Tipping in America

[User74893677]

I’m going to New York and Boston at Easter with my children. The flights were a gift but I’m paying for our hotels and obviously food, activities etc.

Ive read that we should tip at least $5 per night for housekeeping. And similar if the hotel looks after our bags before/after check in/out. And generally for pretty much everything - helping take our bags to our room, provide local information etc.

Ive worked out that we will easily spend more than $100 just on tips for the hotel staff alone - for services it’s not customary to tip for here in Europe.

AIBU to consider not tipping for these things? We are travelling on a budget and $100 (or more) is a lot of cash!

I know we will have to tip in restaurants but we’re not planning to eat out much - it’ll be warm so the plan is to buy picnic/take out food for at least two meals a day to keep costs down (also I have the least foodie children in the world and they’re very happy with picnics and take out burritos etc!).

I anticipate people saying that if we can’t afford to tip, we can’t afford America 🫣

The thing that gets me is that we all know in places like India or some of the far east that people get paid peanuts, but the prices are correspondingly low to match , so no one minds tipping- but the USA is really not cheap unless you are really doing it in a very very budget tight way- hotels are often $250 a night 'plus' and meals can easily be $50 dollars a head at a decent level. If I was working in a service industry in the USA I would be thinking who is making very very nicely out this whilst expecting staff to work for very low minimum wages ( in most areas) and tip 20% on top- and there are a few areas ( I think mainly west coast) where the minimum wage is actually quite high .

I would have been raging and told them to do one.

I am a Yank (in the UK) btw.

This post sums things up for me especially this bit:

People who visit developing countries are well used to desperately poor people following them around and hopefully viewing them as a potential source of money; and it seems so incongruous for the USA to be the same, when most other rich nations are not like that.

I was born and grew up in the US - tipping is out of control in terms of the percentage of the bills expected and where tips are asked for and prices have skyrocketed. This was something we had noticed before COVID by the way.

My daughter bought a dress for a ball when we were out there and we were asked to tip the lady helping us with the dresses. Yes - it's a service job and she was gracious and helpful. But - that is her job? Or are the business owners now, instead of for example giving commission on clothes sold (which is how things used to be) relying on customers to tip staff? Or are they doing both?

My gut is it's the latter and they are being opportunistic and doing it because they CAN and because people will be too embarrassed to say no.

It's truly disgusting and I have every sympathy with the previous poster who said it's not her problem to deal with that society's social ills, if that's it, or to put up with opportunistic pricing policies on the part of the companies.

Went back to Greece for first time in 10 years last summer- it was so nice to have great genuine charming friendly service everywhere and no expectation of tipping and no automatic service charges on bills - although always thanked you if you rounded up ! The guys always recognised us too at ones we went back to. Don't get me wrong they like to make money as it's shortish season and it's no longer really cheap, but it's done in an upfront way and you don't feel ripped off.

Tipping expectations in the US are insane. I was followed out of the lavatories in a New York restaurant by the attendant because I hadn’t put anything in her dish.

I agree; but unless you're a regular, you only usually tip after you've received the service.

Plus it seems like it's not appreciated as an attempt to buy better service; it's fully expected as the norm, regardless of how good the service was.

I'm reminded of the old joke about the filthy, smelly tramp who went to a barber's. They did the bare minimum for him, not trying to hide their disgust and contempt, as quickly as they could to get him out of the place, out of a sense of duty. It turned out that he was actually an eccentric millionaire and he quietly slipped them a £10,000 tip and walked out immediately, before they saw the tip.

He went in again two months later and the staff were all over him like flies to a turd, pampering and buttering him up, giving him the best possible service with absolutely nothing too much effort for them. He tipped them a penny.

The staff were extremely upset and asked if he may have made a mistake? He replied "Not at all; last time's tip was for today's service and today's tip was for last time's service!"

Oooh, I bet you were very tempted to find her a little extra of something to leave in her dish

To be fair lavatory attendants are a thing in some European countries as well. I was caught off guard when I used loos at a Berlin beer hall as I had left my purse downstairs.

The 'bathroom attendant' is like a weird Soviet-style take on full employment but in luxurious, western surroundings. So for example in Moscow there were people that sit in cubicles at the bottom of escalators whose job it was to ensure you're on the right side.

(I just want to be able to go to the loo in peace, to be honest.)

The worst were those freelance people you got in club toilets in London (and other cities) who would offer you hand wash and a paper towel and expect a tip. They also had a manky selection of deoderant, lollies, perfumes and makeup on offer.

"In the United States, the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour. This is combined with tips to reach the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour."

