Yes. You really have to tip. 20%. Sorry. And tax isn’t included in the prices of things. That’s the way things work here and you can choose to spend the whole time being annoyed by it or not. But please don’t make a personal protest that only hurts some of the lowest paid and hardest working people.

Just FYI, we have recently had a huge influx of electronic systems asking for tips in places that tips didn’t exist before. I only tip when I sit down to eat at a restaurant and they serve me. If you walk up to the counter to order, you don’t tip. If you are ordering takeout (even at a sit-down restaurant), you don’t tip.

It’s a really fucking stupid system that most of us hate, but if you don’t participate, you are the asshole according to our culture (even though we know it’s really the businesses not paying their employees enough that are really the assholes)

Edit: oh, and then “suggested tip” went up around the same time that these electronic systems popped up. My whole life, a 10% tip was bad, a 15% tip was average. A 20% tip was good. Now it seems the “suggested tip” says you should tip 20% minimum. I think this is bullshit, and I ignore it. The people who are suggesting the tip are the ones that benefit from it going higher. They are always going to try to increase it as long as they can get away with it. I stick to the 10/15/20% rule.

My view is: I don’t like this cultural element, and I am glad that I live in a country without it. But if I am a visitor from abroad I would not resist the local culture and try to impose my own values. If I am aware of this cultural element and I dislike it, my options would be to either avoid restaurants and other tipping situations as much as I can, or simply account for the tip when making my financial decisions, and pay it.

If I live in the country then it is different, because then I am more entitled to be a driver of change. Personally, my approach would be to support businesses with explicit no-tipping policy, and to refuse receiving tips myself.

It seems there’s a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don’t know how much has changed in this regard.

Nothing has changed, and it never will, as it concerns poor and “therefore” “deserving” people. Americans’ talk is cheap.

The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.

Agreed. So when you go to a restaurant and you have a maximum amount you can spend, divide the amount of money you have by (100% + local sales tax), then divide by (100% + the menu price), and subtract any surcharges added by the restaurant (assume $5.00 if you cannot look it up), often masquerading as a tip. I know it’s a lot of math, but you have a computer in your pocket. You’ll manage.

In my view, the US is a fractal scam. At every level, everything is an attempt to extract money from ill-informed “suckers”, from the running of the government, to the prices of supermarket groceries, to the tipping culture at restaurants, to even finding a place to put your car [1]. Every single thing is someone’s grift. In order to function in America, you need to be willing to be suckered to some extent. There’s no way around it. Unfairness is baked into every transaction, and increasingly more social interactions.

Everything in America is ridiculously unfair. We wear this on our sleeves, and for many Americans this fact defines their personality. Unfortunately, you will have to deal with it in the short term at least.

Now if you would like to be the one to lead the charge against the tipping culture and the foisting of responsibility for servers’ compensation onto the customer, then be my guest. Refuse to tip and make a big scene about it. Make plans for how to take the inertia of your big struggle and turn it into a mass movement. I would thrilled to join you. However, I somehow doubt that you’re ready to go that far; none of the customers who stiffed me ever went on to start anti-tipping movements.

So will AITA if I don’t tip?

Yes. You are expected by all members of the public here to tip. That is our culture, something we’re proud of for some reason, and our expectation. For some servers, tips are the primary source of income at work.

Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?

No, it is the responsibility of the employer. However, when no employer takes their responsibility and you sit yourself down at a restaurant, the logical conclusion is that either you pay that part of the server’s wages, or they get stiffed. You know that this is the conclusion. (Or if not, now you do.)

If you want to participate in our unique restaurant scam, you gotta accept that you’re going to get suckered into paying the server’s wages. Otherwise, don’t go to restaurants. When you go to a restaurant, you waste the employees’ finite time on this planet doing tedious, physically and mentally demanding bullshit that no sane person would choose to engage with, if not faced with the threats of homelessness and starvation. [2] At least make it worth their while.

Sorry if I come off as having a chip on my shoulder, but that’s only because I totally do. So many customers used to concern-troll me as a pizza delivery person and give me shit like “sorry, couldn’t afford to tip, they should really pay you more.” Yeah, they should, but you absolutely could have tipped; all you had to do was order one less topping. I’d love to see some actual solidarity with food service employees, but that would require challenging deep-rooted assumptions about our culture and we’re too shit-for-brains to do that. Americans are so compassionate and empathetic until the moment they actually have to lift a finger.

So when someone brings up “unfairness” or “it’s X’s responsibility to pay the workers” in response to tipping, I just kinda die a little inside from all the times those sentiments have been used against me and my colleagues.

[1] And don’t even get me started on the process of buying a car, or how the public was scammed into accepting a car-centric infrastructure.

[2] This is really a special case of the logic behind the antiwork movement: nobody actually wants to go to work. We only go to work under the threats of starvation and homelessness imposed by capitalism.

Here, unfortunately, YTA if you don’t tip. I forgot once and had the server run after me to make sure something wasn’t wrong. Some service folks take it personally if you don’t tip, which makes sense given that their employers don’t pay them shit. So yeah, you the customer foot the bill for ensuring these people can make ends meet… as if giving the restaurant your custom wasn’t support enough.

