Tipping in USA

[hopeishere]

I hate tipping it makes me feel awkward and I think you should just pay people properly but I get it's the norm in America.

Few questions:
Taxis - if you pay by card can you add a tip?
Bars do you need cash? I read it's $1 a drink?
Tour guides - how much should we tip them?
Porter $2 per bag?

Thanks!

We were in New York and Boston a couple of months ago and most bars and restaurants simply added a range different suggested tip percentages to the bill which you chose. It didn't feel as odd as expected for drinks as you paid the entire bill at the end rather than for each drink as you would in UK pubs.

A few old fashioned coffee/bagel places in New York simply had a jar for cash tips on the counter.

We didn't get any cabs and didn't stay places with porter services so did not encounter that side of things.

The tip thing is what it is, I don't like it but you accept the culture, apart from perhaps Pret like coffee shop in Bosto where I took a canned soft drink from the fridge to take away. I paid at the counter and was given the option of paying a 20% tip. I am very keen to reward hospitality workers but paying 20% extra for someone to ring up the price of a drink seemed a bit off.

I found the tax thing more irksome - it was very confusing to see the headline price, mentally add the tip and then find another 7% or whatever added at the end. In one busy bar in Bosron we paid the tip and the sales tax and then a mysterious three dollar fifty "hospitality charge". As it was late and it was a very small part of large bill I didn't have the will to challenge it. I still have no idea what it was about!

Really!!
You are posting that rubbish at everyone who refuses to pay tips for various reasons and ignore the cu;prits/employer for not paying their staff a living wage""

Never, mind, eh!!

Where does it state, "tips are not an optional extra"?? That right, it does not state that anywhere.

I will leave you too it!!

Have just been in the USA and have been going there for 44 years. Cards all the way now. Some places add on a % whereas others leave it to you. Other than one occasion I have never experienced someone being ungrateful. That one was a server who didn't return with the change from 100 dollars for a bill just over 60. I think she thought as we were British we might not notice. We usually tip 10-15% depending on how good the server was.

Gosh why are people so entitled!

@PrincessMee that is quite shocking!

Honestly I would hate to be forced to part with my own hard earned cash when I was already supporting a business by eating there.

I find it amusing how they think we diners owe them a living and not their actual boss?

When I go I’m tipping 10pc tops

or I might get lots of 1 dollar bills and tip one of those each time

I wouldn't mind the tipping so much if the menu prices reflected the fact that there will effectively be 20% added onto the bill for tips (even for lunch or breakfast tips are expected).
I was in the States 18 months ago for work and the base prices on the menus (which also don't include state taxes) were very high to begin with - meaning the final bills were very expensive even for a bog standard breakfast.
Before we had kids we travelled to the States several times as a couple and whilst it wasn't cheap I didn't find it to be extortionate.
That's not the case anymore. Exchange rates of course have affected this in a big way as well. It is 1.07 dollars to the euro at the moment - in the noughties it was more like 1.40 dollars to the euro.
But all in all America has become a very expensive place to holiday - particularly if you have kids.

But all in all America has become a very expensive place to holiday - particularly if you have kids.

cough home exchange 😉

My family of four adults ate in Irish pubs in the evenings, four main course, a wine and a beer plus two cokes cost around $160 including the tip.
A fast food meal was about $13.

New Yorker here. These always have an option, usually labeled "custom", to specify a dollar amount for the tip, which can be zero.

God, there's a lot of misinformation on this thread. It depends on the state, but in many the minimum wage laws don't apply if they also earn tips. These workers received a "tipped minimum wage", which is usually much lower.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped/2023

Mathanxiety is correct, as usual.

Another aspect of the tipping system here that is not commonly understood by tourists is the practice of tipping out. Servers must give a percentage of their sales to non-tipped employees like bussers, food runners, bar backs, etc. They still have to tip out on what you spent if you leave them nothing. They have lost money by serving you. So it's a really shitty thing to do to them and one reason why servers don't like waiting on Brits.

It’s a really shitty system actually! Fair days work for a fair days pay. So simple and effective.

To be fair to a lot of UK tourists it is very far outside our experience as we have a minimum wage that is the same across all of the UK and for a lot of jobs it is simply not the culture at all to tip.

