I tip. More than I should. But that doesn't stop me from wondering why waiters working for minimum wage are America's charity case and why not the millions of others who work for minimum wage? How come they all don't get tips in order to 'survive'?

No doubt there are working poor among minimum wage peeps; 'tipped' employees may make lower than minimum wage, however...

http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

The comments are quite amusing.
That's not true. They do not earn less than minimum wage. The restaurant can pay them less than minimum wage IF their tips plus their base hourly rate equal an hourly rate of minimum wage or more. If the server's tips plus base hourly rate are still less than minimum wage, the restaurant must pay a higher hourly rate, so that their hourly rate equals minimum wage.

kipper is correct. Waiters are paid less than minimum wage but if their tips do not average out to at least the state's minimum wage, then the restaurant has to pay them the difference. Hence, waiters always do earn minimum wage - with or without tips - just like the millions of other minimum wage workers I mentioned.

Also, there are a handful of states where waiters do earn the state's minimum wage regardless, California and Nevada are two that come to mind.

LOL, thanks! Can I convince you to post this over in OMNI/PR repeatedly?

IRS assumes 8% is the average. I didn't wait tables regularly, but during HS I would wait tables periodically and the restaurant encouraged us to just take 8% of our sales and write that down as the amount of our tips.

Edit:
Although on researching this it sounds like it's 8% on the restaurant's end, not the server's end...but if all tipped employees claimed 8% of sales as tips then the restaurant would be 8% as well. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-...urant-Tax-Tips

I've always been a great admirer of the IRS* - one of the free world's great institutions. So if its good enough for the IRS then its good enough for me - 8% tips it is from now on.

*Except when they take 30% out of my Las Vegas Slot jackpots (and the Slot Attendant expects me to share 10% of my pre-tax good fortune with them)

may have to dispute credit card charge, if establishment threatens to call police

Never! Never!

I had to ask!

Tip included in the check - US style

There are a number of places in the USA where it is common for the tip to be already included in the check. Miami beach, Orlando, and sometimes New York City, among others. I point this out because I have encountered a number who live in the USA who say it never happens there. Yes, these are places frequented by visitors from overseas, although even there my experience is that those from the US are still in the majority.

However, the credit card slip/machine is still invariably presented with an open line for "tip". Would it be ungallant to say that they hope you haven't noticed it is already in there ? Just to aid the understanding, the check for the already-added amount is often labelled with useful abbreviations such as SV CH or similar.

I was once told, when I questioned a manager about this, that it was "in case you received the best service of your life". I had to inform him that, on the occasion this does happen, it is exceedingly unlikely to be in Miami Beach ......

There was one tipping thread where people were discussing eating at counter service or fast food places to avoid having to tip, and one poster implied that was actually stealing from the waitstaff at full service restaurants.

I've only once hit an auto-tip where it wasn't for a large party AND explicitly called out on the menu, which was (surprise surprise) at a touristy place in NYC, although a relatively moderately priced one.

I complained to the waiter, who said it was policy, and asked if I wanted to talk to the manager. I didn't bother, since the precomputed amount was less than I would have tipped otherwise -- can't remember if it was 15% or 18% but amazingly, it was correctly calculated on the pretax.

If it were a place I'd have ever been likely to return to, I'd have made a stink with the manager and then tipped what I'd have been originally planning to. Since it wasn't, I didn't bother; the place was inexpensive enough that the difference was only a buck or two.

--

Speaking generally, I tip a little over 20% at inexpensive places (20% on the pretax, round up to the nearest 50c or a buck if the service was good), and use the "double the tax" rule at moderate-price ones, which comes to 16%-17.5% depending on which city I'm in around here. At expensive ones, it depends entirely on the service, but defaulting to actually calculating out 15% if the service was merely OK.

What's everyone's "minimum tip"? I generally won't tip less than $2ish (e.g. if the bill is something like $8.03, they'd get a $10 left for the bill and tip.) Not too many table-service places that cheap left, but where there are I don't feel right leaving less.

For buffet and counter-service places where you don't clear your own table but they don't take drink orders, I'll usually leave a buck (or a buck a person when there with my wife) for the guy who clears tables. Vegas/Reno buffets where they do drink orders at the table, I'll generally tip $5 for my wife and I if they're good about refills.

Frankly I don't blame them. At one of my regular haunts in midtown, foreign tourist groups (usually European) would get up after paying and walk out leaving zero nothing, nada. It happened all the time. As if it were servis compris.

Admittedly I was more attuned to it because it was a regular haunt and I'd become friendly with some of the wait staff. But I saw how hard they worked and how often they got completely stiffed.

I'm hardly one ever to defend the 'ugly american' overseas but by god if we're supposed to learn the nuances of overseas cultures (and I believe we should) is it too much to ask for a little turnabout?

So anyway. This tedious anecdote is offered in recompense for my previous post in this thread

...then it should be posted on the menu, or someplace conspicuous. Not much to ask, just as outside the US where some prices are "plus tax and service" or there's a coperta (etc) those will generally be posted.