Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e03 Episode Script
Tipping
1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Andrew Cuomo announced
his candidacy for New York mayor,
a 19 dollars strawberry
went viral on social media,
and in California,
the Silicon Valley Auto Show
touted something
that sounded incredible.
There's no shortage
of impressive-looking cars here
with all sorts
of innovative technology,
but one of the ones getting the most
attention at this auto show
is the Alef Flying Car.
It's a regular electric vehicle,
with one more function
which none of the cars here have.
It can actually
vertically take off and fly forward.
Okay.
First, let's deal with the car.
It is a little disappointing.
When I pictured what flying cars
would look like in the future,
I imagined little rockets with
leather seats and drink fridges,
not something that looks
like Lightning McQueen
got canceled and rebounded by
starting his own energy drink company.
And as for that guy,
if he ever walked up to me
and offered me a ride in a flying car,
I'd just assume he was
trying to sell me molly
and not even good molly.
And if he looks at all to you
like a seventh-rate DJ
who goes by "DJ Wizard" and put
out a song called "Sex Machine"
that amassed 115 views on YouTube
over nine years,
that's only because
that is exactly who he is.
And you should know,
at least 50 of those views were
probably ours this week.
Because let's all take a quick listen.
Cool.
Although, you know who wouldn't need
to announce they're a sex machine?
An actual sex machine.
Everyone knows a true sex machine
is respectable, professional, and
focused on their weekly TV show.
I'm of course referring
to Noah Wyle.
And if at this point you're having
any doubts about that flying car,
I should note, they granted
media some limited access
with the emphasis on "limited".
NBC News was given exclusive access
to see their concept model
with our own eyes.
Sure enough,
we watched it soar through the air,
over another car, and land.
But for all the magic of this moment,
we were heavily restricted,
forced to shoot at least
half a football field away,
and we actually never saw the driver
entering or exiting the vehicle.
Yeah, 50 yards away
and no visible driver.
Are we sure that's a flying car,
not just a drone in a car costume?
Because I have about as much faith
in that safely delivering me
from one place to another as
I currently have in Delta Airlines.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration
had another week of horrors,
from Trump boosting
an AI-generated video
envisioning the future of Gaza,
featuring a somehow more
human Elon Musk enjoying hummus,
gold Trump statues,
and Trump and Netanyahu
taking sips
and showing nips by the pool.
Yet somehow, that still wasn't
the most shocking incident
to come out of the White House
this week.
That would be Friday's disastrous
meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky
in the Oval Office,
which went off the rails
after JD Vance
suggested Ukraine try diplomacy,
Zelensky countered that Russia
had broken a ceasefire before
and things
quickly escalated from there.
You don't have
the cards right now.
With us, you start having cards.
I'm not playing cards.
I'm very serious, Mr. President.
I'm very serious.
You're gambling
with the lives of millions of people.
You're gambling
with World War III.
And what you're doing
is very disrespectful to the country,
this country, that's backed you
far more than a lot of people
said they should have.
Have you said "thank you" once?
This entire meeting?
The disastrous meeting ended.
The planned
press conference was canceled.
And Zelensky and his entourage
were told to leave the White House.
"Come back," they were told
by the secretary of state,
"when you're ready for peace."
Trump later left for a weekend in
Florida, having said his piece.
This is gonna be great television,
I will say that.
Well, that depends. Is watching
the president shit on a weaker ally
for not wanting to be conquered,
while his goon VP tries to see
if he can wrap his lips
around his boss's asshole
from a neighboring
couch good television?
I'd argue it's more
"hit your TV with a hammer
until the pain stops" television,
but reasonable people
can disagree.
The whole spectacle was awful.
The Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S.
had her head in her hands.
Marco Rubio seemed to be actively
trying to sink inside the couch.
And for what it's worth, Zelensky
has thanked Americans and the U.S.
33 times at the very least,
which feels like enough.
He shouldn't be constantly
urged to say "thank you,"
he's a president in the middle
of a war,
not a toddler opening
a present from Mee-maw.
