customers use poor (or no) tipping to punish the waitstaff when the problem is actually not service related. (E.g., the kitchen is backed up and the food is late to the table, so the customer - who has never worked in a restaurant and has no idea how these things work, despite apologetic updates from the server - leaves 5% to express their displeasure. Meanwhile, the folks in the back of the house where things actually went awry are pulling minimum wage - which of course isn't the greatist either - while the server is being paid far less exclusive of tips...) Someone's ability to earn a living should not be contingent on the goodwill of the general public.
7
Of course we should tip the staff who serve us coffee from behind the counter. Yes we had to wait in line and carry it ourselves, what are we expecting, to be treated like some kind of upper class that requires others to provide us service? We should tip the workers because it is the only way they can make a living wage. Their coffee shop can't remain competitive and charge far more than the competing coffee shops down the street. The businesses have their own economic rules to follow. The tip is the transaction that is between the customer and the workers. Management had better stay out of it. I tip the workers because they need it to subsidized their income so that they can afford basic life expenses like car insurance or daycare, or tuition. Or tattoos. Tip them so that they can afford tattoos. Whatever makes the worker happy, who wants a culture where food is provided by angry low paid workers who feel unappreciated by their customers? For the barista that serves an average of 20 cups of coffee per hour, the one dollar tip per customer is what gives that worker a $30 dollar an hour job instead of a $10 an hour job. At $10 an hour they are living at home in their parents basement in the suburbs far out of town. At $30 an hour they are renting a nice apartment downtown near all their friends and the nightlife. Let them live and enjoy their lives and their jobs. Give them a tip everytime, even if you don't like all of their tattoos.
3
@tony What a weird (to me, a European) perspective. But you are probably representing a very widespread view.
If I buy a service - or good - I generally have no wish to spend time negotiating or haggling, I want to pay the price requested - or not and refuse the service. If I see a restaurant advertising meals at $10 - or at $50 - why should I be required to remind myself that the price will really be 15 -30 % higher "or else be accused of "expecting to be treated like some kind of upper class that requires others to provide us service".
I might add that the US habit of NOT including local taxes on the menu prices is also strange to me (and illegal in Europe where any product directed towards the consumer MUST show the all-inclusive price). Obviously, (many) Americans are happy with the idea that whatever price is shown, they will end up paying a lot more but personally, I'd rather know the price and pay it rather than get a surprise at the end.
5
@tony this is brilliant!
Well, Mr. Brooks, most people in restaurants always tip a bit more than a certain percentage for a meal, no matter if the price is over or under $25.
There are local and state taxes included in restaurant bills, and usually a customer is doing his/her math on the total bill, not the cost of the meal alone.
I lived the majority of my life in oh-so-socialist Europe and find tipping almost insulting for a waiter or bartender. They should be payed a living wage and have healthcare insurance to boot.
6
The US tipping "system" is considered pretty rude in other countries. At most you leave the change from the bill (assumption is you are paying cash). It is rude because the servers are paid an actual wage.
The more immoral part of the system is how the employer chooses to distribute the tip, sometimes it is gathered and redistributed to all the servers, or other employees. sometimes even keeping a cut. Rare is the system that the tip goes only to the server anymore.
A $15-ish bill is my cut-off. Below that I give a minimum of $3 for a meal or ride service (sorry baristas, but as far as I'm concerned that $5+ cup of coffee seems to already include the tip). Above that is where I go 20%. Besides, 20% is easier to figure out than 15%.
I only learned of tipping at hotels a few years ago. I don't know where that advice hid for most of my 30+ years of traveling. I wish I could go back and rectify that.
Joe
2
In general, my experiences as a customer in the U.S. have been one of surprise at the degree of friendly, helpful service I’ve received in both shops and restaurants. Here in Canada, it’s been hit and miss. As a customer, one shouldn’t have to hope for acknowledgment of one’s presence.
Last year I was at the auto service counter in a Canadian Tire store in Western Canada when the employee, already engaged with another customer, made eye contact with me and said, “I’ll be with you shortly, sir.” I was so surprised that, when it was my turn to be served, I was compelled to thank him for his attention and acknowledgment of my presence. I detected a slight drawl in his speech.
He was from the U.S.
1
30% and help perpetuate a bad system? No way. The tip should be commensurate with the service, it should be ethnically blind and 10% in the high-end restaurants is plenty (more in smaller cafes and nothing for counter service).
3
only 7 states require that servers are paid the federal minimum wage plus gratuities. most of the states in the deep south pay only $2.13 per hour. change that culture and the system will correct itself.
if you want excellent service pay for it.
8
If I were to recommend a "required internship" for all students it would be to work for a while in the hospitality business.
Wait on some tables.
Clean some guest rooms.
Learn to properly pour a draft.
