Abolish Tipping

This past week, Boston Globe columnist Tom Keane put forth a well-reasoned argument regarding the abolition of tipping in restaurants in favor of a fixed service charge. Keane is right: For a more just economy and a better culture of customer service, tipping should be abolished.

Tipping culture creates a system in which servers are functionally cheated of their right to a minimum wage. Unlike other workers, waiters and waitresses can legally be paid at a minimum of just over two dollars an hour, with the assumption that they will make the rest in tips. In theory and law, servers can be compensated by their employers if their tips fail to garner them the regular minimum wage. Large numbers of servers, however, appear to be earning well below the federal minimum wage, with many living in poverty. This could be due to a power differential, or perhaps workers are unaware that they can ask for enough money, and so consequently end up not making a minimum wage. Tipping exploits these workers by enabling employers to pay less than the legal amount, knowing that they will often not have to make up the difference.

As Keane points out, tipping is not even the most effective method to ensure good service. First, because tips come at the end of the meal, there is no way by which an employee can rectify his or her behavior or better suit it to customers’ desires. Second, because customers are often not regulars, it is hard to foresee those desires appropriately. Third, most people have a general percentage of amount that they tip; seniors and students, for instance, traditionally tip less than middle-aged men, so waiters and waitresses might be more inclined to provide disproportionate service to those who are likely to give them more money. Finally, waiters and waitresses may recognize that those who are paying more for their meals will consequently pay bigger tips, and so might serve them faster as well. The claim that tipping culture engenders better service seems dubious at best.

It is critical that employers at the very least meet the federal minimum wage, which itself is already in many places too low. A living wage is key, and as long as tipping allows employers to shirk their responsibility to provide this wage, it should not remain a policy in the United States. Rather, it should be replaced by a policy like a fixed service charge that gives workers the proper amount of payment while concurrently does just as much as tipping to ensure that good service is provided.