Gripe with tipping in states that already pay a ‘fair wage’
I live in a part of California where servers are paid $20/hr regardless of their tipped income. I constantly see the argument that we tip because employers don’t pay their employees a high enough wage, and that if we push back against that, tipping culture can be abolished because servers can rely on the wage paid by their employer. However, I’ve found that is not the case. We are still expected to tip minimum 20% despite servers making more than other minimum wage employees at base rate. What happened here? It goes against every argument as to why we ‘have’ to tip. They’re already making more than minimum wage before tips, but the tipping culture is still there (if not stronger). I’m saying this as someone who worked as a server/food service in Ohio back when it was $3.80/hr so tipping was meant to supplement the wages of those employees. Just wondering what the point is of tipping here if they’re already making more than what the proper wage is for unskilled labor, and if tipping culture would ever actually go away if areas like mine have already proven that it won’t