Do something that requires you to serve the public. See what it feels like. I have done a quite a bit of the above - both as a kid and in my own enterprises. I TIP BIG - especially the smaller checks.
Thanks David. Well written. Empathy is in short supply lately. I see you are well stocked. Good for you.
7
@Bob Bruce Anderson
Thank you.
Clearly the majority of commenters here did not benefit from a hospitality work experience. I tended bar for 20 years to subsidize my teaching income. In the lean, early years, those tips literally kept my family afloat.
4
@Bob Bruce Anderson
"Do something that requires you to serve the public. See what it feels like. "
If you are a parent of teenagers, please encourage them to take this advice at some point. There is no substitute for what will be a positive and life altering experience. And although it may just be a summer job in college, they will never forget what it feels like for millions of American workers to depend on tips to feed and clothe their children.
2
When we visited Chicago, we have stayed at several different and very nice hotels. The last few times we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria.
One of the very nice things about that hotel is their no tipping policy. It removes the need for carrying cash, deciding how to distribute it (bellman, parking valet, housekeeper, etc.) It also means they are paying employees a decent wage, thereby ensuring we customers receive excellent service!
6
A bit too much Brooks bashing here, although it is often my favorite sport.
His take on tipping is thoughtful. He acknowledges the problems with the system, including the fact that it will not readily disappear.
But neither he nor other commenters mentioned the unfortunate condescension implicit in the system. My wife and I tip at least 25% on nearly every tab and we are not wealthy. Just comfortably retired. Our belief is that anyone "serving" us is not living as well as we are and can use the money more than we need to preserve it. Most "servers" are trying to make ends meet, have children at home, bills to pay, college tuition or other pressures we can only imagine.
I almost feel embarrassed at being "served." If I could, I'd do some of the work myself. My wife and I always treat the "server" as we would a friend who hosted us for dinner. We don't intrude, but always ask about the person, inviting more than a "you're serving me and hurry up with it" relationship. We find almost universally that a "server" appreciates being treated like an interesting person that they appreciate the tip. We do both.
The comments here are sort of sad - people who resent having to pay or who write about servers in a stark, impersonal way.
8
Here's a change that's possible within a "constrained vision:" Make all tipped employee's subject to the same federal minimum wage as other employees. As things now stand the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 an hour. The dual minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped employees allows employers to underpay their tipped employees and codifies the expectation of tips.
Many tipped employees never actually see a pay check since all of their payroll income is taken by payroll taxes because the federal government assumes that tipped employees are receiving tips that make up the $5.12 difference between their hourly minimum wage ($2.13) and the federal hourly minimum wage ($7.25) and taxes them accordingly.
2
Tipping is feudal. Servants depending on the largess of the participants in the feast. Mr. Brooks fails to mention that tipped workers often are paid a very low hourly wage. I tip heavily for that reason. Time to start treating workers generally with the same respect we give to so called “job creators”, over whom we fawn....as we find ever more ways to line their pockets at the expense of workers.
5
This article seems to forget that not all customers are in some "upper class" who can afford higher tips in order to make up for unfairly low wages. For some, the difference in tipping may mean a difference in using the service or not. Let the employers pay a fair wage for the work.
7
I just returned from Japan after having lived there for five years. Tipping is taboo in Japan . I asked a Japanese friend of mine who worked as a server in an Okonomiyaki restaurant what motivates people to provide good service when no tipping is involved. She thought a moment, for it seemed to be a strange question to her, and then replied, “Japanese like to do a good job and to see our customers smile.”
15
The real solution is for restaurants to pay employees like every other business does! The cost to go out to eat will rise, but if it rises for all restaurants, so what? Tipping should be for really good service, not to fill the gaps between salary and living wage that the business owner selfishly chooses to create.
9
I would suggest tipping in cash. There is this assumption that if you add the tip to your credit card payment, the server will get the money. That the business owner is very uprighteous. Not always the case. Also. Any tips on the credit card are traceable. i.e taxable. Cash, on the other hand......If you want to do the best for a tipped employee, give them cash. Let them decide what to do with it and how to report it. No tipping states are simply trying to find another source of tax revenue. Any implication they are trying to help servers is quite disingenuous.
6
Thanks for your virtue-signaling from your position of prosperity, Mr. Brooks.
Problem is: continually ratcheting up 'expected tip' (30%...seriously?!?) works *against* the idea of reform, because restaurants will be better able to get away with underpaying base wages.
The long-term economic solution to the problem is an uncomfortable one.
1) Stop tipping 18...20... 25+ percent. Go back to what my grandparents said is the right tip: 15% *before* tax and *before* alcohol.
2a) Watch servers and other restaurant staff protest, quit, or form a real coalition or labor movement to increase base wages.
3b) Watch the rise in menu prices increase, artificially suppressed by this tipping protocol, and either get used to it or cook more food yourself.
