Seeing an uptick once again of people who are going to single-handedly save food workers by tipping them nothing. The argument is that by fighting tipping culture, they’re supporting upward movement of wages by causing extreme desperation in these poor employees whose desperation will then drive up the wages. There are several problems with this, so let’s dive in.
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Choosing not to tip as an individual doesn’t impact tipping culture. It is not going to become more or less common based on if you decide to. One things for sure though, when you don’t tip, less money is in their pocket.
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Even if you could make society stop tipping as a whole, do you think wages would correct to a livable level honestly? Plenty of workers in lots of industries are struggling with no tips whatsoever and still make just $10 an hour. By the logic that by not tipping we can raise their wages to a living level, nontipped workers at retail and fast food places should make $20 an hour. They don’t. $3 an hour + $7 tips isn’t objectively any better or worse for workers than $10 an hour flat.
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Meaningful change happens on a legislative level. We know who can set higher minimum wages: the government. We also know that we have a neoliberal president that doesn’t have all that much fight in him and a few rotten democratic senators that don’t care to raise wages at all. If you’d like this to change I highly recommend doing research and actually voting in primary elections, and organizing behind candidates that care about raising wages. If you stop tipping before these changes happen, you are just leaving an already struggling individual with less disposable income.
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A lot of people are just cheap. They want to not tip despite the lack of legislative changes but still somehow disguise it as a brave stand against tipping culture, when in reality it’s just a cheap out and doesn’t actually help anyone.
Tip for now. Vote for higher wages, maybe organize unions and labor strikes, but don’t stop tipping because you think an employer should be responsible for paying their wage. Don’t get me wrong, they should. But we also know damn well they WONT.