We dug into how American tipping culture got so broken, and the fight to fix it.
It turns out that your tips are subsidizing the payrolls of multi-billion dollar chains, while they pay their workers under minimum wage.
It’s a system rooted in slavery, and pushed by a wealthy restaurant owners onto the rest of us.
But there’s a growing movement to change it.
It was never not broken. It’s always been broken and flawed. It simply went from bad to worse and SUDDENLY people wake up and realize it was stupid all along. The fact people ever bought into tipping of any kind and felt it was justifiable is pathetic. Anyone who defends tipping is an idiot. Paying fair wages, expecting the same service every time, and having clear prices makes way too much sense to ignore. Tipping has variability that makes no sense and is not justified.