3) Endure the economic shaking-out period until a 'new normal' emerges that must be based not on consumer tipping preferences, but on a real hard-won equilibrium between restaurant staff and management.
4
@Jeremy
1. How long do you expect that to take?
2. Has your proposal fully considered the actual lives of the servers and maids who will be affected in the meantime?
3. What is your evidence that the political system has *ever* understood "lower tips" as a signal that it should reform?
4. What other things have to happen (e.g., labor law reform and a left-wing NLRB) in order to give servers and restaurant staff a fair chance to organize against their (sometimes very large and sophisticated) employers?
4A. How are you making those things happen?
5. If your strategy doesn't seem to be working, will you double down and recommend paying people even less, until their suffering is so horrible they will act?
6. What is your evidence that, in general, political strategies based on making life even worse for people have led to better long-term societal outcomes?
1
I never understood not including alcohol in the tip?? You’re served the alcohol by the server, so tip on the subtotal bill. If you can’t add a couple of dollars or more depending on the bill, stay home and serve yourself.
Our tipping system is not inherently bad, but the expectation of a good tip isn’t motivation enough. Servers are either efficient and friendly or they are not. Employers should pay them a salary commensurate with the level at which they do their job.
Lots of people do a good job and don’t get a tip, so why should I tip a barista for putting coffee in a cup and handing it to me? Why do I have to tip a bartender for taking the cap off a beer bottle? I don’t tip the guy at Home Depot who helped me with plumbing parts, so why do I have to tip somebody who carries a sandwich on a plate to my table?
3
Women earn 79 cents for every dollar that men earn. The fact that they are tipping less should come as a surprise to no one. Mentioning the gender pay gap in this piece might have helped shed light on the tipping "disparity" between men and women.
7
For small checks or inexpensive venues, consider leaving a flat minimum rather than a percentage of the bill--say, $10 for the check or $5 for each member of the party served. Your waitron has worked just as hard to serve your eggs and grits as s/he would have were it shrimp scampi, and their children's needs are the same irrespective of your meal.
5
In addition to monetary tips, there are other ways to show appreciation and even warmth. Since my hobby is photography, I get pleasure from handing out prints, or a print on a blank photo card, to those providing a service, which includes those delivering packages to the door. The surprise gift is much more likely to elicit a smile and a big thank you than does the expected tip. It makes the whole transaction more human, and sometimes I am rewarded with a compliment on the photo.
1
@William
I think that people struggling financially to support their families would prefer cash. I am hoping that your beautiful photography has cash attached to it.
The reality of tipping is that most waiters, waitresses, bartenders, et. al. would much prefer tipping to a living wage. The underground, cash economy is essential for millions who work in it. If you are opposed to tipping, stay home!
3
Why should there be an ‘underground economy’ evading taxes ?
9
@Suburban Cowboy Why should waitstaff be exempted from minimum wage laws?
@Suburban Cowboy
you evade taxes by living in texas and take more federal dollars than you pay in.
David Brooks leaves something out of the equation: tipping is immoral because it shifts the burden of paying decent wages from the business owner to the consumer, creating another subsidy for business owners. That is the real reason for the spread of tip jars to everything from ice cream scoopers to sandwich shops to hotel cleaners.
15
That American F&B businesses underpay their servers and expect us to top up their disgracefully low wages is a given. Although not directly related to tips, I remember John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John's, saying that if he had to provide health insurance under The Affordable Care Act then pizzas would have to increase in price by 37 cents. I have never used that company since and never will.
I remember once in Denmark offering to tip at a pavement cafe and was told tipping is not needed. Unable to contain my curiosity I asked how much he was paid. It worked out to $23 an hour and the prices were the same as any big city in the US. Tipping is corporate greed incarnate.
14
I hate the whole idea of tipping. I am more than willing to pay for the real cost of a meal, hotel stay, taxi/uber ride etc. I would much rather a restaurant include a service charge as a part of the cost of a meal than rely on me leaving a tip. If the real cost of a lunch is $20 plus 20%, why not put the cost on the menu as $24?
The tipping system, especially in restaurants, camouflages the real cost of the meal and is advantageous to the owner.
I like the European system.
18
Brooks says the real reason he wrote this column is to criticize an “unconstrained” approach to social problems that progressives would like to solve, like our enormously expensive health care system. As usual Brooks mischaracterizes the problem.
The difference between conservatives and progressives is not that the latter want to move immediately to the ideal, unconstrained by an adequate cognizance of human nature and the realities of our social system.
The difference is that progressives see human nature as more than a naked will to self aggrandizement and social realities as malleable creations. Without the progressive vision, our words and actions quickly get reduced, as they do so often for Mr. Brooks, to justifying the status quo.