We're taping this on Saturday,
so who knows what's happened since,
but on Friday night,
while leaving the White House,
Trump made sure to send
Zelensky this message.
He's gotta say,
"I want to make peace."
He doesn't have to stand there
and say about Putin this, Putin that,
all negative things.
Yeah! What's Putin
ever done to Zelensky
other than kill
tens of thousands of people
and cause
untold damage to his country?
Can't he find anything good
to say about him,
like how his cheeks are puffy like
a couple of Hawaiian rolls,
or how this horse definitely didn't
kill itself after this photo shoot?
It's not that hard to be nice!
But it's not just international affairs
where the administration
has been on a rampage.
It's also continued its draconian cuts
to domestic budgets and staffing.
And the problem is not just
who's leaving government,
it's who's joining.
Take the FBI!
Last week, Kash Patel, seen here
either mid-shart
or watching a giraffe give birth,
was confirmed as FBI director.
We've mentioned him before
on this show.
He served
in the first Trump administration,
before going on to become
a right-wing personality.
He's written
a series of children's books
about a wizard named Kash
who tries to save King Donald
from political opponents
like Hillary Queenton,
and he's written a memoir
titled Government Gangsters,
which was turned into a film
produced by Steve Bannon
starring Patel himself, which,
we can officially report now,
won no Oscars tonight.
And after being sworn in last week,
again, as FBI director,
even he didn't seem
to quite believe it.
First and foremost, we were
just with President Trump
and I just want to thank him.
I know he's not here in the room,
but what a ride we have been on.
What a courageous warrior
and leader he has been.
And the faith and trust he has
put in me to lead the FBI
is the greatest honor
that I'll ever have in my life.
Man, this is effin' crazy!
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
It's fucking crazy!
It is nuts to have an FBI director
who never worked for the FBI,
appeared at least seven times
on the podcast of a Holocaust denier
who's praised Hitler,
and who, when Trump proposed him as
deputy FBI director in his first term,
prompted Bill Barr to say,
"Over my dead body."
Little did he know,
the only qualification for Trump's
second term appointees would be,
"Will this kill Bill Barr?"
Patel has gotten off
to a predictably chaotic start.
He held a video call
with FBI officials
in which he "rattled off so many
changes that employees couldn't tell"
"if he was serious
about all of them,"
said he didn't like meetings,
and at one point stepped out
to take another phone call,
told people he "planned to spend a lot
of time in Las Vegas," where he lives,
and also said he hoped to
"arrange a partnership
between the FBI and the UFC."
But what's even wilder is who was
appointed as his deputy this week.
Dan Bongino will be deputy director
of the FBI.
No Senate confirmation necessary,
and apparently no FBI experience
necessary either.
Dan Bongino touts
his army of followers,
millions of talk radio and podcast
listeners who share his devotion
to President Trump, his conspiracy
theories about the 2020 election,
and his pledge
to "own the libs".
Bongino's new position was announced
just hours after an association
of current FBI agents said
it asked Patel to ensure
an "active special agent
would get the post,"
"as has been
the case for 117 years."
It's true.
Patel was specifically asked by current
agents to appoint an FBI veteran.
Apparently,
he told them he would,
and then they got
Dan Bongino instead,
which is basically like a mom
promising her eight-year-old
she'll get a magician
for his birthday party,
and then choosing
to hire Ken Burns.
"What the fuck, mom?"
"This is the opposite
of what we just agreed to!"
And to be clear,
this is a really important job.
In fact, some FBI officials consider
the deputy job more important
than the director role, because
the deputy oversees operations,
supervises the heads of field offices,
and handles
some of the most sensitive intelligence
in the federal government.
But Bongino,
a former Secret Service agent,
NRATV and Fox News host,
doesn't seem remotely
qualified for this role.
He's currently
still hosting his podcast.
And it's hard to sum up
the general vibe of it,
but this clip
gives you a pretty good taste.
There's now no longer a serious
question that the FBI,
the government, and the Democrats
rigged the 2020 election.
