Submitted by leavingthecold t3_10mns7z in providence
nelson64 t1_j64dmqb wrote
Reply to comment by Thac0 in Everyone is asking for a tip these days by leavingthecold
There's plenty of places that would love to do that, but it's actually less beneficial to the workers because of our culture. Customers are more willing to pay $10 on a meal and tip up to $3 sometimes than they are willing to pay $13 for the same meal.
You lose clientele, you can't afford as many workers, and now people don't have jobs.
Unless something changes from all the way at the top either legislatively or culturally, tips allow workers to get a fair and livable wage.
A restaurant I've worked for splits their tips evenly and treats it more like a team effort in order to be able to raise EVERYONE'S wages. With tips everyone makes $10 more and hour than their hourly wage. If you got rid of the tips, raised prices, and then raised wages, business wouldn't be able to afford paying the same amount. Instead of $10 more an hour, you'd get maybe $5. Which is still good, but definitely a pretty steep drop in hourly gains.
Customers are more willing to pay a sticker price of X amount and then pay other taxes and fees on top of that than they are willing to pay a higher sticker price.
Americans have been conditioned by our culture to view prices that way. I mean look at everyday purchases, nothing has tax factored in already at retail.
It would take a long time and a huge cultural shift for Americans to be able to see the same plate of food or product they used to get for "$10" suddenly being $13 or even $15.
I don't think tips should exist at all, but the fact of the matter is that this is how American society developed and there'd have to be a lot of heavy lifting and huge sweeping changes that go beyond the individual level to make it change.
If there's an option to tip, I tip. The ONLY time I may not is if it's a retail item I'm purchasing at a restaurant and I'm not purchasing anything else.
Thac0 t1_j64gbiq wrote
The debate on wages effecting prices has been happening for a long time. The federal minimum wage hasn’t increased from $7.25/hr I’m decades. There are lots of studies and data. I’ve selected A study from Perdue showed that raising prices from minimum wage to $15 would only increase prices 4.3% that means your example of paying $13 for a meal instead of $10 would in reality cost the customer $0.43 not $3 and to raise wages to $22/hr it would increase prices 25% that would be $2.50 vs your example of $3. The fact is asking customers for a %15 tip for limited service instead of owners charging something like 4.3% for a real wage is providing cover for bad business owners to pay poorly and to ask customers to cover the cost of their wages while they stuff their pockets. It’s unconscionable to defend the rampant tipping that goes on. I’m sick of hidden costs and surprise tips for tbh fa that aren’t too based work
nelson64 t1_j64h893 wrote
I’m not talking about huge establishments. I know on a grand scale, on average, it wouldn’t affect prices that much. I’m saying at individual small businesses.
The business I worked for barely made a profit and many years actually operated at a loss.
Restaurant wages is just a lot different than regular wages. Raising minimum wage from the $3.89 minimum that is set for restaurants up to $22 would cause that huge spike in prices at restaurants. Of course a ton of restaurants that are actually paying their tipped employees $3.89 can probably afford to absorb some of that cost and be less greedy before raising prices, it’s still a big jump.
So I’m not necessarily talking minimum wage vs livable wage. Minimum wage should definitely be raised to livable wages.
I’m just saying raising $15/hr (base pay where I’ve worked) to oftentimes $27/hr (on average with tips) is next to impossible at a small restaurant business without raising prices a lot more than 4%. A small restaurant like that could maybe absorb the cost it would take to raise wages from $15 to say $16 or $17 without raising prices. But a $12 wage increase would require prices to go up those 20% being lost by tips.
Of course they wouldn’t HAVE to raise wages all the way up to $27/hr in this alternate reality, but then the workers get the short end of the stick without tips.
This is often why a lot of tipped workers are actually against getting rid tipping. Cus in the end they would make less.
Edit: also in my mind I was actually thinking closer to $2.50 but just rounded up for simplicity’s sake. So apologies there!
Previous_Floor t1_j64unqj wrote
Full time (40 hours a week) at $15 an hour is $30k a year.
$16 an hour is $32k.
$17 an hour is $34k.
NONE of these are livable wages in 2023.
nelson64 t1_j6520y7 wrote
I totally agree! Which again is why raising a $15 wage to $27 (which is still barely livable) would definitely affect prices in a different way for food service.
Thac0 t1_j64hn3j wrote
Nobody it talking about $3 an hour server tips. The OP and me explicitly talked about paying tips for take out and other not traditional tip based roles that are showing up literally everywhere even at one personas mechanic.
nelson64 t1_j64iyys wrote
I mean if it’s JUST retail and there’s no food involved whatsoever, then yeah I wouldn’t tip. Those positions aren’t tipped positions. Legally idek who the “tips” would technically go to? Probably straight back to the business as profit? Idk.
leavingthecold OP t1_j64wjln wrote
I think you over explained it but it basically comes down to basically DONT ASK FOR A TIP AND NO TIPPING at a mechanic shop or if you picking up takeout.
Previous_Floor t1_j64tizl wrote
>It would take a long time and a huge cultural shift for Americans to be able to see the same plate of food or product they used to get for "$10" suddenly being $13 or even $15.
Umm that's what has happened almost everywhere during the past 2 years.
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