5
My wife and I always tip at least 20% since we feel that the sever is trying to make a living and we can afford it. Tipping is subsidizing the business.
When we went on cruises years ago we tipped the those people with whom we had direct contact . Now the cruise ships make tipping easier by allowing you to add tips on your credit card before the cruise . A tip ? Nope. A subsidy for the cruise line? Seems to be.
We are taking a cruise soon and the cruise line's tipping rationale is: "This gratuity will be shared amongst those staff who help provide and support your cruise experience, including all waitstaff, stateroom stewards, buffet stewards, and housekeeping staff across the fleet. "
Notice the statement " across the fleet". A tip? No, but it is a way for the cruise line to keep prices low and have the guests pay salaries under the guise of a "tip".
5
@cec I'm not with you on the "and we can afford it", because for people who can't afford the 20% tip, there are good chances they'd be told that they shouldn't be in the restaurant altogether.
@Manu --- My wife just asked me if we had a $200 bill would I give a $40 tip since we could afford it. I said that I'm not sure and she further said that she agrees with you since there is a limit to what I would tip, even though we could afford it. Smart person , my wife.
if you want excellent service pay for it. i did this at a young age when going to a bar to get a beer or two. i was not a regular but put down a $5 tip for two buds. and whenever i returned there was an open can waiting for me when i approached the smiling bartender.
1
@me
You bribed the bar for "service."
Tips are bribery.
Andy is right. David has done a good job of pointing out a major flaw in our economy. No one wants to pay the real cost of anything - from fossil fuel to hotel accommodations to a plate of food. Tipping suppresses wages period.
6
@John
Tipping does not suppress wages anywhere near to the degree that outright corporate greed does.
People seem totally oblivious to the fact that corporate profits have increased totally out of line with wages. Amazingly Americans seem more angry toward politicians about this than corporate executives and board members.
One of the issues David doesn't address is the fact that we're being expected to tip for a larger range of services. I do like a fresh cappuccino but am not convinced that I need to add 30% onto a 4 dollar cup of coffee. When the guy arrived to shear my alpaca, I felt an obligation to add a tip. Plus, an increasing number of places now ask you when you pay whether you'd like to add some money to your bill to support this or that charity. I do support lots of charities. I just don't want to be hit up every time I purchase something. Call it tip fatigue or callous indifference as you see fit. I am just tired of it.
7
Severe get a percent of their meal as a guideline because it is proportionate to the service rendered as a rule of thumb. I worked as a waiter and enjoyed receiving tips for my good service and understood that when I failed to deliver it I received less or none. It is called pay for performance, try it, you might understand that it makes you better at what you do. Competition improves us and rewards us, and if you want to redistribute wealth to the less fortunate please do so, it is your money after all.
You could have stopped at the "real reason" we have the tipping system. If the menu prices were raised, the "eating out" crowd may stay home. When I was a working class kid in the 1950's, we rarely went to a "restaurant." There was a "luncheonette" and a deli. The owners served you. Of course, those jobs were eliminated by the corporate food chains. They call it "casual dining." It is more corporate largesse. Jobs as 'servers" are just a way to rationalize what the country has turned into. A country with too little "work" for people. Fix that and you can fix a whole lot of things.
3
It would be nice if restaurant owners paid their service staff a real wage. In most restaurants servers not only take your order and serve it, they are also putting together the salads, salad bar, preparing desserts, cleaning before and after their shifts. In our state, not sure of others, the minimum wage for servers is $2.13 an hour, well below what other minimum wage workers receive and do depend on those tips to live. Most servers receive zero checks and employers like it that way. Not sure how to fix the problem, just telling you how it is.
4
The single "tipping experience" I enjoy is for the hardest working, most under appreciated individuals of the service sector, hotel housekeeping.
3
As I understand it, tipping began in feudal Europe: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/06/21/why-tipping-in-america-is-up-for-debate . It then came here in the late 19th century.
Some restaurants over the years have attempted to raise wages and reduce tipping--those experiments have not gone that well. Ratings on service fell. What might really help is to stop allowing a lower federal minimum wage for tipped workers. A good number of states are already doing that, but predictably US consumers get annoyed with higher menu prices.
I have to agree with one of Mr. Brooks conclusions: we will likely continue be stuck with a bad system. Those tipped workers need a fairer minimum wage and basic benefits such as health insurance.
2
@JSK
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/why-tipping-is-wrong.html
Article from 4 years ago about the origins of tipping.
The tipping advice here makes sense.
The larger point about change to an ideal is off-base.
To be sure, sometimes, or even often, gradual change is best, easiest, and more efficient. But sometimes going half-way only gets you half-way.
At times bold leaps (with a willingness to adjust and revise) are the only way to move out of a rut. Sometimes you rock back a forth in your car to get out of a ditch. Sometimes you place a traction pad under the wheels and gun it.
