If it feels like tipping culture is more confusing than ever, you’re not alone. Recent national headlines about “tipping fatigue” show a growing frustration with the current state of tipping — particularly at restaurants — and the murkiness surrounding when and how much people are supposed to tip these days.
So much of tipping, especially in the restaurant industry, is a matter of convention rather than rule, so deciphering current etiquette is headache-inducing for many people. Here’s what to know about the current state of tipping, and how restaurant workers answer some of the most common tipping questions.
Under federal law, restaurant employers must pay tipped workers (anyone who makes more than $30 in tips every month) a minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. States have the ability to set their own laws regarding tipped minimum wage, however. In Texas, the tipped minimum wage matches the federal minimum of $2.13 an hour. In Arizona, that hourly rate is $10.85, and in California, the hourly rate is $15.50. In most cases, tipped restaurant workers like servers and bartenders rely almost solely on tips as their income. Hosts and kitchen staff typically receive non-tipped wages.
Depending on a restaurant’s tip structure, the tip a customer leaves either goes directly to the server in full, or it goes into a tip pool that is split amongst the restaurant’s tipped staff. Those splits are usually calculated...
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