There's no longer a question.
You want us to stop complaining
about rigged elections?
Here's a quick way to do that:
don't rig elections! Just an idea!
All right, let me get to this.
Today's show brought to you
by our friends at My Patriot Supply.
Folks, here's some good news:
it's now more affordable than ever
to prepare for this poor economy.
For more inflation, food shortages
and whatever else is coming next.
Yeah, Bongino is basically
just an Alex Jones lite,
yelling conspiracy theories
in between selling supplements
and doomsday prep supplies.
Even though he doesn't seem
that excited about selling them there.
Because he just said
"all right, let me get to this"
in the exact tone
of a high school janitor
who was told one of the kids
puked in the gym.
And honestly, I feel bad for his
friends over at My Patriot Supply.
It's tough enough to scare people
into buying things
like anti-radiation tablets,
edible wild plant playing cards,
and a bucket of "survival coffee",
about which My Patriot Supply
helpfully clarifies,
"Not into coffee? Never fear."
"It makes an invaluable item
for barter or trade!"
Which is great, isn't it?
Because the last thing you'd want
is to buy a bucket of apocalypse
coffee and then realize:
"Shit, I don't even like coffee."
And when he said
the FBI "rigged the election,"
that's not a one-off.
He's spent years complaining
the FBI is too aggressive
in investigating conservatives,
and gives Democrats a pass,
and he's repeatedly proposed
a solution for that
that I'm sure will endear him
to all of his new employees.
The FBI needs to be disbanded.
It is an entirely,
completely failed operation.
The FBI, we need to stop
dilly-dallying and dicking around,
needs to be disbanded.
There is deep systemic
corruption at the FBI.
It is not fixable.
The agency's broken,
needs to be disbanded,
period, full stop,
the gavel's down. Thank you very much.
Hold on!
You do not get to have a gavel!
Who the fuck do you think you are?
The honorable Judge Steve Harvey?
Though, to be fair,
I will say, I get the appeal.
A gavel whack makes any statement
sound more official. I'll show you.
Dan Bongino looks like a dad
at a Little League game
who's about to go to prison.
Full stop, the gavel's down.
He looks like a freeze-dried
Joe Rogan. Full stop, case closed.
See? You can't argue
with me now, can you?
Because I made my little boom-boom
stick go whack-whack.
I'm not a huge fan of the FBI
or how it operates.
There are lots and lots of problems
with it.
But there are now real concerns
that Bongino may be about to use it
as a cudgel against what he sees
as "America's enemies",
basically,
everyone to the left of him.
And now he's the agency's deputy
director, working under this guy.
So, the brakes are fully off.
And it seems every decision
in this administration-every cut,
every tantrum, every personnel choice,
makes it clearer that our government
and its most important agencies
are currently in the hands
of people intent on using them
for their worst possible purposes.
Which isn't just terrifying.
If I may quote our new FBI director,
it is effing crazy. And now, this.
And Now:
C-SPAN Callers Have Thoughts
About the Once
Per Thirty Days Rule.
Let's talk to Alexis, who's calling
from Wilmington, North Carolina
on the Independent line.
Alexis, good morning.
Good morning to you,
thanks for taking my call,
it's been 30 days to the day
and I'm so happy to get on.
Bill in Waycross, Georgia,
Democrats line, hello.
Good morning. It's tough when I have
to wait 30 days, I go crazy.
And I just thank you
for taking my call.
You're making me wait too long.
I had to go 30 days!
Good morning,
thanks for having me on.
It's really hard to wait 30 days.
This is Joe the counselor.
I know you well, Joe.
You call in every 30 days
and that's when folks can call in.
Hi, George, good morning to you.
Has it been 30 days?
Yes, ma'am, it's,
I called on, uh, March 31st.
- Greta, good morning.
- Good morning.
Your buddy George.
You know what I have to ask you.
Yes, thanks, George.
Are you waiting every 30 days?
Is there any way that you could change
the 30-day rule for calling?
The 30-day rule's been in existence
as long as I've been with this program.
