Tipping has its roots in the idea of "Oh, this guy doesn't get paid much, and I want him to/he already did an extra nice job for me, so I'll toss him a few extra bucks."


Minimum wage is the amount a business must pay to an employee. Tips are intended to be outside of the employer-employee relationship- it's something solely between the employee and the customer.

When an employer counts tips as pay, its effectively confiscating the tips, and then giving them back to the employee i.e. forcing itself into a relationship it has no part of.

This COULD be fine, except most restaurants and the like then use this excuse as "Oh! You're already being paid a bit over minimum wage because of all of these people who are giving you extra money because they know you don't make much. So, we're going to use that as an excuse to pay you less."


All employees should be paid at least minimum wage out of the pockets of their employer. Anything I tip is "extra" for the employee, and has no business going into the employer's hands.