# The US tipping system poisons the eating out well **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2007, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430 "2007-05-24T23:58:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/141 "2024-10-11T00:17:30Z")
As DrDeth suggests, these cites are less than convincing, but regardless of how it originated, the practice of tipping in the present day, by and large, is not a classist practice. A consumer has every right to to adjust their tip based on the level of service, and it doesn’t (usually) have anything to do about feelings of superiority, it has to do with whether they are pleased with how they are treated. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/142 "2024-10-11T00:21:03Z")
Having lived in Asia for decades now, I really like having the restaurant pay the servers and building that cost into the prices. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/143 "2024-10-11T02:45:03Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Read your cite “Some have argued that…” _Some have argued_ that the earth is flat. > > This is part of some writers taking _everything_ they dont like- police, gun, whatever, and saying it originated with slavery. They have been wrong 100% of the time. You don’t like the wikipedia generic. Ok. > **[The Land of the Fee : Throughline](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/22/980047710/the-land-of-the-fee)** > > Tipping is a norm in the U.S. But it hasn't always been this way. A legacy of slavery and racism, tipping took off in the post-Civil War era. The case against tipping had momentum in the early 1900's, yet what began as a movement to end an... > [@](#): > > _Throughline’s_ Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei spoke to Nina Martyris, a journalist who [has written about the history of tipping](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/30/457125740/when-tipping-was-considered-deeply-un-american) in the United States, to find out how tipping—once deemed a “cancer in the breast of democracy”— went from being considered wholly un-American to becoming a deeply American custom. > > (Snip) > > Suddenly there were millions of young men, old men, young women, older women who now were free, but had no jobs. They didn’t have land. They weren’t educated because they never got a chance to be educated. And at about this time, restaurant owners began to hire them in their restaurants as restaurant workers. And they didn’t pay them, because the tipping system had come in. And they had to make their wage through tips. > > (Snip) > > MARTYRIS: The Pullman Car Company was started by George Pullman. He was an engineer in Chicago, and he saw that trains were very uncomfortable. So he designed this nice posh carriage, you know, like business class. One of the big perks was to have a porter there to assist you with your baggage, to smile, to make your bed, to amuse your kids, to answer the bell when you rang it. And this growing American middle class who wanted to travel now that the war was over, this was like a big thing for them to go by train and to have all their needs met. Because they couldn’t afford to have a servant or staff in their house, but they had it on the train. And who did Pullman hire for his porters? Only Black men. And not just Black men, Southern Black men. Why? He says because the plantation, these are his words, ‘has more or less trained them to be pleasing to the customer.’ So they were paid a wage. They were paid $27.50 a month. Nobody could live on that wage - the rest of it was made up in tips. And that became the place where tipping really began to spread, because the Pullman cars traveled all across the country. > > (Snip) > > MARTYRIS: Many of the comments in the media about tipping bring out the racist values of the time. For instance, a journalist named John Speed, writing in 1902, recalled, “Negroes take tips. Of course, one expects that of them. It is a token of their inferiority. But to give money to a white man was embarrassing to me. I felt defined by his debasement and civility.” What he’s saying is, if you’re a Negro, if you’re Black, to accept a tip is OK because civility is a token of inferiority, but to be a white man and accept a tip is unpardonable. Or > [@](#): > > The Dark History Of Tipping In America > BY CAROLYN OSORIO > MARCH 23, 2024 1:30 PM EST > > (Snip) > > However, the anti-tipping movement ultimately struggled to keep up its momentum in the U.S. in the face of companies who saw new ways to offset their labor costs. Stephen Zagor, a professor at Columbia Business School, explained to CNBC that “economically, companies really liked the opportunity to not have to pay for labor.” Lobbying on the part of businesses, and later on, corporations, helped to ensure that any legal pushback to tipping was ultimately quashed. > > Tipping took root post-slavery > > While the outcome of the Civil War, and the eventual constitutional amendment that followed, formally ended the institution of slavery in America, it didn’t end the oppression of Black Americans. Notably, there was a lack of economic or administrative support for those who were newly freed, which allowed many to be wrongfully taken advantage of. Companies, in particular, saw a financial opportunity in taking advantage of the labor of these typically under-educated and low-income people. > > In fact, the job opportunities available to newly freed slaves were extremely limited (and typically very low-paying), with the only real options being sharecropping and working as servants. With this in