Medicare4All or reform of what we have? My view is that after a reasonable preparation period (5-7) years, go for the big change.
1
I think that you are proving David’s point here. The Affordable Care Act was a compromise because President Obama knew that he could not get universal healthcare through Congress. We will see where Medicare4All lands, but the ACA was the first step. While sometimes it looks like things changed quickly in history, there is usually a backstory of incremental change that happened beforehand. Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for big changes, including getting rid of the tipping system, but unfortunately, human nature being what it is, we have to chip away at problems over time.
@Anna Lynch
Human nature mostly changes over time -- it is not a constant. Just look at history. But I mostly agree with you.
In the US we have two forms of service which have tipping written into law--waiters and bartenders. They are paid below minimum wage and actually TAXED on their final sales, whether you tip them or not.
I also tip housekeeping, just because the culture of this country tells me that an invisible female workforce must be the most poorly paid.
But the all of the other tips seem to be designed for businesses to underpay their staff. Worse, many businesses do NOT pass those credit card tips on to their staff.
Indeed, tip with cash whenever possible. That's the only way to know the the person you are tipping will actually get the money.
4
One has only to look at the minimum wage for tipped employees https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm. When an employer is allowed to pay $2.33 per hour and pay just enough after tips to get to the state minimum wage, chances for abuse abound. Luckily, many of our local non chain restaurants that are diners, cafes and small town restaurants have abandoned tipping, increased prices 20% and pay a starting wage that is double the state minimum wage. After some time, the customers have accepted it, the staff is happier (including the back room staff) and the whole issue has resolved. I do have a problem with leaving room staff a tip. If it is a one night stay or if we stay multiple nights, we don't use household services but once every three or four days to conserve energy.
@tom
Raising prices 20% means they're still covering their previous bottom line and lining their own pockets. Nothing changed for them: Owners have once again successfully passed off the cost of their labor to the consumer.
Tips are bribery and should be outlawed. Let them raise their prices X% with their myth that it's going to cut into their "profit margin" when it really isn't. Then let them suffer a decline in business because of it for a period of time. When they decide they want to make money again, they'll lower their prices to where they should be.
@matty Nice try but erroneous assumption. This was worked out by the owners and the workers together. The profit margin did not change and the amount of business returned to normal after a short period of adjustment
I am always suspicious when someone uses 'human nature' as a justification for not doing something that runs contrary to their perceptions of it. The Chinese philosopher Mencius said that 'human nature' is what one does when seeing a baby toddling towards an open well; everything else is just projection.
2
Years ago, when stopping at a deli for coffee and roll, my co-worker mentioned that he never tips if he does not expect to return to the place. If he frequents a place, then he tips. I guess he thought of tipping as bribing, or should I say a "quid pro quo?"
2
@JPEC
Tipping IS bribery.
1
Tipping is the result of not paying people a fair wage for their work and not giving them the respect they deserve.
8
Here's a technical Q for anybody. Do you consider the tax as part of the meal cost? Tax is a non-food/service cost for which I include in calculating the tip and I just assumed I was giving a tad more than 20% (ok, only ~1 % more but hey). So as I said, I thought I was giving a tad more but the new billing systems where you can check off if you want to give 20, 18, or 15% w tax included tells me differently, at least from the owners side. Just curious.
Excellent column, Mr. Brooks! How much should I leave for you???
2
I absolutely support eliminating tipping and paying a living wage to all people. The problem with just saying that employers should do this, is that is presumes that the owners of these businesses are just sitting on their piles of cash, laughing at the poor saps they've suckered into working for them.
The vast majority of restaurants, in particular, already operate on razor thin margins. There's a reason that the failure rate is so high. So, there's no cash to pay a higher wage. Jack up the price to cover that living wage? There go your customers, most of whom are brainwashed by artificially low prices at places like Walmart and Amazon. By and large, countries that pay living wages for service positions also have much higher tax rates that pay for the kinds of things that we need higher incomes to support in the US, like college tuition and healthcare. And we all know how Americans feel about taxes.
This isn't a problem of the greedy restaurant owners determined to oppress workers or of the stingy consumers who don't tip enough. This is about the structural inequalities that are baked into the US way-of-life. A 30% tip isn't even going to put a dent in that, let alone fix it.
3
@Josie
Walmart and Amazon are not restaurants.
"is that is presumes that the owners of these businesses are just sitting on their piles of cash, laughing at the poor saps they've suckered into working for them. "
IF someone is in business, and continues to be in business, then they're making more money than it takes to remain in business. There are countless "syndicates" out there who, as a "group" have bought up a lot of "independent" bars and restaurants, and if they're not making money, they wouldn't be in this business. I don't care how much they pay for their water/electricity/overhead/inventory/permits/ licenses, if they're still operating, they're more than covering those expenses, especially when you see these places packed to the gills most nights of the week and they charge $10 for a glass of beer.
