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This is going to sound weird but I kinda get it.
I'm not rich at all. But I have a really high paying job. And I tip 25-40% because I used to work at restaurants and coffee shops if they are mildly pleasant. During the holidays, I easily drop 100% tips at like a small sandwich shop.
I'm definitely part of the problem with tipping. But it makes me feel good to give a small coffee worker $5 for their hard work.
You're not at all part of the problem. The problem is entirely concentrated in the employers' unwillingness to pay workers a living wage. It's not like they'd start if you stopped tipping; they'd be legally required to backfill some of the shortfall, but not enough that the person could actually survive.
Rest assured. You are not a part of the problem.
As someone who has done tipped labor before: the bigger problem is the entitlement of the people who come to expect tips and negatively judge anyone who doesn't.
I once got shat on for saying I reduce my typical tip of 25%+ down to 15% for waiters who were particularly bad at interactions, in a thread where a bunch of waiters were patting themselves on the back for forcing bad-but-fast interactions that allowed them to give the appearance of service.
Such as avoiding eye contact, ignoring gestures from a distance, and leaving a table fast to give them as little time as possible to put in follow-up requests, or waiting until someone's mouth was full or with a glass up so they couldn't elaborate, and some other stuff I don't care to remember.
I was called "shitty" for "witholding tips".
That's so sad, you weren't even doing a "No tip" just a "reduced tip." Like, isn't that how tipping is supposed to work?
I've faced it too, coworkers would tell me things like "we have a spray bottle with water so you can look like you're sweating and working really hard and more likely to get tips." Cool, because gaslighting people for money isn't fraudulent or scammy at all??
The entitlement is crazy. I remember literally arguing "it's not their responsibility to cover the gaps in our pay that our employer refuses to cover" and them acting like I was crazy to expect our employer to pay us a living wage when we could be raking in cash from tips.
Seriously, the tips were insane, but it wasn't enough for these people. We could be getting enough in tips to be making $30+/hour each night, but apparently that's not enough and entirely the responsibility of the people who come to our restaurant.
Yeah, I'm pretty convinced that the worst tipping culture comes from the people who act like not getting a tip is fucking blaspheme that should be punished by God himself.
Yeah, like I've always tipped the "standard" (15% here) as the minimum in the worst cases, my standard is 20-25% or more depending on the bill and time of service, et cetera; and they still had their panties in a wad over the idea that their brilliant shortcuts weren't that brilliant and that someone might still see through them or at least appropriately judge their service over them, intentional or not.
edit: at the time it was 25% or more; I've only adjusted it slightly because I don't make as much anymore, and even then it's mainly when it's a large bill, and I'm by myself, and either the service was just sub-par, or it was a very fast but expensive meal. Good eating is my vice.
I don't enjoy restaurants. For travel only. Rather just cook it myself.
Lots of jobs fully need a living wage and are for spare cash mainly. Your son delivering papers certainly doesn't. I think we need to evaluate in that some.
"let's continue to devalue labor because some margin cases might 😱 end up with disposable income derived from a more fair compensation for that value"
Oh no some kid might be doing pretty well for a month or so better grind everyone into poverty so boomers like @zippy have it fair
There are a great number of jobs that pay a living wage. Working on a convenience store or Walmart does not need to be one.
And a living wage does not mean you should be able to live alone with your own kitchen and bathroom without roommates. Something past generations certainly need to do. Those single member working families that were paid s high wages typically worked in a mine or a higher paid job. No one could work at the convenience store and support a family alone.
So you think the parents of younger employees should subsidize Walmart's business?
Even if you say that's fine, there's a deeper problem.
Let's look at the most recent census: as of 2022, there are about 20 million people in the US between the ages of 15 and 19. Now that particular range is a little young, but that's the breakdown the census gives us; and the cohorts on either side are about the same, so we can probably assume pretty safely that there are also about 20 million people in the US between the ages of 16 and 20 as well.
Since the end of the pandemic, about 20 million people in the US are getting paid below the almost-living wage of $15/hr. Cool, problem solved then, right?
Except no. The demographics are all over the place. First of all, not everyone between the ages of 16 and 20 are employed full time; in fact, almost 60% of them are not. Which means that, of those 20 million people making below $15/hr, only about 8 million are kids under the age of 20 who could reasonably expect to be able to live with their parents. Which means that 12 million of the people who are getting paid less than poverty wages for full time work are fully adults. That's five percent of the US population.
