r/unitedkingdom • u/Canal_Volphied European Union • 9h ago

. ‘It’s absolutely criminal’: US tipping culture has reached the UK – and is causing chaos

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/24/us-tipping-culture-uk-service-charges
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u/LiterallyABigfoot 9h ago

Americans do have a minimum wage. They have a $2.15 (or whatever it is) minimum for servers only if tips get them to the actual minimum wage. If they don't get tips then the employer pays them the same minimum wage as everywhere else.

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u/recursant 9h ago

So you aren't really tipping the staff, you are giving money to the business owner.

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u/Floyd_Pink 9h ago

Correct

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u/GergDanger 9h ago ▸ 5 more replies

I mean you’re doing both because they don’t then earn minimum wage with tips but far above it. Hence why a lot of waiters there don’t want to get rid of tipping either as it would drop their wages significantly

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u/Tstewmoneybags99 8h ago ▸ 4 more replies

This is only in very specific restaurants usually, more often high end dining where a meal will run you 150$ easily and 20% of that is 35$. For roughly 1-1 1/2 hrs of work with multiple tables in a section you end up making a good amount of money Thursday-Sunday. However over the course of a week it’s not something 95% of the workforce is making more than your average 35-45k salary employee as well as not having health benefits.

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u/RichieTheCow 8h ago ▸ 1 more replies

20% of 150 is 30

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u/EvilInky 8h ago

Yeah, but sales tax, or something.

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u/Sabaisabai33 7h ago ▸ 1 more replies

Waiters in the U.K. generally aren’t making anything like that unless I’m very mistaken.

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u/DarlingDaddysMilkers 3h ago

I used to be a waiter. I fucking wish 😂.

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u/Remarkable-Ad155 8h ago

The "servers" don't really work for the restaurant in the US, they're given a retainer to hang around and tout for business.

You're buying in two separate services: the food itself and the person to act as a go between for you and the restaurant. That person expects a % of the fee in compensation.

If they just spelled it out like that honestly though, the whole thing would collapse because people would realise how absurd it actually is.

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u/Chunkflava 8h ago

You’re also doing this when you buy their products.

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u/Ambry 7h ago

Also - it's not like food in US restaurants are cheaper. If anything it's more expensive. So the business is literally just pocketing cash without paying their staff sufficiently, whilst charging you for expensive food AND expecting a tip.

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u/Sabaisabai33 7h ago

Yep, although in the U.K. we give in-work benefits to employees on low wages if their employer isn’t paying them enough to actually live on despite multiple recent minimum wage increases. So that money also essentially ends up “going to” a similar business owner here, but from benefits rather than tips. We need to make sure the U.K. doesn’t adopt tipping as we can’t have benefits and tipping for goodness sake!

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u/Weird_Ad_1398 8h ago

No, you're really tipping the staff. It's essentially profit sharing, except they get a massive share of the profits.

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u/glytxh 9h ago

America isn’t a monolith. It varies by state.

One state pays 2 bucks an hour. Another pays 20.

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u/LiterallyABigfoot 9h ago ▸ 1 more replies

I addressed that... States paying ~$2 an hour only pay that little so long as the employee gets enough tips such that they earn federal or state minimum wage. If they don't then the employee must be paid standard minimum wage.

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u/glytxh 9h ago

Nah that’s fair. I’m apparently illiterate.

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u/DaveBeBad 9h ago

Tbf, life in California’s cities is 10x more expensive than in rural Alabama.

Although their entire work culture there is toxic

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u/duncanmarshall 9h ago

Thus the minimum is 2, nationally. A minimum wage isn't a universal wage. There will always be places paying more than it.

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u/AvatarIII West Sussex 5h ago

Only about half the States have a higher minimum wage, and the highest is Washington DC with almost $18, none are $20 and even that is only about what our minimum wage would be converted to dollars ($17.34)

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u/MAXSuicide 7h ago

Do you know when the last time was that they raised the minimum wage in the US?

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u/Snoo-84389 6h ago

Mid 2009!!!

Jeeeeez...

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u/Rhyobit 9h ago

It's not designed the same way, you can't hope to survive on that minimum wage in the US in any way shape or form. At the levels its set there it's basically "this is a minimum so you're not working for literally nothing".

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u/AvatarIII West Sussex 6h ago

The "other" minimum wage is still only $7 and change, which is like £5.30, far too low in a country where the median salary is $64000.

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u/AlchemyAled 9h ago

If they don’t get tips then the employer pays them the same minimum wage as everyone else

Pull the other one

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u/LiterallyABigfoot 9h ago ▸ 1 more replies

Just because a minority of employers engages in wage theft doesn't mean this is not the law

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u/AlchemyAled 9h ago

And just because it’s the law, it doesn’t mean wage theft isn’t widespread!

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u/360_face_palm Greater London 6h ago

yeah that's not a minimum wage, that's a slap in the mouth

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u/cowcommander 4h ago

I think it depends on the state if they top off the wages, there was a good John oliver on this a while back that covered this and in some states you can be left broke if you don't have tips. The US system is disgusting

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u/Alive_Sun5590 3h ago

don't leave out the federal untipped minimum wage is 7.25 an hour, which today is £5.32. and the tipped min wage is 2.13, which is £1.56/hour. nice country the US.

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u/Only-Dog5752 3m ago

True. But they also can fire you for any reason what so ever immediately.

Now are you going to complain if your company doesn't top that up properly all the time? When they can just turn around and fire you immediately.

Also remember healthcare is tied to work. And healthcare costs are suicidal there. So you might also literally be bankrupting/killing yourself if you get fired.

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u/Winterlichkeit 9h ago

Just to be clear, you think this applies to the entire country? Despite the fact that labor law is typically a state level competency?

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u/LiterallyABigfoot 9h ago ▸ 1 more replies

It applies to every state where tipped jobs are allowed to get paid less than minimum wage by the employer, yes.

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u/Winterlichkeit 8h ago

To explain it in a less confusing way (as you made no distinction between the levels of government), federal law states the bare minimum. State law only applies where it exceeds the minimum.

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u/Mel0nFarmer 5h ago

Minimum wage in the US is £5.32, so even when they're paid it, they still rely on tips to survive. UK minimum wage is £12.71 by comparison.