I understand that. I don’t know how well the tipping culture works in offsetting bad pay, but it doesn’t at all seem to be in favour of the workers. Sure, in a single instance it does, but not overall. It’s hard to walk away knowing you could help, it’s not in our nature.
But it’s kind of like donating your money to the machine that makes so many lives hard because it knows people only think in the moment. Capitalising on humanity rather than being forced to show some themselves.
It’s not a culture thing. It’s a legal thing.
Tipped employees are paid far less than minimum wage before tips. They are guaranteed at least minimum wage if they don’t earn enough in tips (the employer has to make up the difference) but they can be fired for any reason. Not pulling enough tips to cover minimum wage is, effectively, a fireable offense.
If we eliminated the sub-minimum wage rate for tipped employees, tipping “culture” would quickly disappear.