@matty
"Walmart and Amazon are not restaurants."
No, they're not, nor did I say they were. However, their ability to offer ridiculously low prices has trained people to expect that in all aspects of their lives, when it is not possible or practical. There's a reason those businesses are killing main streets all over the country, because small (and even mid-size) business cannot operate profitably when trying to match their prices. Similarly, when eating out, people expect great service and lots of food at prices that barely cover the expense of operation as it is. Most will not tolerate prices that would allow the payment of living wages.
As for the rest, all I can say is, wow. To be sure, many corporate chains can and should do better when it comes to pay. But the vast majority of restaurants are not chains, they are small businesses with very small profit margins. To suggest that because they are able to keep the lights on, they are also able to magically pay all staff many multiples of their current pay, demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of business. It is statements like this that give liberals a bad name.
Until we are able to find ways to balance the humane treatment of all people (which I fully support) with recognition of basic economic and financial principles, we are just laying the groundwork for Trump's re-election. Have fun during his second term.
Does Brooks realize that some states like mine don’t have a different minimum wage for tipped workers? And that the minimum wage varies drastically in different parts of the country? How about we start by eliminating lower minimum wages for tipped workers all over the country.
And no, most people don’t like the tipping game. They hate the whole tipping thing and would rather just pay a fair price that includes adequate compensation for employees. Plus, why do we tip some service workers and not others? Just get rid of all of it already and get a real minimum wage everywhere, adjusted for cost of living.
7
This is nonsense. The problem is inadequate wages for drivers and waiters. See e.g. the Netherlands where tipping is minimal (a rounding-off or less that about 5%) because wages are regulated, adequate, and protected.
To add 30% tip to another 8+ % state and local taxes boosts the price of a meal to 40% or so above the advertised price. It's simply dishonest!
6
I hate tipping. I don't mean that I don't do it, or that I don't understand the economic reality that prices don't actually reflect the cost of service, and one must compensate.
I mean that I hate the idea that there is an amorphous extra fee attached, and that I am supposed to understand intuitively how much I should be adding to the pot.
Servers are easy. Twenty percent is standard. You give more if you spent very little money but held up a table.
But cabbies, and Uber drivers, and hair stylists, and the person who washed your hair, and the doorman, the guy who delivers packages, the guy who brings a pizza (how much of that tip is just gas money, and how much is pay?) And of course, the unnamed service person you didn't even know expected a tip.
Is it 20%? 10%? 30%? A flat rate of $20 bucks here, $5 there? Do we have to figure out how much time is spent and try to hit minimum wage?
Just price the service into the fee and be done with it. I have never stiffed a person intentionally. But I most likely have undertipped or overtipped, or not known I was supposed to tip in some situation. It is a ridiculous way to function.
5
@Cathy
That's the proprietary myth: That prices don't reflect the "cost" of the service.
So, that begs the question of "why not?" Why are YOU in this business if your prices don't reflect the actual cost? You're telling me that you're LOSING money?
If that were true, restaurant and bar owners wouldn't be in this business. They'd be doing something else that actually makes them money.
1
Tipping is a ridiculous, complicated, and confusing burden to consumers. Business owners: please pay your staff a fair wage and raise your prices accordingly. Stop making me perform two transactions for every transaction. Stop giving me the anxiety of estimating how much is appropriate for what situation. Let’s get rid of this outdated practice and simplify life for everyone.
6
It is such a relief over here in Europe not to have to deal with this tipping nonsense. If you want to leave a bit extra, go ahead - but it is taken care of in the bill.
Also, I have not noticed service any worse as a result. Indeed, it is better as many servers view what they do as a profession, not as a temporary stop on the way to fame and fortune.
8
@Plennie Wingo Paris is next door. You may want to recheck it to verify your comment about service not getting worse as a result.
Come to think of it you are right. Service in Paris (save for a few places) is bad because servers mostly act entitled.It is so bad in fact that it cannot get worse save of them extinguishing their cigarette in your creme brulee. :)
In the US good service gets mostly return business and tips and word of mouth. So it works. Sorta works. like everything else in a capitalist society.
What a disappointing effort. The President of the United States is the subject of an impeachment inquiry and Brooks is writing an article on tipping. The tipping examples demonstrate he is out of touch with ordinary people. And why do some people feel better about tipping or charity as opposed to just paying people a living wage or having a social safety net. Is it because it makes them feel superior. Is it greed. People should have a living wage, health care, etc. and charity and tipping should be the exception and not the rule.
8
It gives me lots of satisfaction to recognize great service because so little of it is available today. I do believe some proprietors are taking grave advantage of their low paid employees, telling them to "make it up in tips."
