The barista wants 20% for handing me a muffin
20%, 25% or 30%. The barista is watching. So is the guy behind me. — Regular, 2024
Tipping used to happen at the table, after somebody had actually waited on you. Now a screen at the counter asks before you've got your change. Washington State tried to stop all this once. In 1909 it made tipping a crime, and not just for the waiter. The customer who left the tip broke the law too. People tipped anyway, and the state gave up in 1913. You can't outlaw guilt. Washington found that out in four years.
For now: Emily Post says a tip at the coffee counter is optional; in a 2023 Pew survey, 25% said they usually tip for coffee.
The full file
Washington wasn't alone. At least six states passed laws against tipping, and every one of them was gone by 1926.
The idea had its preachers. In 1916 a man named William Scott published a whole book against it, The Itching Palm, which opens, "Tipping is the modern form of Flunkyism." He called it a moral malady.
Then Washington, D.C., built tips into the paycheck. In 1966 Congress let employers pay tipped workers a lower minimum wage. The federal cash wage for tipped workers has been $2.13 an hour since 1991. It hasn't gone up since. Most things have.
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