this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
1337 points (95.8% liked)
Microblog Memes
12298 readers
2727 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That'll show those service workers for working in the US.
Don't get me wrong I fucking hate tipping culture so much and am eternally grateful that I don't live in the US but who are you really punishing here?
If you want people to strike then support them, misleading them into thinking you’re going to be paying them for their time and labor (tipping is expected in the US, which is why in many states it’s legal to pay servers barely more than $2/hour) is just a dick move. Or just be upfront with them and tell them you’re not going to be tipping and get served accordingly. Or go to a place where non-tipped workers are employed. There are a lot of options that aren’t ‘shit on someone working for $2/hour and tell them it’s for their own good’.
And is $7.25 a livable wage in Atlanta?
Not even slightly.
But that doesn't mean it should be the customer's job to make up for the employer's abuse.
It's built into the price of the meal. It's more systemic than making the customer pay the wait staff. The profit margins on food are razor-thin, despite "offloading" wait staff salary and no one in the restaurant getting healthcare. If you're not going to tip, then don't go out to eat. Going out and not tipping exclusively hurts the staff.
How tf am I supposed to know if their minimum wage is implemented properly
Functionally no, there are a handful of restaurants in places like NYC and LA that have tried it, but part of the problem is that the servers want tips as well (you're gonna have a hard time getting rid of something which the people being affected want).
I said this elsewhere, but any job can ask for tips but that doesn't mean they're making the $2 minimum wage. The cashier at McDonalds and the Barista at Starbucks are making minimum wage. In most cities those positions are making more than minimum wage because of market competition (Ziprecruiter says that the average McDonalds employee in Atlanta makes $12/hour, not that that's a living wage either).
People who are making the $2 minimum wage generally make a lot more than that, and more than the McDonalds or Starbucks employee, because of tips. Tips are generally tax free, the positions are low skill, and if you don't like this type of work or pay you'll generally leave pretty quickly so the position is self selecting.
Here's the math for two situations: 1.) You're a bartender at a lunch pub with 12 spots at your bar, your shift is 10 am - 5 pm, you open at 11 and you'll have on average 50% of the spots taken every 30 min. 7hr x 12 spots x 50% x 2 per hour = 72 customers. The average order will be between $15 - $30 with tip being $2.25 - $4.50 or $3.375 average. So 72 customers x $3.375 + $2 x 7 hours = $257/day x 5 days = $1,285 per week on average. Of that, you only pay taxes on $70 worth.
2.) You're a waiter at an Outback Steakhouse, you have 5 tables, your shift is from 3 pm - 10 pm, you're only really getting business from ~4 - 10 pm. During those hours your tables are 3/4 full and flipping every 45 minutes. 5 tables x 6 hours x 0.75 amount full x 3/2 flip rate = 33.75 customers. On average they are spending $50 - $100 each with tips of $7.50 - $15, average $11.25. So 33.75 customers x $11.25 + 7 hrs x $2/hr = $393.68/day x 5 days = $1968.40 per week on average. Again, you're only paying taxes on $70 worth.
Now, here's the catch, this is an average and assumes the location is very successful. You might instead have a Tuesday where it's raining and you made $60 because no one came in, but then Friday the football game is on and you made $500. Maybe this restaurant isn't pulling in customers so you're not getting that kind of traffic. On paper the job can look very appealing, but in practice it typically falls short of those numbers.
Mostly correct. You do have to pay taxes on tips that the government knows about, which means any credit card tips and reported cash tips (which can be lied about of course because there's no paper trail, but reporting $0 cash tips is highly suspicious).
Remember the whole "no taxes on tips" campaign that MAGA tried to use to get more working folks on their side? That's because much/most tips are taxed.
And as someone who's spent much of my career in a tipped position, all tips should be taxed. All income should be taxed. It's what keeps society working.
Now, anyone in a tipped position should be taxed less, but we shouldn't be targeting the source of the income. Take two people; a server making $60k and a teacher making $60k. Both should be taxed less than they currently are (and billionaires taxed much much much more), but saying the server should pay less than the teacher because much of their income is tips is prioritizing the wrong thing in society. Eliminating tax on tips is wrong when the republicans proposed it, and it was wrong when democrats agreed. Lower the tax burden on lower brackets, and raise it on those in the much higher brackets. Don't target the source of the income.
Oh I understand, but the no tax on tips thing did go through. Through 2028 you can deduct up to $25k in tips. You still have to pay payroll taxes, but you will get them back when you do your taxes.
Why are you only paying taxes on $70 worth?
Asking from a place of genuinely not knowing; are there a reasonable number of places where non-tipped workers are employed in this sort of sector? If so, it might be really handy to put together a list, so people can more easily make the choice to go there, rather than stiffing staff who need the tips to survive.
It’s going to vary wildly as to who is paired expecting to be tipped and who isn’t.