@R. Anderson
In SC, simply saying "God Bless" would be enough of a tip, right?
Australians find tipping odd. We don’t automatically tip because we have fairer labor laws. Unless it’s legislated, you won’t see change. Our forebears fought long and hard for fairness and equity. These laws are under threat with the likes of Uber, piece paid gig economy. invented by the young who have no history of how these laws came to be. We tip when we get exceptional service or meal - hospitality is a hard essentially low paidgig, and they get to deal with a lot of awful people.
4
Remember just after Trump was elected his administration tried to pass a rule that tips did NOT have to go to the server - that the owner of the business could keep them? Public outcry put a stop to that. Tipping Is totally up to the customer - totally, unless the owner of the business puts in a no tipping rule (in which case he/she better be paying a living wage or I won't be a patron there). Don't tell me how much to tip or who to tip - I'll make up my own mind. And BTW - with everything going on in our world, with the utter corruption of our government and sickness of our society, you're going after tipping?
1
Employers should be forced to pay their staff at least the prevailing minimum wage. Why should I have to essentially co tract out separately for a meal and the accompanying service? That makes no sense Tipping means that a good chunk of an employee's compensation is decided based on subjective thinga., of which an employee largely has no control. I won't even get into trying to figure out who to tip when everyone has their hand out...
3
Sorry, but no.
Insisting that people make their living according to the goodwill (or good mood, or sexual appetite) of their employers in a basic negation of the worker-employer relationship. If you support free tipping for servers and taxidrivers, you should advocate it for lawyers, engineers and money-managers.
Employees should make a living out of their salary, which does nothing to prevent happy customers to still leave a tip, just like your boss may give you a bonus for a good year.
And no-one staying in a hotel should be expected to pay the cleaner. Staying in a clean room is part of the contract you have with the hotel, not its employees. Paying fairly is part of the contract the hotel has with its employees.
5
Let’s avoid mixing social etiquette with morality. I enjoy the joy of surprising one with a wonderful tip, however we should respect the rights of those who choose to do so at their discretion. That’s respecting freedom, as those who choose to withhold are abiding by our country’s social contract of mutually maintaining each others safety by respecting laws. Subsidizing a specific class of workers out of contrived empathy is ridiculous. Companies who don’t pay their employees a “living wage” are jeopardizing their safeties. Direct your platitudes to them.
2
"Always, always, always leave a tip in a hotel room."
Totally agree with this. Broadly speaking, the people who clean rooms are paid less and need more their wages than the waitstaff in a restaurant who often are temporary workers who are frequently awarded primarily on personal appearance and demeanor.
Tip the people who make your bed and clean your toilet at least $5/day. They really need it.
3
I find it irritating that tipping is supposed to be based on the cost of the meal.
Why?
You will get the same number of server visits to your table for a $15 meal as for a $35 meal.
3
People should NEVER take it out on the persons providing the service (whether or not they pick up their own food in counter service or they are served at a table). The worker cannot "demand higher pay from their billionaire corporation" especially if they are not unionized. Some of the affected workers make as little as $2.10 per hour and rely on the tips. Even if it is just counter service, some worker put your order together. Why punish the underpaid and overworked staff just because you are a cheapskate?
If you cannot afford the common humanity of paying a tip, you should not order food outside the home or use any type of hospitality services, even if it is just counter service. Cheapskates need to eat at home and stay at home. Period.
1
@Elizabeth Moore
" Some of the affected workers make as little as $2.10 per hour and rely on the tips. "
Those workers can find another job if they don't like that.
I'm vehemently opposed to eliminating tips, and I'm one of those people who *does* tip in accordance with the service I receive. I refuse to reward lousy service, and I'm *thrilled* to (generously) reward good service.
We just returned from a lengthy trip to Germany (we've spent a huge amount of time traveling throughout the world for several decades [particularly in Europe]). The tipping culture varies considerably outside the U.S. - but one consistent reality is that service is often *lousy* where there's no tipping and where salaries are (somewhat) decent.
We took a taxi from JFK to our (lower Manhattan) apartment on Tuesday and the driver was absolutely *abysmal* in every respect, so I paid him *exactly* what was on the meter. When we took a taxi from our Berlin hotel to the airport earlier that day, the driver was one of the friendliest and most helpful taxi drivers we'd ever encountered - so even though there's only an expectation of giving a few euros for (longer) taxi rides in Germany, I gave him a *humongous* tip.
2
Service in Europe is horrifically bad. I am glad we don't have the service included system here. The servers in Europe seem to be older and stuck in dead end jobs they hate. They make the same amount no matter how bad the service is.
1
@RK Rowland: Yeah right... Smiling subservient waiters relying on your good mood and generosity are so much more accommodating than decently paid employees...
