 In the United States today, the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is two dollars and thirteen cents an hour, whereas the minimum wage for nontipped employees is seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. Restaurants are legally required to ensure that employees’ tips plus the employer paid wage meet or exceed the full minimum wage, but they seldom fulfill this obligation. According to the National Employment Law Project, the poverty rate among tipped employees is more than double that of the overall workforce, and more than 1 in 10 workers in tipped occupations report taking home less than the federal minimum wage. The practice of tipping began centuries ago in Europe, where British aristocrats tipped their servants for good deeds. The word “tip” came about as an acronym for the phrase “to insure promptness”. Today, proponents of tipping argue that it should be the customers’ decision whether to reward their waiters or not. A ban on tipping, they say, would hurt small businesses, lower restaurants’ profit margins, and discourage waiters from performing their jobs well. However, the current gratuity system should be banned. Relying on tips that are often arbitrary and unrelated to service quality leads to economic instability for workers, tipping is also awkward and confusing for the consumer, the global view of tipping is mostly shamed upon, and having a fair minimum wage for restaurant employees would improve the quality of service by attracting better employees, 

Tipping leads to economic instability for workers, and puts too much control in the hands of the customer. By giving the diners discretion over how much they tip their waiter, it gives them the power to influence how much that waiter takes home at the end of their shift. Because the minimum wage for tipped workers is so low, the amount of money they make during each shift fluctuates tremendously for reasons unrelated to their performance. According to the aforementioned National Employment Law Project, tipping is “notoriously erratic,” varying from shift to shift and by season, and shrinking during economic downturns. Although restaurant owners are supposed to pay their workers the difference between what they make and the full minimum wage, they do not always do so. Because it is nearly impossible to regulate this, restaurant owners often cheat their employees out of earning a true minimum wage. This makes service work in restaurants incredibly unstable for employees, and usually requires them to take second jobs for additional income. Often, employees will work part-time jobs while they pursue other careers, not being able to rely solely on what they make working in the restaurants. 

To further help the argument that tipping leads to economic instability for workers, in Adam Conover’s YouTube video entitled, “Why Should Tipping be Banned” he basically outlines the stupidity of tipping within America. He talks about how if the consumer does not tip in America then the waiter or waitress may not make over the minimum wage per hour because restaurants can give a lower minimum wage than the federal one. He explains that the system is flawed and that it shortchanges servers, it is an inconvenience to customers, and it makes the dining experience worse. He later says that it does not make sense that the customer should be the ones responsible for the pay of the waiters, Conover asks, “why don’t they just pay you a normal amount of money and make the food more expensive, I mean that’s what every business has done since the dawn of time. When you buy a pair of jeans they’re just fifty bucks, they’re not like, ‘that’ll be forty dollars and you decide” (Conover). Tipping is relatively new to our country. Paying for better service in America used to be considered an undemocratic form of bribery, but after prohibition when there was a ban on alcohol things began to change.

A ban on tipping would make it much easier for the consumer to know upfront how much they are spending, in addition to addressing fairness concerns. In a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece entitled, It’s Time for Tips to Go, restaurant critic Michael Bauer states, “It feels good to know the price on the menu is the price I’m paying, no calculating necessary. It’s civilized and the wave of the future” (Bauer). Instead of having to calculate the additional 18 to 20 percent tip, customers would be able to see what they are going to pay. Not having to add a gratuity would lessen confusion and simplify the process for the customer while preventing them from unfairly discriminating against waiters. 

Michael Lynn, professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University, has conducted research on tipping, and his data shows the link between tipping and quality of service is tenuous. For female servers, the most important factors affecting the level of tips are age, hair color, body size, and breast size. Lynn says that his research shows only a very weak correlation between quality of service and size of the tips. More often, customers base gratuities on factors that have little to do with service. On average, blonde servers receive larger tips than brunettes, and slender women receive more than heavier women. In addition, there are other irrational aspects to tipping. Because tips are based on the percentage of the total bill, a waiter carrying a ten-dollar burger gets a much smaller tip than one who carries a fifty-dollar steak. Lynn’s studies have also shown that silly gestures, like drawing a smiley face on the bill or wearing a flower in your hair, can attract larger tips. 

Another example of unfair discrimination against waiters is in an article from Cassie Jewell called, “Factors Influencing Tipping Behavior In A Restaurant." It uses survey data that analyzes a variety of factors that influence tipping behaviors. In Cassie Jewell’s article, she analyzes tipping behavior based on age, race, gender, and alcohol consumption. She states that, “a statistically significant finding was that young diners tipped an average of 6% more than middle aged diners. Also, statistically significant, White diners tipped an average of 7% more than Black diners” (Jewell 38). So basically, tipping just depends on who one gets as his or her customer. It is not based on the quality of service. If tipping were banned, the payment process would be simplified for customers, and the wait staff would be protected from arbitrary discrimination. 

There is also a book by Richard Seltzer and LeAnne Holona called, Gratuity : A Contextual Understanding Of Tipping Norms From The Perspective Of Tipped Employees, that talks about how tipping is not necessarily correlated to the quality of service. This book is based off of interviews from 425 people all across the United States. Every one of the respondents earn tips and they come from 50 different occupations. To this day, tipping remains one of the most controversial topics in America. In this study, Seltzer found that out of the people that he studied that tips are not consistent with regards to social status. The study shows that tips are not necessarily correlated to the quality of service. People tend to just conform to the social norm of tipping rather than tip rationally. The United States has the most lavish tippers in the world. It is reported that “the tipping institution is estimated to be about a $16 billion-dollar industry in the United States. Customers in U.S. restaurants tip between 8-37% for service deemed ‘excellent’; although the correlations between the tip and quality of service is relatively weak” (Seltzer xvi). 

