As the customer places their order, the sounds of sizzling patties, whirring milkshake machines, and the smell of deep-fried french fries permeate throughout the restaurant, providing its hungry customers with something to look forward to. But as they go to the register to pay for their meal, an unwanted prompt appears on the terminal: “Add a tip.”
Often included with several percentage options, the tip prompt has become the bane of restaurant patrons across the United States. It presents a moral dilemma that eats away at the customer’s time, wallet and mind, leaving many to debate whether or not the effort to buy a meal is worth the price.
While tipping does help contribute toward a service worker’s standard of living, it should not be the number one source of income. Simply put, it is immoral for an employer to offset the costs onto the consumer, avoiding paying their fair share to the consumer. How, then, did we get to such a culture?
Across the U.S., tipping culture emphasizes paying high percentages. There is a general expectation that people tip at restaurants each visit to pay the worker. Originating from Europe in the 17th century, the master often tipped the servant for superb work. This act was later imported to America, so nobles felt aristocratic to the lower class. Tipping, however, was seen as inherently condescending and classist up until the Civil War.
The post-Reconstruction era saw tipping culture implemented as a way for employers to avoid paying wages. According to TIME Magazine’s “How Americans Tip at Restaurants Has a Troubling History” by Rachel E. Greenspan, freed slaves were left unpaid as many employers opted to have guests leave a small tip instead. Freed African Americans relied more on gratuities to live and not their employer’s wages.
Before the COVID pandemic, tipping was seen as a customary act: not expected and only given for perceived “exceptional service.” Unlike the average burger flipper, waiters, waitresses and other service workers are not paid on the minimum wage scale. Instead, they are paid on a separate scale known as the “tipped wage.”
The scale, introduced in 1966 by the Department of Labor, requires employers to pay only $2.13 per hour if the tips added equal the federal minimum wage. In other words, tips are paramount to a service worker’s standard of living, promoted by the government and paid by the customer. The business gets to skip free and avoid paying their due diligence.
Why then, should the customer be forced to contribute more? During the COVID pandemic, restaurant workers and delivery drivers were notoriously overworked and underpaid, which encouraged workers to ask or demand tips so the risk was worth the pay. It made sense to tip them, but in the post-pandemic era, it has gotten out of hand.
Despite restaurants returning to pre-pandemic levels, many establishments have still kept high gratuity levels to churn a profit. Rather than a suggestion, customers are morally obligated to contribute five, ten, twenty, or even thirty percent to their order, with some making tipping mandatory for a certain number of people. This add-on discourages long-term patronage, and it inflates the cost of one meal to unreasonable prices.
The existence of the tip-based wage is untenable in today’s modern economy and should not be a policy sponsored by the government. Worker incomes should not depend on a person’s generosity, and should not be reliant on the customer to contribute to next month’s rent, especially if the service was not exceptional.
If a worker earns tips, it should be considered an added bonus on top of their hourly wage, coinciding with the federal or state minimum wage. It should not be a lowly $2.13 an hour for the service worker. $2.13 an hour is what would’ve been made back when the cost of living was lower, not in today’s time.
Local governments and employers should get with the program. The customer should not be paying to keep a worker alive. Like any business, the employer should be responsible for providing a fair wage for a fair standard of living.