I don't know what kind of places Mr. Brooks frequents, but to extrapolate from the data that men tip more for younger, presumably more attractive, employees versus older ones is because it comes with an "expectation" of harassment privileges is entirely unsupported by reality. Well, perhaps in the case of a strip club, but in that case I don't think the employees call it 'harassment' so much as 'wise financial planning.'
Neverminding the personal impulsions for bequeathing such largesse---hey, maybe that young, blonde Uber driver was being flirtatious? Here again, wise financial planning.
Simply put, perhaps the 'moral' of tipping is, indeed, that it's immoral. But then, that is the way the world wags; it is certainly the way nearly everyone in the tipping professions wants it. At any rate, even if you outlawed tipping from one corner of the globe to the other, it would still not solve the world's pay inequity problems. Ditch-diggers and waitresses would still be underpaid, and the guys in the executive boardroom would still be over-everything.
No, let's keep the 'immorality' of tipping, as imperfect as it is in overall design. To paraphrase Winston Churchill on 'democracy': Tipping is the worst way of doing things, except for all the others.
1
For people that say dump tipping and raise prices to cover higher wages, read the op-ed. Two states tried it and the customers revolted. They would not pay the prices and ripped the restaurants to shreds in reviews. You can say the government just needs to say we’ll tell you how to run your business. Eventually you will get used to it. I assume a lot of people felt otherwise.
The tipping culture in America is completely unreasonable, just plain crazy. One feels pressured, almost threatened to tip even for horrible service. I myself have been all but yelled at by a waiter because I didn’t tip for what was just terrible, very rude service. And tipping 30%?! A very elitist approach as well.
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I'd also add, gross up your tip based on your own marginal tax rate. Thus, if you'd be tipping 20%, and you make $50,000 a year, make it 25%.
Though I do it, tipping seems pitiful and demeaning to me. A worker shouldn't have to depend on the whimsy, generosity or sense of guilt of a patron. She should just get paid.
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When you arrive at a hotel, whom do you tip?
1. The person who opens your door and takes your luggage out of
the car?
2. The bellhop to whom the bags are handed who then is assigned to carry your bags to your room?
What are the appropriate tips to give?
3. The concierge who gives you simple directions and a map?
(Same questions with respect to departure? The bellhop who carried your bags to the front door? The doorman who picks up your bag and stows it in the car for your ride to the airport?)
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Sorry. The Marriott family and the Hilton are billionaires. Why shouldn't they pay a decent wage to the people, mostly women of color and immigrants, who clean hotel rooms? If I am paying $125 to $250 a night for a hotel room, I'm not adding a tip. On the other hand when my husband got food poisoning from airplane food and threw up all over the hotel bathroom, I tipped the person who came to clean it up $50. Seemed fair to me!
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When I was a waitress , I didnt care about tips. I was often beseeched to be nice to rude people, to become bob hope , to improve tips. Nah . I am not a barking seal, and couldnt pretend to be even for more anchovies . Wrong again Dave!
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Two thoughts.
I tip wait people because we’ve evolved this stupid system, but it’s always fifteen percent.
Second, I used to leave tips in my hotel room, but have stopped now that I’m required to pay a resort fee at every hotel now. I’m sorry for the hotel service people, but too much nickel and diming the guests is too much.
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Most of Europe doesn’t tip and service is better than here. Servers are professionals. They aren’t beggars. They are paid a living wage by their employers.
Let’s face it. Tipping is a fraud foisted on the American public by the cheapskate owners of the hospitality industry. Ask any wait person, “Would you prefer to be paid a living wage to do a good job our would you prefer that I pay you less than minimum wage and force you to be a beggar?”
And how many tipped American workers are provided comprehensive health insurance by their employers?
There’s something wrong here.
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As expected, here we have a very republican view by the very consistent(ly wrong) David Brooks.
We wouldn't have an issue with tipping if we could get Uber-greedy (see what I did there?) business owners who make a fortune more than they need (and that their employees get paid) realize they need to actually pay people enough to scratch out a life.
(sigh - wrong on politics, wrong on values, that's our Mr Brooks - but he tries so hard)
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I was in the restaurant business for years, both as a waitress and a manager. The wealthy are generally NOT the best tippers. The best tippers are cabdrivers, bartenders, waitresses and waiters. They know what a difference a good tip can make in a night’s work.
The job of a server in a restaurant is much more than actual service. Putting up with incredible rudeness, being treated like a non-person, enduring sexual harassment, cleaning up people’s messes. I have seen countless people blow their nose in a cloth napkin, expecting the server to pick up the snotty napkin at the end of the meal. Hel-LO!
The current system won’t change anytime soon. Therefore, try to remember that the person taking care of you is most likely doing their best to assure that you enjoy yourself and leave feeling better than you did when you came in. They depend on good tips to pay their bills and take care of themselves and their families. A simple “ thank you”is nice too!
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