And I would also encourage people to patronize businesses that pay their workers higher wages. Also some of these businesses have higher prices and don't accept tips.
I live in near Seattle and when I patronize the cafe at Ada's Technical Books in Seattle I'm happy with paying a higher prices for food or drinks because they have explicitly say they don't accept tips and pay their workers higher wages. Source: https://www.adasbooks.com/notipping
B) put social and legal pressure on point of sale systems like Block to stop pushing tipping interfaces on merchants. On the legal side regulate the merchant codes and what POS systems can show based on merchant code, create consequences for noncompliance. Mandate disabling it completely even for restaurants when in states where the tipped minimum wage is the same as other minimum wage. Do the same to the payment processor, Visa, Mastercard Amex etc
C) mandate disclosures to consumers when in states where the tipped minimum wage is the same as normal minimum wage
D) use the local alcohol licensing requirements to require all service personnel to discourage tipping. Verbally, on receipts, everywhere - in states with no separate lower tipped minimum wage. Or else no alcohol can be served.
E) deny other discretionary features such as outdoor parklets, if tipping culture is not discouraged
F) disable the ability to e-file payroll taxes for “high risk of tipping“ services, or anyone with many receipts
how to think of stuff like this: regulate the intermediary. this works under any governance system.
Forcing businesses to essentially wrap what was the tip into the price, in order to pay the full wage to staff won't solve everything, but that's a major first step! Businesses would then suddenly be able to compete on "NO TIPS HERE! :)" on a little sign by the register. You're also competing on the real price now (bill of materials + full price of labour), not a portion of it. (Bill of materials + labour not paid for by a hidden guilt-enforced fee.)
It's also just kind of shitty morally, service work deserves the respect of any other job and shouldn't be given the weird distinction of "sub-minimum wage" work.
Edit: Sorry, didn't read all of B), agree!
B) businesses have to start paying their staff better wages
Tipping is only a thing because we’ve normalized it. If you pass a law against it, it’s no longer normal, and customers will mostly stop giving them, even without highly intrusive enforcement mechanisms.
The real challenge is getting a government to want to forbid it, because people who receive tips care about them a lot while those that don’t, don’t. Until you solve that nothing else matters. Maybe tipping will go so far that the balance shifts.
Tipping is for OPTIONALLY AFTER the work/service was performed: period.
People no longer know how much to tip - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38213518 - Nov 2023 (170 comments)
I'm sure as hell not tipping for counter service or for retail transactions, but they keep begging for it. As more and more people fall for the scam there's a risk that it will become expected and suddenly I'm the asshole for not paying more for nothing. Good luck explaining to someone making minimum wage that the person they should really be upset at is their employer who refuses to pay them a living wage.
