by godelski | 2025-07-31 23:51:08+00:00
I think with any conversation about tips it is really important to recognize that laws vary dramatically across states[0]. I think talking about this can really drive at the real underlying issues with tipping.

IMO most discussions about tipping are a distraction. "Divide and rule" if you will.

== THE LAW == (or my best understanding. IANAL) For most of the west coast (AK, CA, OR, WA): there is no separate "tipping wage". Tips are *always* on top of *at least* state minimum wage. There is only one minimum wage, so tipping is always a "bonus". Other places, there are two "minimum wages", but that's confusing because at the end every employee has to make at least the normal minimum wage. The difference is that employers can use tips as credit against this. So, with the exception of Georgia (WTF GA!), employees *must* make the state's minimum wage (default federal). Using federal (min wage = $7.25) an employer *MUST* pay you *no less than* $2.13/hr. This is conditioned that you have made *at least* $5.12/hr in tips. The problem here is what tips count to what wages. Per day? Per week? Per paycheck? DOL says "workweek"[1] ============

So the real (main) problem is actually just straight up good old wage theft. Anyone who is not getting at least minimum wage is suffering from wage theft.

I've heard stories of employees not getting a paycheck "because employer thought it was all tips" (illegal b/c they credited too much) or very small paychecks with the explanation that the employer over-credited tips. There's at least a decently straight-forward way to show what can be credited, and this is why there's the tip amount that you log. Ignoring cameras, the burden is on the employer to prove that they can make these credits, so that line-item on the bill is important (IANAL)

Personally:

I think the entire discussion of tipping often only serves as a distraction to wage. Like there's a lot of person to person fighting of how much we should tip (including not tipping) and frankly, doesn't this discussion often boil down to wage theft? I mean ignoring the already illegal problem of wage theft, what makes a server (who gets tipped) any different from a cashier (who doesn't get tipped) as an employee. Their jobs differ in duties, but we're talking about wage and *fair pay* here. If all the laws are followed, a tipped employee strictly benefits from tips. They have a statistical wage but that wage is max(base_pay, state_minimum) + random_value.

So I think 90% of discussions around tipping end up just being a distraction to create a fictitious divide of "minimum wage workers" vs "tipped workers"[2] who should instead be working as a coalition to increase the floor. They are both minimum wage earners! The main difference is primarily that tipped employees are just more likely to suffer from wage theft, due to how they are paid. But that's also something that both experience, just at different rates.

TLDR: Getting rid of tips as a concept is a simple solution to the wage theft problem, but isn't the real problem just good old fashion wage theft? (second problem being "is minimum wage minimum"?)

[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-emplo...

[2] Simplifying by ignoring tipped earners with higher than min wage base pay (we can extend as needed)