The gratuity method, from the point of view of the rest of the world, is mostly shamed upon . Tipping is not a global practice. European and Australian service workers get paid equitably, with benefits and savings plans, and in Japan, tipping is considered insulting. In other countries, restaurants are able to attract better employees because they are able to provide them with income stability. Some argue that a ban on tipping will discourage waiters from performing well, but as with any job, they will have to provide good service to retain their jobs. Brian Keyser, owner of a Cheese and Wine cafe in New York City asserts, “People have the cynical belief that servers [won’t] do their jobs if they [are] just getting paid hourly. But, this idea is considered ludicrous in America. There are several differences in tipping in other countries. U.S. customers tip in 30 different professions, but in Iceland, they do not tip for service and in Japan tipping is considered very insulting, and in Vietnam tipping is illegal. In the United States, most of the restaurant workers are paid below the standard minimum wage because there is an expectation of receiving tips. Therefore, when a tip is not given workers do not get the amount of money they deserve for their service. 

In another article, “Should Restaurants Ban Tipping?” Zora O’Neill writes about her experience with a dinner in Amsterdam. She explains that the dinner was extremely good and the waitress was very smart and enthusiastic with her work. When their table finished their dinner, and received the bill they thought it would be courteous to tip the waitress well for doing a great job, even though they knew that tipping was not normal in the Netherlands. The waitress was disgusted by the seemingly kind gesture and threw the money back on to the table. O’Neill then goes on to talk about how sad it is that as a society in America we have to give money to show our appreciation and basically everything is based off of money. She explains that in America there is a price transparency problem and we consume based only on price alone and we do not consider the labor and other costs that were put into it. I do not think that O’Neill is trying to gain anything from the article, O’Neill is trying to spread awareness of the different mentality for tipping waiters in other countries. She wants to change the mentality of our restaurants. 

Instead of lowering the quality of service in restaurants, a ban on tipping would improve overall performance by attracting better employees. In almost every other industry, employees get paid hourly or salaries, and we don’t assume that they won’t do their jobs. The cost of a product should reflect the cost of getting that product to the customer. When you buy a shirt or a car, that’s the case. But when you buy food in a restaurant, the cost is artificially low because the customer is expected to pay for the server on their own, with a tip.” People are afraid that if they lose the discretion to reward their server with a tip, that the server won’t do their job, but the waiters will still have to perform well to retain their jobs. California Restaurant owner Jay Porter, a vocal proponent of paying restaurant workers a fair wage, stated in an interview, “I got rid of gratuities at my restaurant, and our service only got better.” By adding an 18 percent service charge to each bill, Porter was able to increase waiter compensation to twenty-five dollars an hour and pay kitchen workers more. With all employees under the same compensation structure, he reported that everyone focused on customer satisfaction. Customer and staff were happier, and the restaurant did better too. 

Proponents of tipping would argue differently, saying that it should be the customers’ decision whether to reward their waiters or not. In this article, “Tipping Actually Makes Sense” by Noah Smith, he explains the reasoning behind why tipping makes sense in America. By ending the gratuity method in America, the restaurant culture would be much closer to the global standard, but that does not necessarily mean it’s a good thing if you ask Mr. Smith. He tells us that the “basic economic theory gives us several reasons to like tipping. First, tips are under the table, which allows restaurants, servers, customers all to dodge a little bit of taxes” (Smith). So theoretically, this increases the efficiency of tipping because taxes somewhat distort the economy and it may seem unfair because it is a way of tax evasion but it is still legal. Another good reason to keep tipping would be that it can make minimum wage laws less burdensome. The federal law makes it so restaurants are able to pay their servers at a lower minimum wage, which is called a tip credit. So, if this tipping method ends then minimum wage laws may end up hurting businesses. Lastly, gratuity can be used as a reward for great service from the customer, which could mean huge tips. So basically, the traditional tipping method in America could possibly be beneficial because it creates this competitive atmosphere between restaurants, it allows for legal tax evasion, and restaurants are able to pay their servers at a lower minimum wage while the servers still maintain an income that is above the minimum wage. 

To sum up the gratuity method “Let’s Ban Tips”, by Tom Keane gives several reasons why tipping in America should be banned. He goes through different owners’ experiences with getting rid of tipping and each one had a positive outtake from it. He also goes through some of the history of how tipping was brought about in America. The idea originated in Europe and it was a symbol to many of the class differences between the people with money and the servants. He wants people to realize that there is a flaw in our system that is driven by tradition, not logic. He stands for the side that does not want tipping for waiters and waitresses. I know that he stands for this viewpoint because the entire article is going against tipping. People who are for the gratuity method, which is the traditional method for restaurants, would surely be opposed to this method. 

Finally, this topic of discussion has been up for debate for many years in America because there is a lot of research against the traditional gratuity method in the United States and there are countries who have had a lot of success without the gratuity method. That is the reason I think that banning the gratuity method in the United States would have a lot of success. Restaurants should ban tipping and raise the minimum wage for their employees. As one of the only countries that continues this trend, we are preventing growth and simply continuing tradition. If federal law eliminated gratuities and made the minimum wage universal for all employees, the prices on menus might go up, but dining out would not be any more costly without the added expense of a tip. Not having to calculate a tip would make dining out a simpler and more pleasant process for customers. Being able to rely on a fair wage would provide waiters with a stable income. Proponents of tipping fear that a ban would drive customers away because restaurants would have to increase prices, but if the ban was mandated federally and implemented universally then no restaurant would be at an unfair advantage. Additionally, eliminating gratuities would improve service quality over time by making restaurant work a more stable occupation. Consumers would be relieved of the awkward burden of calculating a fair tip and waiters would be better qualified and have greater income stability. 
