Should tipping be a different % in a state where employers have to pay at least minimum wage?

Question

Thanks to Yahoo posting some tipping questions on their home page, I feel more educated about tipping in restaurants. But a lot of people made the point that servers deserve big tips because they only make $2-3 per hour. What about states like Washington where even the waitresses make the state minimum wage of $7.93 per hour?

P.S. I'm not trying to be cheap. I'm just pointing out that if that is the argument for tipping a large percentage that so many people made rather than an actual service-based tip then it should be less in states where servers are paid more.

Answer 1

Well, think about it. The state minimum wage for someone in Indiana ($5.15 an hour) is not the same as the state minimum wage for someone in California ($7.50 an hour). Servers in Indiana get paid ($2.13 an hour). In California, servers get paid the same minimum wage as anybody else. Doing the math. Servers in Indiana get paid three dollars less per hour then servers in California neglagent of the difference in minimum wage. A server in california who pulls a ten hour shift on a Saturday (as servers often do) will make thirty dollars more then a server in Indiana, before taxes. Is the restaurant owner in California going to eat the higher overhead. NO, he will charge more for a meal then the same restaurant in Indiana to compensate.

If logic prevails, you are paying a higher cost for the meal due to this difference. You are paying for service a bit more in your meal, to balance it out, you tip a lower percantage.

I am a server.

Answer 2

Tipped employee wage is not determined by the cost of living - your state legislature determines how much (if anything) you make over the federal minimum wage. I live in Chicago, IL and I know that the cost of living in the city is higher than in a rural area of Washington - in fact right now our gas prices are the highest in the country. (but I digress)

In Chicago, I last made $3.90 an hour as a server. No matter where you live, you can't live on that. If I had been making 7.93 per hour, I would not have been so bummed out when I got bad tips and gave good service.

Honestly, I would probably tip a similar percentage no matter where I visited. It's funny though - tourists frequently tip poorly because they know they will never return and don't care. (I'm not talking about non-American tourists)

Some people might assume that those making a higher hourly wage will not work as hard - this is probably not very true. I have worked places that did not add gratuity to parties of 8 or more because they thought that with an automatic gratuity, the server would be lazier. In reality, you can not wait on a party of 8 and be lazy - especially if you're doing other things at the same time.

Answer 3

Yes, I think this makes a difference, especially if the service is bad. If you are eating at a place where the servers get $2-3 an hour, I would still tip about 10% even if the service totally stunk since no one can possibly live on $2 an hour. On the other hand, if I was eating at a place where they made $8/hour, I would tend to not leave much of a tip at all if the service was completely lousy. On the flip-side, if the service was superb, I would be willing to leave an HUGE tip to the server who makes only $2-3 an hour. And since Washington state was specifically mentioned and someone said that tipping should still remain the same since cost of living is higher there, I must say that that is totally not true at all! I've been a Washington state resident for 25 years, but am currently living in Pennsylvania while attending school. I have several friends at school that work as servers for $2.50 an hour, but the cost of living here is FAR, FAR more. My husband and I pay more for our dinky one-bedroom apartment here in PA than we do for our mortgage on our 3-bedroom home in WA. Jobs in Washington on average pay much, much more than here even though cost of living is much higher here. As others have said, remember that tipping is a reward for good service...but also keeping in mind what the base-pay rate is a good idea too.

Answer 4

This has been a sore spot for me for many years . First of all I do tip but I resent the fact that for years owners have been able to get away with paying servers and employees minimal wages because of tips . Some places even add them into the final total of your bill and I will not set foot into such places .
I am not cheap and I do leave a good tip when I have received good service .
There are even places that do not pay a wage and the servers depend on tips totally for there lively hood .. this is totally wrong , and if you check the menu you will probably find that to feed a family of 4 would take a weeks wages .
Percentages are a rule of thumb and over the years has been accepted as an unwritten law in the hospitality business and again I feel that the owners of these places should start paying there employees a decent wage and maybe smoke a few less Cuban cigars and buy an Impala instead of a Cadillac ..

Answer 5

wait staff have always been exempt from minimum wage legislation because they make tips. if you are a good server in a decent restaurant, you can make significantly more than the minimum wage with your tips. and since tip income is basically self-reported to the IRS, you come out ahead from a tax standpoint too. i had heard that the IRS was assessing taxable income now to wait staff at some percentage of receipts but i don't know the details. when i was in college, i waited tables at a pizza parlor. the hourly wage was $2.01 but with tips, i was easily bringing in $15-25 per hour and only paying tax on $5. so if your employees can depend on tipping to supplement the lower hourly wage, then i guess you can pay less. what other institution besides food service has that type of tipping structure?

Answer 6

hmmm, this is a hard question to answer. I personally do not think it is a diners responsibility or obligation to know the base wage of a server compared to other servers. if it were, then the logical solution would be for every restaurant to post what base wage they pay their servers so the diner could plan to tip accordingly.

It is all about the service. If my lawn guy mows my lawn and does not make the effort to miss my flowers or trim the hedges, he will not get as much as if he had done those things, regardless of how much everyone else is paying him, or how much a regular landscaping firm pays thier employees.

this is a very simplistic example, but hopefully it provides some context. basically tipping is about the service, nothing else.

Answer 7

My personal opinion is that waiters and waitresses should be paid minimum wage no matter what. The government should also not require them to report their tips either. Why tax money that an employer isn't paying them?? Most of those who do wait tables are young and trying to work their way through college, or they have made waiting tables a career and are trying to support a family. Even though these people will be making more money, the same prinicples still apply:

1. If your waiter is lousy, don't tip. Tell the manager. If he isn't a good waiter and isn't attentive, he'll be fired if his actions become habitual.

2. if your waiter was great, then tip him a lot (or however much you feel is necessary). If he is a good waiter, then he'll have even more money at the end of his shift.

Answer 8

I consider 15% standard here in CA where we have a high minimum wage and servers are guaranteed $7.50 an hour before tips. I am, however, much more willing not to tip at all for bad service than I might be elsewhere. If I have to go looking for my server to get a refill, my check at the end of the meal, etc. it will lower their tip. If they do a lousy job or are rude, they can have their minimum wage, but they've not earned anything else.

Answer 9

It would depend on the service you get. If the waitress was good at her job and you received good service then you should leave them a fair wage irregardless of what they make. As a former waitress who made only 2.13 an hour I can remember really appreciating the big tips, cause I knew my check based on my hours wasnt going to cover much. I'm sure those waitress who get paid more hourly work just as hard as other waitresses.

Answer 10

No matter where your located you should be tipping above 20%. At most restaurants the server doesn't see that full tip, because of tip outs. The server is tipping the bus boy and food runner a percentage of all tips, so in this case the restaurant I work in the tip out is 2% for food runners and 2.5% for buss boys, so that's 4.5% of the check that goes straight to tip out. so if you tip 15% the server walks home with 10.5% of your tip, now at the end of the night we depend on good tippers to balance out bad tippers to leave with an average tip. so no matter what the server is being paid by the restaurant, that pay is to cover the side work that is extensive and involves a lot of labor and up keep through out the night. so tip well, always no matter if you had poor service, look at how busy the server is. Everyone has a bad night, and sometimes it is out of there control if they don't get everything you need. being weeded is not fun. So when a server gets stiffed on a check they have to still pay the buss boy and food runner. That means your server just payed to wait on you.