I begrudgingly tip, but usually 10-15%, like it used to be. I don't buy into the current bullshit narrative of driving up the expected percentages, especially as prices rise as it is. Some might say I'm still an asshole for NoT pAyInG tHeM eNoUgH, but so be it.
So many tipped workers fight to keep being abused in this way, and I don't reward that, even if I support these post-slavery practices through cultural guilt alone.
As soon as the “no tax on tips” passed my baseline tip dropped 5%.
What about the cooks? Hostess? Other back of house staff?
Aren't back of house staff generally making minimum wage, not server wage? That's what I had the one place I worked for a bit.
You're not going to change the fundamentally broken culture of the US by punishing a few service workers. We're not talking about the current system being good or whether or not it should change, we're talking about a bunch of tourists refusing to tip.
"things like this" don't contribute to changing it all though it doesn't matter when the owner still gets theirs thats all they care about.
Workers in Europe weren't handed the rights they have, in some cases people literally died fighting for them. The only tip I have for American service workers is "unionize".
You think American workers haven't suffered and died fighting for their rights? I know this information is not exactly front and center in history books for reasons of shame and intentional obfuscation, but American worker rights history is stained in blood just as yours is.
Lmao you think we were handed this? We've been fighting for our rights to unionize for literally decades on end. Our government works with companies to literally kill us if we don't go back to work. Men women and children have died fighting for the rights we DO have.
Fuck off with this "you're only getting this because you aren't trying hard enough to unionize" bullshit. Our rights have been bled for by hundreds of thousands over the years.
Exactly, so honour the people that paid for your rights with their blood, and fight your exploiter instead of picking fights with other workers.
Don't go to the US
For many reasons.
If the servers don't get tips anymore, they might simply strike for a living wage. The current system just makes servers even more dependent with every single tip that replaces what should be a wage. Somethings gotta give, it's not the workers, and the bosses wont budge without pressure, so even if it's hard, it might be the only way something really changes for the better.
They aren't going to strike from this event. Wait staff don't have insurance or savings. Restaurant owners can't afford to pay living wages with benefits; the margins are razor-thin as-is.
Yea, the thing I don't get about the "if I don't tip the workers will unionize" crowd is that they can just not go to tipping establishments or just eat takeout. You don't have to basically steal labor from the workers. If you think "them making less money is better for the market" then just don't make them work for you and refuse to pay what is expected. Boycotting tipping establishments would help, but that doesn't get people free/less expensive stuff so they don't do that.
Even if I take them in the best faith possible, they're just exploiting the workers themselves and blaming the workers for their exploitation. In that situation they basically take the place of the bosses saying "if you want a raise go work somewhere else".
I also hate tipping culture, but it's so rude to go to another country (during a rise in fascism no less!) and act like by not following their norms you're having any effect on the culture other than making yourself look like bad.
The problem is the workers who get tips generally like it because they can potentially make a lot more than a comparable fixed wage. On a good night you can make several times over the base wage, and under-report cash tips on your taxes (or omit them entirely, but the IRS might catch that).
So a lot of workers don't want tipping to go away any more than the restaurant owners do.
Then they also have to deal with people who see through the shenanigans and refuse to tip. Fuck em.
But base wage for those positions is also significantly lower than minimum wage because the tips are expected to compensate for it, so the ceiling is higher but the floor is also lower. So refusing to tip at all does kind of make you out to be the asshole.
Unfortunately most people are just trying to survive and don't really have the time or the energy to worry about the bigger picture.
Personally, I just split the difference and refuse to tip anywhere it's not already factored into the wage structure. It's not gonna change the situation but at least it helps hold the line.
Unionise and change the situation, or lose. I'm not paying money I can't spare because people refuse to help themselves. I repeat, fuck em.
So be upfront and tell them you won’t be tipping, and get the service you’re paying for.
Shouldn't servers tell the customers how much service they should expect based on the amount they plan to give in that case then?
Those workers are the equivalent of scabs, even if they don't realize it and don't have bad intentions.
Let's say all customers just stop tipping, then the workers will be forced to find another job if the restaurants don't start paying a living wage?
Because they're definitely in a job they need tips to survive in due to the availability of other jobs that don't.
Yep the the American job market is fucked, and it will be painful to change it especially when the people in charge are paid by the oligarchs.
One less painful way of moving away from tipping culture would be something like this: gradually increasing the base salary for workers, as I recall the minimum wage is below $3 for tipped staff. And then gradually decreasing the maximum allowed tip.
But the problem is: Show me a single state where the politicians would agree and then have the balls to go through with it while the oligarchs and supreme court will do everything in their power to keep the status quo.
The restaurant will be forced to start paying a living wage or it won't have any waitstaff left.
Restaurants usually take the latter option. I’ve been to plenty of places that are down to the owner cooking and his wife serving, no hired staff at all.
Restaurants are never gonna pay more to the staff than they collect for meals sold. Most of the restaurant’s income (if they aren’t a fancy place that sells a lot of alcohol) goes toward paying for food, rent, and utilities.