William Myers

2116 Feasibility Introduction

Gratuity, or tipping is a small amount of money paid in addition to the normal cost
of a service that goes directly to the individual that provided the service. Tipping is
seen as a way for rewarding good service from an individual, but because people
that work in the service industry receive reduced wages, tipping is also a major
portion of their income. Tipping originated after the Civil War, when restaurant
owners could not afford to pay their employees, they had to reduce wages, and
employees became reliant upon tipping to survive. The idea behind tipping is to tip
based of the service received, but in reality we tip on the normal cost of our service.
With a typical percentage based tip, an individual who serves a $100 bottle of wine
gets tipped more that an individual who serves a $30 bottle of wine. If we tipped
based off of just the service provided, the two servers would receive the same tip. It
is not more difficult, nor does it require more effort to serve a more expensive meal,
the tip was for the cost and not for the service. Tipping is optional, but in our society
it is essentially socially required. If you do not tip, you are perceived as a bad
person. Tipping should be abolished, employee wages should be reasonably raised,
and food prices should be raised by 15% (assuming average tipping of 15%) to
compensate the owners for having to pay their employees more. In this situation no
one loses money, and the biggest positive is the employee receiving an invariant
income. The customer pays the same price whether they tip or if the food is more
expensive, the employee makes a reasonable and consistent wage not dependent
upon customer tips, and owners have increased costs but equally increased
revenue. Since I myself could not directly affect this change, a bill would have to
pass on the government level to force this course into action.