"Ok so get roommates" you say. But the housing stock isn't set up for that; in order to pay appreciably less in rent, you have to cram more than one person into a space originally only meant for one; often this is not allowed by the property. Plus, when you're talking about people over the age of 20 (particularly once you approach 25), you're increasingly talking about people with children; particularly in the demographic that works at a low-wage hourly job. In most cases, including roommates in that scenario would be inconvenient at best; and prohibited or even unsafe at worst.
"No one could work at a convenience store and support a family alone" you say—but again your assertion doesn't line up with reality. According to a BLS report from 1975, "basic rates for grocery store employees averaged $5.19 on July 1, 1975"—that's $29.46 in today's dollars, and about 75% of the median household income across the country. Couple that with the fact that housing prices adjusted for inflation have more than doubled since the 1980s while wages have stagnated (median household income in 1970 was a little over half of the median home price; today it's less than a fifth), and you see that, yes, a head-of-household could indeed have supported a family on a grocery store worker's income. It wouldn't have been easy, they wouldn't have lived in luxury, but they would've been safely lower-middle class.
It's also important to realize that when it was originally proposed, the minimum wage was intended to be a living wage. Roosevelt said, "It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By 'business' I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white-collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living."
(Sources are CPI, BLS, and the Census Bureau.)
Minimum wage in 1975 was around 2 dollars and many rentals are two rooms or more. Grocery store may have averaged higher as most included meat cutters on prepared products and I bet that includes management. The shelve stocker likely getting 2 dollars an hour.
Ya let us value that the same as a guy working in a mine or someone developing software. Get serious people. We are paying to subsidize someone to work at Walmart is because we choose to do this. And why wouldn't a person want to work a higher value job if the government is willing to top them up to a higher rate?
Ok buddy. If you're not willing to have this discussion in good faith then neither am I. To wit: I made some points with data and included some examples as demonstration. You're hung up on the examples and refuse to think about the points or the data as a result.
A living wage means exactly that boomer.
Not a boomer but not all jobs are valuable enough not do they need to be to be paid a living wage. Your 16yo babysitter doesn't need to be paid a living wage while she lives at home. It is goofy how people think like this.
Boring lies
we literally had a bunch of underpaid minimum wage employees being pressured to work and take the risk on getting infected through the pandemic because they were essential to the fucking economy and logistics of our daily lives, yet we don't want to recognize that as essential anymore because someone else has brainwashed you into it for no reason you've been able to elaborate. The 16-year-old needs to be compensated at the same rate as someone who does it for a living, proportional to the hours they work. It's kinda wild how you're angling to argue for underpaid child labor. This guy's gotta be one dusty mf to think like that.
All jobs are needed from banking to Street cleaners. Not all jobs are equal and pay reflects that. And many jobs are simply extra for those not after living wages. It is silly to think that a 16 living at homes needs enough money to pay for rent of his own place plus all utilities plus all food and boarding. Get serious.
I mean, is this 16-year-old working full time in this half-assed scenario of yours? Get serious.
Except then if he is not working full time, then is just extra money to him. Isn't after a living wage is he so justifying some extravagant wage that people that do support families and have full time positions need.
It's crazy how your English got worse to the point of making no discernible counter-argument once you're backed into a corner
Your go to is delivering papers is telling. I will send you a fax about it later.
You do realize this is still a job and it still exists or is it not important enough for your to consider it one?
You are such a witty person. Seriously that is really witty. I never heard anyone suggest fax before. Where did you develop that skill or come up with such a novel expression? Do you get to say that often? It must be a real exciting moment when you can fit that into a conversation?
So many questions.
I do the same. It is one of the few things that really cheers me up sometimes.
I don't necessarily do it with tips, because I don't really know those people, but I have a similar situation. I make good money at work and am very lonely/isolated in my social life, so I don't have a lot of places to spend my money. But around the holidays I like giving big expensive gifts to my family and the few other important people in my life. They always think it's overboard in terms of what I spend but I just really like the feeling that my money is going to make someone happy since it doesn't really do much for me. I make sure to remind them that I'm not keeping score and not expecting them to give me something of equal value. I just like the experience of gift-giving.