The history of tipping in the U.S.

Brut America

"I was paid $9.28 for 70 hours of work."  Most servers in the U.S. are paid below the minimum wage and are forced to rely on tips... a practice rooted in slavery.  One Fair Wage

Transcript

00:00This is why you tip.

00:01I get paid $2.13 an hour as a bartender and a server.

00:10I should have made $1.50.81, but because I have to have Social Security, Medicare, and

00:18the income tax taken out, I was paid $9.28 for 70 hours of work.

00:26Imagine if professors' income was determined on whether the students liked what they were

00:40being taught.

00:41Imagine if doctors were paid based on whether the patients were happy with the diagnosis.

00:47It just doesn't happen in any other profession, and the reason it happens in this profession

00:54is a history of race and class and gender in our country.

01:07It was an extra or bonus that aristocrats or nobles gave to serfs or vassals, but always

01:13on top of a wage.

01:14When the idea came to the states in the 1850s, it was because of rich Americans traveling

01:19to Europe and coming back and trying to show off that they knew the rules of aristocratic

01:24Europe.

01:25At first, Americans rejected it as a vestige of feudalism, said we are a democracy, but

01:31that idea changed right after emancipation of slavery when the restaurant lobby wanted

01:37the right to hire newly freed slaves, not pay them anything at all, and have them live

01:42entirely on tips.

01:44So you went from $0 at emancipation to $2.13 an hour, which is the current federal minimum

01:50wage for tipped workers in the US.

01:53Actually in most cases, workers who earn a subminimum wage get a paycheck that says zero.

01:58This is not a paycheck because the wage is so low it goes entirely to taxes, which means

02:03they are living, just as they did at emancipation, entirely off of their tips.

02:23In 1938, when everybody got the right to the minimum wage for the first time in the US

02:28as part of the New Deal, millions of black workers actually were excluded, farm workers

02:34who are mostly black, domestic workers who are mostly black, and tipped restaurant workers

02:38who are mostly black, mostly women, were left out.

02:50So they have lobbied very successfully for 81 years since the New Deal was passed that

03:00they should be allowed to not pay their own workers, that instead, because their workers

03:05get wages, they should get away with paying $0, $1, or $2 an hour.

03:14For some, not all, I think there is a relishing of the power dynamic that customers have over

03:23these workers, that they are at their beck and call, that they have to put up with whatever

03:28they say or do or however they touch them or treat them or talk to them because they

03:33leave a tip.

03:34I remember working in restaurants and you would have someone say something extremely

03:41inappropriate to you or you would have someone touch you and the thing is, it would be the

03:4728th of the month, the 29th of the month, and the first of the next month was rolling

03:53right around and you had a rent check to pay.

03:56And so you were more likely to stand up for yourself and to reject sexual harassment on

04:02the 15th of the month or maybe the 10th of the month when you could pick up an extra

04:07shift to make up for telling that guy to go buzz off.

04:11Workers in our industry struggle with three times the poverty rate of the rest of the

04:15U.S. workforce, use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce,

04:20meaning the women who put food on our tables can't afford to feed their own children and

04:26a good third are parents, single mothers with children.

04:30And all of this economic precarity exacerbates that power dynamic that we talked about.

04:38Tips have been so decreased during the pandemic, and I think workers have kind of a lightbulb

04:50or, you know, realization has dawned that this has never been a reliable source of income.

04:57Workers are finally in this country standing up and saying, it's just not worth it anymore

05:03and leaving this industry.

05:08If you listen to the National Restaurant Association, you would think there are no restaurants in

05:24these seven states, that they've somehow killed the economy, all jobs are lost, no small businesses,

05:31when in fact these seven states have higher restaurant industry sales, higher job growth

05:36in the restaurant industry, higher small business growth rates, and we have higher

05:40rates of tipping because it turns out when you pay people better, they tip better.

05:44But most importantly, we see one half the rate of sexual harassment in the restaurant

05:49industry because it turns out when you pay women a full minimum wage with tips on top,

05:54they don't have to put up with as much from customers.

05:57They can reject harassment from customers because they can count on a wage from their boss.

06:07Even if you don't care about these workers, but you really want to be able to go back

06:13to your, you know, Sunday brunch with your friends, we have to change the way people

06:19are paid if we want to return to an industry in which workers have the ability to survive

06:26while working in restaurants.

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