Tip Your Server and Save the World

[Spider Jerusalem]

46. Honestly? America's tipping culture is deeply fucked up.

Some asshole doesn't leave a tip, leaves a nasty note about it, and somehow this person's lack of generosity becomes the story, rather than the fundamental fact that restaurant servers and others considered "tipped employees" get paid slave wages. The fact that restaurant owners won't pay a living wage is the real problem here; that and the fact that most states set the minimum for tipped employees very low and in a lot of places it hasn't increased in nearly 20 years (but then the federal minimums for tipped employees haven't increased in nearly 20 years either). A better solution: Raise prices of restaurant meals by 20% across the board, if that's what it'd take for servers not to have to rely on the uncertain generosity of strangers. As it is? The price of a restaurant meal in most places is deceptively low and doesn't accurately reflect the costs of service; one can question the reasons for this (Americans like to feel like they're getting a bargain, and like to feel like they're being generous by leaving a tip, perhaps), but overall it's a bad thing that should really change.

And it's really kind of staggering to see that pretty much no-one even questions the whole culture of tipping in the first place; that no, it's not tipping that's the problem, it's people who don't do it.