mind, there were, technically, a few customer-facing jobs available to freed slaves, such as a waiter or a railroad porter. However, these specific positions are a big part of the tipping culture we have today. You see, working as a waiter or railroad porter often required freed slaves to agree to not be paid by their employer. > > The agreement was, instead, that guests would tip these workers to make up their wages. This removed the burden of companies paying their own employees and instead placed the responsibility of supplementing a worker’s income on to customers. As Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley explained to Time, “These industries demanded the right to basically continue slavery with a $0 wage and tip.” The one industry, in particular, that really drove the institutionalization of tipping that we still experience today was, unsurprisingly, the railroad industry. Read More: [The Dark History Of Tipping In America](https://www.moneydigest.com/1540952/dark-history-tipping-in-america/) > [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > regardless of how it originated, the practice of tipping in the present day, by and large, is not a classist practice. A consumer has every right to to adjust their tip based on the level of service, and it doesn’t (usually) have anything to do about feelings of superiority, it has to do with whether they are pleased with how they are treated. It’s true most people don’t think tipping is classist these days. American culture shifted mentality about tipping in the 20th century. Businesses like shifting the part of the expense for workers onto the customers after the negotiated price. Consider that when the first minimum wage law was written, waiters were left out because of tip culture. And although there have been modifications since to force a minimum wage baseline for these workers, there still is a loophole driven by the same premise of shifting the cost of the workers from the business to the customer _after_ the negotiated price. Arguments that tipping helps the customer ensure good service are shown to be untrue. One class of customers are aware of how little servers make and that tips are baked in to their expected pay. Thus many people tip 18% or 20% (the current “average” or nominal tip) regardless of service. Other people don’t like being strong-armed, so don’t tip or don’t tip much. But research shows how much costumers tip is based more on other factors like sex or age or hairstyle of the server. A pretty young woman makes more in tips than an older, dumpy woman or a man. Cleavage gets more cash. Now what jobs get tipped? Restaurant and bar servers, hotel and airport porters, taxi drivers, hair stylists, yard workers, newspaper delivers, and massage therapists. Who isn’t tipped? Nurses, physical therapists, dental hygienists, auto mechanics. Why not? They are doing personal service, too. Their pay is part of the negotiated or pre-stated bill. Their quality of service is expected. Their employers hold them accountable. We don’t tip our doctor, lawyer, dentist, or pilot. Don’t you want to ensure they will do a good job? Education, professional, blah blah blah. How about _class_? We don’t tip grocery store checkers. Admittedly that’s a shrinking profession as stores have found a more effective way to shift the expense onto the customer - self-checkout. Tipping is an unfair system. It’s unfair to expect customers to pay more than the listed price. It’s unfair to expect workers to rely on clueless customers to ensure they get fair pay. It’s unfair to tell business owners to ensure their employees get minimum wage when the majority of that pay can be a cash transaction that the employer never sees. It’s unfair for employees to bust their ass and still make less than the person next to them that slacks off because she is a pretty teenager. It’s unfair to a waiter to start serving a table and their shift end before the bill is paid. Sure, if the tip is added to a card it can be traced to the right person, but some people prefer to tip in cash. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/144 "2024-10-11T04:07:27Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > You don’t like the wikipedia generic. Ok. Yep, those sort of writers. They dont like tipping, so they made up a bogus link to tipping. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2024, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/145 "2024-10-15T23:44:50Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yep, those sort of writers. They dont like tipping, so they made up a bogus link to tipping. I think you’re maybe being too sweeping in your skepticism here. There seems to be little doubt that, for instance, at the start of the 20th century when the US public controversy (and legislative regulatory attempts) about tipping reached a peak, the perception of tipping was very heavily racialized, although its practice in commercial establishments in the northern US originated in imitation of European customs. The journalist John Speed [wrote in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1902:](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030737120&seq=124) > [@](#): > > Everyone who has traveled in Europe knows that it is almost necessary to pay one’s way twice over. A traveler pays his fare from place to place, and in addition tips the guards and the porters; he pays his bill at the hotel, and scatters small change right and left among the waiters and chambermaids […] > > It had its origin in Europe, where now it is universal and quite a matter of