Readers react to an article by Emine Saner about the arrival of US-style tipping culture in British restaurants and bars
Articles comparing tipping culture in the UK to that in the US (‘It’s absolutely criminal’: US tipping culture has reached the UK – and is causing chaos, 24 August) do not go into the complication of minimum wage calculation in the US. There, wait staff are paid a low base rate, but employers must ensure their earnings are topped up to at least the minimum wage through tips.
As an American who has lived in the UK for 27 years, I have endless discussions with American visiting friends about tipping, and how their example of cultural imperialism has resulted in the distortion of worker value for some of the reasons set out in this article (for example, more attractive people get better tips). The assumption is that people who wait on others don’t have as much money as the tipper, but do we know if this is true? With this logic, should we tip the person who serves us at TK Maxx or Aldi?
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