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Comment by ug02fast | Hacker News Reader

I don't tip and never will.

I hope you don't use any services where tipping is expected. Otherwise, you're just rude and taking advantage of people.

Employers are rude and taking advantage of people. A person paying what they are asked and stated to pay is not being rude and taking advantage of people.

When I was younger, there was tipping for waiters. Now, if someone hands you a drink, they swivel an iPad around and present an option for a 25% tip.

The system is unjust, and you are paying less than what is expected of you, and you benefit from this because your meals are partially subsidized by people around you who are tipping, so you benefit and others suffer by your decision.

Conversely, the decision to tip perpetuates an unjust system that relieves employers of the duty to properly compensate their staff, thus throwing the responsibility on the people around you, for the purely selfish reason of conformity. If nobody tipped, ever, we would still have wait staff. The only way to break the cycle is to stop tipping.

> The only way to break the cycle is to stop tipping.

As a coordinated social movement, yes. However, if you are only an individual person making an individual choice to not tip, then you are making a purely selfish act to benefit from the unjust system.

>then you are making a purely selfish act to benefit from the unjust system

So what is the downside for that individual?

Being ridiculed and ostracized by their social circle for being cheap (assuming comfortable personal finances).

If a co-worker simply refuses to tip as a matter of "principle" I will simply defer from associating with that individual in restaurants/bars.

Well, not everyone, I wouldn't redicule or ostracize my social circle for not tipping.

While I do tip waiters since that is the norm, I don’t tip others. I also don’t purchase food delivery since the cost to quality ratio is ridiculously high to me, especially considering the tips people now expect.

But the system is unjust because people keep rewarding those who make the system unjust. Mainly employers and the tip receivers who like to evade taxes. Both of these can be fixed by greatly increasing minimum wages or implementing a universal basic income.

I don’t think low-paid workers receiving cash tips should be paying much in taxes to begin with.

Instead, I think the system should require me and others like me to pay more in taxes.

Evading taxes with cash tips for food service workers is not the way to accomplish that. That is accomplished with marginal income tax rates.

> Evading taxes with cash tips for food service workers is not the way to accomplish that.

I can only choose among the options I am given, and the ideal system is not one of them. I can either choose to tip someone, and maybe they don’t pay taxes on it, which increases the tax burden for everyone else, or I can choose not to tip someone, which means that person suffers just for the unfortunate coincidence that I am their customer.

Let’s say that the normal tip is $5. If I choose to tip someone and they don’t pay taxes, perhaps their marginal tax rate is 12% and this is 60¢ in lost tax revenue.

Given a choice between “60¢ in federal tax revenue” or “$5 in income for a low-wage worker”, the correct moral choice becomes stark clear, in my mind.

The choice in your example is between $4.40 in income or $5 in income, unless I’m missing something.

Also, above you wrote that someone that doesn’t tip is being subsidized by those who do tip. Isn’t that the same with evading taxes? Why should certain lower paid jobs have to pay taxes and subsidize those in food service because they have the ability to evade taxes?

The incentives get even more screwed up when the tip receivers start advocating against non tipped wages.

> The choice in your example is between $4.40 in income or $5 in income, unless I’m missing something.

If I do tip, the person I tip gets $5 and evades paying 60¢ in taxes. If I don’t tip, that person gets $0, and presumably I get to spend that $5 on something else and the taxes will be paid.

> Also, above you wrote that someone that doesn’t tip is being subsidized by those who do tip. Isn’t that the same with evading taxes?

Yes, it is the same, but the numbers are different and the parties who benefit are different.

- If a worker earning tips doesn’t pay 60¢ in taxes, then that’s like the worker being subsidized 60¢ by everyone who does pay taxes.

- If I don’t pay a worker $5 in tips, then that’s like me being subsidized $5 by everyone who does pay tips.