course. […] In Paris, particularly at the restaurants, there is an established tariff for tips. The waiters getting these regularly receive no wages, or very small wages, from the proprietor […] > > In New York at this time the tipping custom is as well established as in Europe. The same is the case in the other large cities. In my time it has become much more general. I remember when I came North for the first time I had never known any but negro servants. Negroes take tips, of course; one expects that of them—it is a token of their inferiority. But to give money to a white man was embarrassing to me. I felt defiled by his debasement and servility. […] Tips go with servility, and no man who is a voter in this country by birthright is in the least justified in being servile. It’s a fact that in much of the post-Civil War US, especially in the agricultural South, there was strong economic and political pressure to restrict Black employment opportunities and keep Black workers’ wages low. The prevailing Southern economic model didn’t flip from slave labor to a free labor market overnight, or even over the course of decades; [legislation restricting Black workers’ autonomy helped artificially depress their wages.](https://www.aei.org/articles/exploitation-in-the-jim-crow-south-the-market-or-the-law/) And employment where they were dependent for much of their compensation on individual tips helped keep their workforce docile and deferential. So there seem to have been two significant trends in the entrenchment of tipping customs in the early 20th-c. US, possibly with regional spheres of influence. One was the postbellum and especially post-Reconstruction efforts by the white majority in the South to keep Black Americans as a low-paid and tractable workforce primarily in agriculture and service jobs; and the other was the spread of European social and commercial customs, strengthened by the influx of European immigrant workers especially in Northern cities. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2024, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/146 "2024-10-15T23:54:27Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It had its origin in Europe, where now it is universal and quite a matter of course. […] In Paris, particularly at the restaurants, there is an established tariff for tips. The waiters getting these regularly receive no wages, or very small wages, from the proprietor […] Read your cite. It started in Europe, where there was little history of slavery in those nations. There was tipping in colonial America. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/147 "2024-10-16T00:03:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Read your cite. Read my post. I acknowledged that tipping became more widespread in the US in imitation of European customs. But it’s also valid to say that the American exploitation of Black workers post-Civil War, partly through irregular gratuity-based compensation in more menial and precarious jobs, played a not insignificant role in bolstering the tip system. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/148 "2024-10-16T04:41:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > where there was little history of slavery in those nations They had serfs and indentured servants. And slaves. Europe didn’t import a lot of slaves from Africa, they preferred white slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/149 "2024-10-27T09:35:10Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Now, they want a tip for handing you a bag and ringing your bill. I don’t like it either, but if the justification for tipping is to compensate for sub-minimum wages, then counter service is just as deserving of a tip as table service. Restaurants should stop pretending that tips are for good service By the way, the last time I was prompted for a tip on the credit card machine, the options were 25, 30, and 35 percent ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/150 "2024-10-27T12:07:53Z")
> [@Orville\_mogul](#): > > I don’t like it either, but if the justification for tipping is to compensate for sub-minimum wages, then counter service is just as deserving of a tip as table service. Except that counter service is generally not paid the sub-minimum direct wage. I’m not going to say that there is no shady employer that does it, but that sub-minimum requires that the person regularly receives tips and that they receive enough tips to bring them up to the ordinary minimum wage. So maybe the person who handles your takeout order in Applebee’s might get that sub-minimum , but the person behind the counter at Subway or the person at a beer stand at a baseball stadium who hands people cans of beer shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/151 "2024-10-27T23:21:13Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > The customer has every right to decide how a service was performed. See, I don’t agree with that. The customer’s right to decide anything begins and ends with their decision whether or not to return to the establishment on a later date. The moment you step into a place and make your order, you agreed on a price, and that’s the price you pay. Myself, I always tip according to the custom of the land, never more, never less, no matter how good or how bad the service was. If I didn’t enjoy my experience, that’s my problem. I still got food, so I’ll still pay. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/152 "2024-10-28T03:30:18Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The moment you step into a place and make your order, you agreed on a price, and that’s the price you pay. To an extent. If the food/service is awful, you can complain to the manager and ask that a menu item be comped- once we got the whole bill and a free desert comped. But that was the managers choice. Of course the customer controls the tip. Not to long ago, my buddy and i ate at one of my favorite restaurants - but there was no blue cheese dressing for the salad, his food was subpar, and the usual free breadsticks were now charged for. I complained on their page on Facebook, they IMed me, and they agreed, and send me a gift card that more than covered our meals. Again- my option to complain, their option to make me happy. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/153 "2024-10-28T11:47:32Z")
