When you dine in to eat in Seattle, to specify. The minimum wage in the city is $21.30/hour. This applies to servers BEFORE taking tips into account, meaning that businesses must pay their wait staff this amount as a base no matter what they earn in tips.
For context, tipping has been traditionally used to pass the cost of the wait staff’s wages onto the consumer. Thus, you would traditionally feel an obligation to tip around 18-20% because they’re really not making money otherwise. But here in Seattle, we already know that they’re making a decent wage. Obviously not a comfortable one—$21.30 totals about $44k annually, assuming servers work full time, which I’ll admit they very likely don’t. For that reason, I think tipping should still be done, but at a far lower percent, ideally around 10% max.
In Europe, servers get paid sufficiently by the business, so tips aren’t expected over there. In Seattle, the situation is pretty similar. Shouldn’t we be able to tip less and have it be socially acceptable?
submitted by /u/Night_Frosty
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