The problem is that, like most other industries here in the US, the system is rigged against the working class. While not all restaurant owners intend to fuck over their staff (especially smaller, local places), it’s how it works. Now, some places will automatically add gratuity to your bill under certain conditions, so check your breakdown to ensure it’s not already included. This is becoming more common, which irritates me since I scale my tip based on the quality of the service rendered.

Also, we know it’s expensive here. Don’t bother coming here to complain about it, we do it enough ourselves. Tipping is here to stay for now and I don’t imagine it changing for quite some time.

There are already a lot of good answers here, but I thought you might appreciate a fictionalized version of my personal experience.

—

Back in the kitchen, the hostess comes in.

“I’ve got a 2-top at table 23, who’s next in the rotation?”

“Uh… I think it’s Bob, but he’s busy doing bumps in the walk in. I’ll take it. They nice?”

“Uhh, I think they’re German.”

—

Unfortunately for them, the knowledge that Europeans tend to tip poorly or not at all proceeds them. The server who took the two top will still serve them, but either consciously or subconsciously the service will suffer. Maybe your food was done five minutes ago sitting on the hot line, but your server decided to go chat up the elderly couple or the regular customer instead. Maybe the server is more rude or cold to you than other guests. Or maybe you’re lucky and your server isn’t yet jaded. Your mileage may vary depending on if you’re eating in a small town diner or a tourist hotspot, but even if the service seems fine, there’s almost certainly chatter going on behind your back from the moment you sit down.

There’s a very small chance that your server will chase after you if you leave no tip, but that is virtually unheard of and will get the server fired if it’s a nicer establishment. The more likely chain of events is that you leave, the server checks the checkbook, then goes into the back-of-house to scream/cry/drink/smoke/fuck someone/something. It’s completely ruined several of my shifts.

—BUT—

The above is all wrong. It felt gross to type, and feels grosser to know that I once felt that. These feelings may have been ‘valid’ considering the tipped system that I was a part of, but I have a hard time thinking of them as ‘reasonable’. As an empathetic human, I wish to treat everyone well. Also, I love travel, and would love to spend 30 minutes talking about the Cologne cathedral or the Bielefeld conspiracy or whateverthefuck. But I can’t, because then I’d be actively losing money. The profit motive of tip system makes servers, managers, and even clients all jaded. The anger that I felt when I was stiffed was unjustly redirected from the tipping system to the individual, because the system is designed to perpetuate itself. I make less money now, but I’m very glad I left that industry.

—

BONUS: If you want to see a hilarious yet barely over exaggerated vignette of what American servers do and how they think when you can’t see them, give Waiting… (2005) a watch.

Definitely tip. If you think the whole system sucks that’s fine, but don’t take out that frustration on the likely vastly underpaid employees

Yes, you do have to tip. Maybe not if it’s Chipotle or a place like that. But if someone is waiting your table you have to tip. Yes tipping culture is stupid. No, nothing has changed in the US. They do not have a living without tips, so refusing to tip cuts into their living expenses after they have courteously served you your food. It’s rude

I’d say yes. The situation is complex.

It’s clear that tipping culture is out of control. There are many places asking for 20% tips even when ordering from a counter where the interaction takes about 10 seconds.

Unfortunately there has also been a systematic underpayment of wages which has occurred largely on the back of tips. In some states it is even legal to pay less than minimum wage and supplement that with tips. For that reason, it’s not really an option to simply not tip without being the bad guy.

Certainly the system needs to change, but as of this moment in the US, just assume everything actually costs 20% more and tip.

Only time tipping should be observed is when you’re at a restaurant that seats you at a table and takes your order. And when you order delivery. Anything else is just people gaming the system to get whatever they can from people.

Edit: I missed bartenders (sorry!). Tip your bartender! They will take care of you if you tip well.

Yes in the service industry where you will be served you very much likely would be expected to tip. So places may make this more obvious then others with a tip bracket on the receipt or signs somewhere.

Its also important to note most places in the US expect a 15% tip of what you spent but in some higher dense areas where the CoL is out of control it’s 20%

I have come across a couple restaurants that specify that they are “no tip.” I try to keep an eye out for those and try to give business to them. Or I avoid places with that expectation. But I usually tip around 20% in those common circumstances mentioned in this thread. I hate the system though. It’s parasitic and manipulative.

To sum up, if you work in a business that relies on tips, you will defend the crap out of tipping and will be biased towards tipping uncontrollably.

If you are a business that wants to squeeze every penny, you will encourage and propaganda tipping as much as you can.

If you are anyone else you will wish for something different.

I recommend that you tip when the app says to tip, just simplify your life and if a screen says add a tip choose the minimum for now and don’t worry about it yet.

Yes, it does make you the asshole, especially because you know that’s what we do here and why we do it. Until living wage laws are passed, it’s not going to change.

So will AITA if I don’t tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?

ABSOLUTELY NOT Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. It is and should be employers job to pay their workers a living wage in a rich country not the buyers.

Culturally, there will be people who will look down on or say nasty things to you if they find out you do not/did not tip. This happened to me. Some of the nasty comments (these are not said by the employees) people say are "The employees will remember this and may spit in your food or tamper with it in some way next time you order, which has got to be illegal for health code reasons for employees to do and is guilt tripping on the person who says this comment. Not only that, but those who say such awful things are continuing the nasty treatment of employees by the ruling class by saying such nasty remarks.