I am fairly certain that the marginal utility of $5 is higher to the person I am tipping than it is to me, and the societal cost is lower, and it’s what’s expected of me. Now, why I don’t just empty my wallet for everybody I see on the street is an entirely different discussion, but the morality of the choice to tip / not tip $5 when that is the expected amount seems pretty cut and dry from where I’m standing.

I’d also say that if I discovered that one of my friends refused to tip service workers, I’d definitely file that information away in my brain as evidence that this “friend” is untrustworthy, of poor moral character, and that I may also risk embarrassment by associating with them.

I would actually say the employer is the one taking advantage of people, not the customer. They’re exploiting social pressure to get away with not paying staff a livable wage.

That goes to the heart of this argument: whose responsibility is it that the waiter is paid an acceptable wage, the patron or the manager?

You can argue about how the system should work until you are blue in the face, but the fact is that if you show up at a restaurant and don’t tip, then you are making your waiter have a bad day.

I would like to set the expectation now that I expect to be compensated 15% of your hourly wage every time you read one of my HN comments.

I assure you that I will have a bad day if you visit HN and read one of my comments without paying.

You can argue that HN should be free to read until you are blue in the face, but the fact is that if you show up in this thread and read my comment and don't pay me, then you are making me have a bad day.

You can like to set any expectation you want, but the expectation to tip waiters is an actual, real expectation and not some kind of fabrication for a thought experiment.

You could also argue that “driving on the right side of the road” is nothing more than an American social convention and choose to ignore it. Let’s face it—there is no logical justification for our society to choose driving on the right side of the road, versus the left.

Driving on the right side of the road in the US is the law, not a social convention.

Their employer will make up their wage. You don't work at Red Robin for a living.

The employer will only make up their wage to minimum. Ask any waiter whose base rate is below minimum how this works.

The problem is that this is only done when the base wage + tips over a period falls below minimum wage. So it’s less likely that the employer will make up the difference, and more likely that other people around who are following social conventions will make up the difference, and the waiter will simply earn less money on days when you show up, and you will pay less money for food, because your food is partially subsidized by people who tip.

Waiters wants tipping to stay since they make way more than typical unskilled workers with tips. Which is why you shouldn't tip, they make more than they should already. The best way to make them demand proper wages is to stop tipping until their wages are in line with typical for their kind of work.

> The best way to make them demand proper wages is to stop tipping until their wages are in line with typical for their kind of work.

Perhaps that would work if everyone did it. This would require a lot of organization, some kind of massive anti-tipping movement across our entire society, in order for it to work.

In the absence of such a social movement, the actual effect of not tipping is that you benefit and your waiter suffers. So, I guess the question is—are your actions to not tip waiters coordinated with a movement of other people with the goal of achieving change? Or are you simply cheap, and looking for a way to feel good about it?

I know I hate to be "that guy" but I've worked at restaurants with waiters. Half the time they are college kids or drug addicts. Or frankly have 0 skills whatsoever.

Regardless, not tipping is my statement of "go work in a factory if you hate minimum wage. plenty of people do it, so can you." And women especially cannot say they can't do that work. I've worked in a factory as well, FILLED with minority groups of all ages, weight, gender, and and lifestyles. Just because you're a white girl "destined for more" doesn't mean you can't ship digornios while you make ends meet.

That poor suffering waiter is free to choose any other job where he/she gets paid more. Like any other worker hating his/her job.

And if lots waiters quit their jobs, the wages will rise very quickly.

I don't live in the US, I am not talking about individual efforts. I am talking about how to end the shitty system you have in the US.

Service charges are common in many countries.

Is it fair to say the waitstaff at Red Robin don't deserve to make a living because you said so? Usually they earn a living. If you don’t tip 20%, you’re cheap and should eat at home. It doesn’t start by you ruining a server’s day by acting different than 95% of the customers in the establishment.

I do eat at home. I only go out to eat with people when that comes up. However, I despise restaurant and tipping culture altogether. I don't get why the US can't just have a culture where we can't just get fast food. There is nothing wrong with it and you don't have to bother with tipping.

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