> [@Orville\_mogul](#): > > I don’t like it either, but if the justification for tipping is to compensate for sub-minimum wages, then counter service is just as deserving of a tip as table service. Then, THAT is the problem that should be solved. I will say, though, that I find tipping is more palatable when a fixed percentage is added to the bill because then EVERYONE is being taxed equally for tip service. ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/154 "2024-10-28T13:06:47Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The moment you step into a place and make your order, you agreed on a price, and that’s the price you pay. I generally agree with that, but the tip is outside of that. I pay the price listed on the menu for the food, and there are options to deal with that as noted by DrDeth. The tip is the price I pay for the service of bringing the food, and you can adjust that based on how pleased you are with the service. I don’t adjust my tip based on how good or bad the food is, since that is outside the control of the server. I base it solely on how good the service is. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/155 "2024-10-28T13:10:15Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > . I don’t adjust my tip based on how good or bad the food is, since that is outside the control of the server. But it is under the control of the restaurant owner, who hired the chef, so why don’t you do that too? In other words, why do you have the right to control the quality of the service, but not the right to control the quality of the food? Or the quality of the decor? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/156 "2024-10-28T13:17:34Z")
Because the price I actually agreed to pay is the one on the menu - I can’t agree to pay a price that I never see. And also, if I tip x% no matter what, that means I don’t tip more for especially good service ( I tip - but I hate the whole concept of it and would much rather the prices went up and tipping was eliminated. Apparently, I’m in the minority.) ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/157 "2024-10-28T13:18:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > why do you have the right to control the quality of the service, but not the right to control the quality of the food? Or the quality of the decor? As for the food, I think you do to a certain extent. You can complain if your steak is too well done and ask them to make you a new one. You can ask for food to be taken off the bill. You can complain on social media and maybe they send you a gift card as DrDeth stated. As for decor, you know that going in. It is pretty static and you can either accept it or not when you arrive. If there is dried food caked against the walls and my shoes are sticking to the floor, I’m probably walking right back out after I arrive. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/158 "2024-10-28T14:29:15Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Because the price I actually agreed to pay is the one on the menu - I can’t agree to pay a price that I never see. And also, if I tip x% no matter what, that means I don’t tip more for especially good service ( I tip - but I hate the whole concept of it and would much rather the prices went up and tipping was eliminated. Apparently, I’m in the minority.) And if you pay a fixed tip, that price is in the menu too, for all effects and purposes. Besides, I don’t really know what “especially good service” is, anyway. I don’t want servers to bend over backwards for me, and I don’t want the to treat me better than any other customer; that’ll just make me feel uncomfortable. I just want them to show up and do their job, which basically is all I want from anyone. I think the bottom line is, the servers don’t work for me. I don’t want them acting like they work for me. Tipping just confuses things - muddles the relationship. I’m not their employer, the restaurant is, and their job is to do whatever is best for the restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/159 "2024-10-29T17:39:08Z")
> [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > and my shoes are sticking to the floor, I’m probably walking right back out after I arrive. no, you’re not walking anywhere. 😲 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430/160 "2024-10-30T15:38:22Z")
15 years in the industry has taught me the tip reflects the generosity of the giver not the attention and professionalism of the receiver. It’s good for big shots who what to flex in front of a crowd of friends or lonely guys looking for any female attention. It’s understandably hard on morale for a small team of broke-ass college kids. Subway and the like have poisoned the well far more. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-us-tipping-system-poisons-the-eating-out-well/405430.md?page=9)