When I waitressed in the states TWENTY-FIVE years ago it was about the same amount. I would also get taxed on my presumed tips - so a percentage of my sales. So a non-tipping customer would cost me money.

Most states have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage.

https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages

Realised that too but it's this chart -
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

and Pennsylvania - where I lived then - is still at $2.63/hour paid. It was around the same when I was there. Most states are better though!

It just makes me think of the episode of The IT Crowd, where they go to the theatre, and Moss & Roy go for a wee and find they can't actually 'go' because of the onlooking 'toilet guy'!

It must be such a weird old role, being a jobbie bobby and spending your entire working day, every day, in a toilet.

Lollies?!?! Bog-lollipops that have been sitting in a lavatory all day/week/month?!?! Presumably also hanging around much longer than similar ones in a corner shop would, as who would actually be buying them?!

Do they approach you like the Child Catcher, screaming "Lollipops!!!" whilst waving them in your face?

Who ever thought that could possibly be a good idea?

I never bought them! If i recall they were usally Chupa Chups so were wrapped in plastic.

Chupa Chups were a big thing in club culture for a while. It may or may not have been a drugs thing. I couldn't possibly comment.

Wow, Chupa Chups have been around for a while, but I never knew they were aimed at adults!

Then again, they're so unnecessarily hard to open that children often can't do it without adult assistance anyway!

Bumping this thread to mention that this week's John Oliver main segment was tipping. The beginning is all TikToks of Americans screaming about tip screens, so rest assured, Americans are as annoyed about being asked for tips for self service and takeaway as much as tourists! The rest is about actual tips in restaurants and a few other places where it makes a difference.

one point John didn't mention: while most states haven't abolished tip wage, because states can set minimums higher than federal, that doesn't mean the tip wage in every state is $2.13. So in NYC for example, the tipped wage is $13.35 vs the general minimum of $16.50.

John Oliver spelt it out better than anyone had before. Being that he's a Brit helped too because even the most liberal left wing American isn't as left wing as me not their fault or failing but they are just different and I can't deal with the argument that you have to be rich rich just to eat at a restaurant.

As someone that spends a lot of time in the US, I think you just have to factor in the cost of tipping into your spending money and not think about it after that.

It's not just about actually paying the money, though; it's about knowing what everybody's expectations are.

You might give a solid 25% tip, very happy with the service - but then somebody like the server on the video that's been doing the rounds on TwiX who 'educates' visitors to the USA about how to tip, basing it on 30% or so supposedly being the accepted norm, will be horribly insulted and offended.

Yes, you can err on the side of caution and give, say, 50% if you really want to - as surely nobody could fail to be delighted with that; but then, if enough people do that for enough time, it ups the ante and, before long, 40% would be seen as an utter insult!

I accept that it's part of the US culture, but personally speaking, I much prefer to know the expected price for a transaction. I don't mind at all if it costs just as much as it would cost for the total of the menu price + tip; but it just makes so much more sense to have an all-in price, so you know what the actual cost is before deciding whether to eat there or not.

The part John didn't mention is something I think I did. The servers who really make a lot on tips in high end restaurants, like thousands a month, are part of what drive the system. There are New York waiters who have worked for decades and put their kids through university on tips. John is correct that it won't die completely. We haven't seen much cutback on tipping in those states where the tip wage was abolished.

I don't see how restaurants could match what the high end servers are making in tips. Danny Meyer (well known restauranteur) abolished tipping pre-COVID. He had to bring it back because he couldn't hire wait staff. This isn't true for, say, a diner waitress, who might well make more money on an hourly wage.

And getting rid of tips wouldn't affect affordability because the price of the items would go up. the cognitive bias of preferring to pay service separately is annoying and silly, but the total cost is not going to change.

Exactly this.
On tiktok where people all around the world are fighting for their lives in the comments section suggesting perhaps servers could change to another minimum wage job with guaranteed wages and you will see them disagreeing vehemently as they should. They know that their flatmates working in Target are poorer overall because they don't come home with 100's of dollars worth of tips.
I don't think it's all swings and roundabouts either.

Am in Netherlands on a long weekend and not once have I had 'any' service charge on a bill in a bar, cafe or restaurant.

Was in NYC late last year. Most people would just leave a tip for house keeping at the end of their stay, so them not having anything each day is not going to effect your service. My hotel actually had a QR code to pay a tip online if we wanted to rather than leave cash. We did not tip anyone for them storing our cases for a few hours, didn't even occur to me!

Tipping waiters for table service you should definitely do. We did 20% on all.

With tipping and the 8%ish tax it is annoying that you don't actually know the cost of anything before you order it/buy it but at least you get around about idea.