Tipping in America is out of control, and we’ve got to end it

OPINION:

Mitch Hedberg, the incredible comedian who died at just 37 of a drug overdose, used to tell a great joke about the silliness of modern life.

“I bought a doughnut the other day, and they gave me a receipt. I don’t need a receipt for a doughnut. I’ll just give you the money, you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I just cannot imagine a scenario where I’d had to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend? ’Don’t even act like I didn’t get that doughnut. I got the documentation right here!’”

Here’s another thing we don’t need to bring into the doughnut transaction: a tip. I went into Dunkin’ Donuts the other day and got a cruller. When the server rang it up, the screen gave me the option to leave a tip: 15%, 20% or 25%. 

Now, I do feel bad that you’re working for minimum wage at a doughnut shop. But it’s not my job to subsidize your employer’s low wages with my own money. You just got the doughnut from … right over there, put it in a bag right here and gave it to me. Is that really tip-worthy? The obvious answer is no.

Tipping in America is out of control. With “tipflation,” we’re being asked to tip for doughnuts, car repairs, air-conditioning service — usually right in front of the person doing their job. And now they want a tip even when I pick up takeout?

Restaurants are, of course, different. I’m sitting at your table for a couple of hours. The person waiting on me is fulfilling my every wish, and that deserves a tip. Or does it? In Europe, there’s no tipping (and don’t try to tip in Japan; they’ll get downright angry). Plus, the wait staff is just doing their jobs. Shouldn’t their employer, which is making a fortune, pay them a living wage?

How did we get here? Elected lawmakers decided half a century ago that certain people who could potentially get a tip for their service could be paid a fraction of the minimum wage. When I waited tables a thousand years ago, my restaurants paid us just 75 cents an hour. Somehow, they calculated that with tips, we’d all make the minimum wage.

The “tip minimum wage” was set at $2.13 in 1991. Guess what it is now? You got it, $2.13. Of course, those workers rarely get health insurance, meaning that an infected toe could blow their life savings. The U.S. is the only developed nation that exempts tipped workers from getting minimum wage. How is this sustainable?

The tipping epidemic increased dramatically at the height of the pandemic, when we were more than happy to drop 20% when someone delivered us food.

“The U.S. economy is more tip-reliant than it’s ever been,” Scheherazade Rehman, an economist and professor of international finance at George Washington University, recently told The Wall Street Journal. “But there’s a growing sense that these requests are getting out of control and that corporate America is dumping the responsibility for employee pay onto the customer.” 

Conservatives argue that small business, the backbone of America, can’t afford to pay their employees a living wage, or they’d go broke. Well, here’s the thing: Don’t make me subsidize your employees. Charge me more — I may or may not frequent your establishment based on your prices — but don’t tell me dinner is $35 and then say I have to pay $42 so I can pay your workers, too.

Saru Jayaraman, a labor advocate and director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, gets it.

“Employers think they’re being smart by using tipping instead of raising wages,” she told the Journal. “But really, they’re risking losing staff because it’s pissing consumers off, and the employees are the ones who have to deal with it.”

Americans have about had it. A recent survey of 2,400 Americans found that 41% of respondents said businesses should pay their employees better rather than relying so heavily on tips. And 60% of respondents want to do away with tipping altogether.

Where’s the tipping point? We’ll turn to one more comedian for the closer: the fictional character Dwight Schrute from “The Office.”

“Why tip someone for a job I’m capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did, however, tip my urologist because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.”

For now, start clicking “no tip” — especially when you buy a doughnut or a cup of coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks can pay their employees more. Let’s make them do it.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.