So they may be thinking the tip is on top of a standard wage not a supplement

Also I think a lot of the irritation is because here and in most of Europe the headline price is the price, people don't like being sold on one price and then being told at point of payment that they owe extra for service and taxes that wasn't clear up front.

Finally I think culturally Europeans tend to see it as the responsibility of businesses and government to ensure staff are fairly paid, not customers, so they find the whole tipping sitiation very awkward.

But I agree with you it is polite to observe cultural norms.

I think the fact that this thread exists, and I've seen dozens like it over the years, shows that Brits are very well aware that tipping is done differently in the US and that there are reasons why it is different. I also see many people who are presumably Brits trying to justify why they shouldn't tip anyway, which is just mean and tight.

Well it is a horrible, shit and exploitative system.

I suspect people didn't mind so much when the exchange rate was better. Now the pound is weaker against the dollar it means woth a tip it is pretty much one for one and food is more expensive in many parts of the US, so I expect many British people are more sensitive to it.

But I personally would not use not to tip but it does not make for a pleasant experience.

I tended bar while at uni and worked for tips. Everyone I know who has worked for tips likes the system, so I don't know anyone who would consider it "horrible, shit and exploitative". On a good night, I'd go home with $150-$200 in tips. It's also a system that aligns incentives. You want good, prompt, and accommodating service, and your server wants a good tip. I've often heard Europeans express surprise about how much better the service is in the US than what they get at home. Tips are why.

If the exchange rates make it too expensive to come here, stay home, or go somewhere else. Don't come and take it out on the people serving you.

This is hilarious the fact that people from the US are coming in here and telling us to stay home if we don’t want to tip them

It really is not my responsibility to ensure you go home with 200 dollars a night! It really is not my responsibility at all

I am not your employer and I will not feel responsible for your daily salary.

Honestly it’s not disrespectful for me not to want to hand over my hard earned money because you carried a drink to me or brought out a dish.

If you don’t like that then that genuinely wouldn’t be my issue.

I cannot believe the sense of entitlement

You seem happy to pay for airfare on US airlines, hotel bills, taxi fares, and go shopping here despite the poor exchange rates. Why is tipping different?

Is it really so hard for people to comprehend that the tip is part of the price of the meal. You mentally add on the tip. It isn't an optional extra - it is part of the price. It has nothing to do with entitlement. It is the price structure.

Do people find it as difficult to manage how things are done in countries other than the US?

It's also the state tax, the resort tax and other things that adds to the sense of being ripped off

It definitely used to be more affordable

Is it still the case that visitors coming here can reclaim VAT or does that no longer happen

@Brycare

Yes I agree

Its nothing special

I’ve never had a job where I worked for tips. I still tip generously because I know it is a requirement in my country. I know that the kinds of services where tips are traditionally required are luxuries.

Our traditional tipping system is absolutely a poor system and if you go into the history you will find racist roots. None of that matters. This is the custom. It is how people are paid. It is how they budget and make sure their rent is paid and their families are fed.

You don’t fix a bad system by taking it out on a server who is just doing their job.

there is tip creep these days. You don’t have to participate in that. As a tourist it may be difficult to tell the difference so I suggest a good guide on modern tip etiquette. You absolutely don’t have to tip at the self-checkout kiosk at the grocery store, even if it asks

Is the tip at the grocery store for the shelf stackers?

Taxes are another little quirk that you just have to deal with. They can vary by street even within a city so it is impossible to have price tags reflect the final total. Yes, we can literally have a single block in a city that charges extra sales tax to help pay for some specific improvement that was done to that spot or to subsidize the parking. If you think of it as roughly 10% for sales tax you will typically be close and it’s an easy number to calculate.

@Pallisers then add it to the headline price then. If charges are mandatory I want to see then included in the total upfront price. Anything else is a bullshit illusion of choice.

I hated the slightly obsequious, too present service that American tipping culture seems to engender. I want people to do their jobs well because they are paid properly not because they feel the need to grin and perform on the off chance I may leave a bigger tip.

It is cultural, I get that and do conform when I am in the US. But I don't have to like it.