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Doing Away with Tipping has been Talked About for Years; Why It Could Actually Happen

Written By Scott Joseph On August 24, 2015

tip jar

People have been railing against the practice of tipping for service in restaurants for as long as there have been tip jars. I recall doing a feature article in the late 1980s on a man who had started a national campaign to do away with tips. He had printed cards that he left instead of a gratuity with the check. The cards explained to the hapless server that he did not believe in the tipping strategy and that he thought the restaurateur should pay the servers a proper wage. I’m sure the servers understood his position entirely.

Obviously, that movement didn’t go anywhere. Neither have any of the other efforts to dismantle the practice of tipping that seem to crop up every year or so.

But there is a new move afoot, and this time it could take hold. This time the situation is different.

As this article in Monday’s New York Times explains, new requirements in some areas to pay a higher minimum wage to restaurant workers is prompting some owners to raise the price of the meal so that they can afford to pay the higher wage; others are simply tacking 18 or 20 percent onto the bill as a mandatory fee, taking the burden of calculating the tip off of the diner (and also removing the possibility of skimping on the gratuity or leaving a snotty card instead).

Those are two quite different structures. Higher prices on a menu can be shocking. Being told that you must leave a certain amount for the server, even if you received substandard service, can be annoying to a Americans who have been used to using cash as a rating system for, well forever. (The two methods are also quite different, I’m sure, in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service in terms of payroll taxes.)

Of course, the notion of tipping, at least as extravagantly as 20 percent, is mainly an American one. European servers do not rely on the largesse of their guests to earn a living, though gratuities aren’t entirely unknown. However, rounding up is more common than leaving a percentage of the bill.

What do you think? Will the new drive for higher minimum wages bring an end to tipping? And servers, do you like the idea of a steady paycheck, or do you see the minimum wage as a reduction in pay? Leave your comments below.

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