We generally find that it works
for the most part.
Wait, did you call before?
- Yeah.
- We're gonna ask you not to do that.
Wait a minute,
before you go too far,
when you say call earlier,
you mean call today?
- Yes.
- Sorry, gonna have to leave it there.
Hold on, caller,
did you call today already?
Yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna have
to leave it there, I apologize.
Have a good day, Bill.
I love me some C-SPAN.
And thanks for your reminder for
folks to call just every 30 days,
if you called in the last 30 days,
don't even try calling.
We will generally
know who you are,
so appreciate your kindness and
playing by the rules as Debbie said.
Moving on. Our main story
tonight concerns restaurants,
one of the dumbest things we've
used HBO's money to pay for,
tied with Russell Crowe's jockstrap,
this giant cake,
and the contractual day rate
of Armie Hammer.
Three days plus transportation,
by the way. There's not a lot to say.
More broadly, we're gonna talk
about tipping.
Lately, we're not just
seeing it in restaurants,
we're being asked to do it everywhere
and people are fed up.
I'm purchasing an office chair online,
and they're asking me
if I want to leave a tip.
Are we tipping at drive-thrus?
The airport in New Jersey
just asked me to tip at self-checkout.
Tip myself? I did all the work.
Who am I tipping?
We got fro-yo last night,
and it was serve yourself.
Then when I go to pay,
the kid at the register is like:
"It's just going to ask
you a question."
And the question says, "How much
tip do you want to leave?"
I was like, "What the fuck
am I tipping you for?"
It was literally serve yourself!
I grabbed the container,
I pulled that lever, I even
sprinkled the cookie dough bites!
If anybody should be getting
a tip around here, it's me!
First, no one should ever be getting
that worked up about frozen yogurt.
It is ice cream for people
who hate themselves.
That said, I do agree that you
should be able to tip yourself
when you do a good job.
In fact, I'm going
to start something tonight.
I'm putting a little bit of money
into this jar every time I make
a good joke or a salient point.
Watch this space.
The point is,
people are furious at how often
they're seeing the tip screen.
It is now the least welcome way
to encounter an iPad in public,
outside of "guy watching
PornHub on the bus."
In fact,
nearly three in four people think
tipping culture
has gotten out of control.
There are so many stories of people
being asked to tip in weird places,
from one woman saying
"her mortgage company
has been asking for tips lately"
to another sharing how her
Chevy Cruze got towed,
and when she went to the impound
lot and it came time to pay,
"on the screen, additional
gratuity options appeared."
And getting asked to tip
at an impound lot
might seem like
the craziest possible example,
until you see this TikTok of
a fully automated coffee kiosk.
You want a fucking tip?
Are you serious? You too?
I think we can all agree,
that is ridiculous.
Especially because that piece
of machinery with googly eyes
doesn't want a tip.
All it wants
is the sweet release of death
and to be welcomed
into the kingdom of heaven,
but, newsflash, robot,
that's never gonna happen,
you're not getting into heaven,
you know why?
Say it with me, folks:
you were never baptized!
Exactly. Bingo bango,
enjoy robot hell, down you go,
and stay there.
The point is, you're not wrong
for thinking tip requests
are showing up in more places.
But as frustrating as that can be,
lots of people depend on tips
for their livelihood and this
subject took center stage last year,
when Trump made
this bold promise.
I will eliminate taxes on tips
for restaurant workers
and hospitality workers,
and anyone else relying on tips.
No more taxes on tips.
No taxes on tips.
None!
Look, Trump may be the most
predictable man who has ever lived,
but at least he's out there trying
to generate suspense
at random points in the middle
of otherwise normal sentences.
"Tips!"
Once every three or four minutes,
he belts out a random word
like he's announcing it as the musical
guest on "Saturday Night Live".
But it is true, Trump's promised
to eliminate taxes on tips,
and Kamala Harris followed suit,
adopting a similar proposal.
And right now,
lawmakers are deciding
whether or not this proposal
will make it into the budget.
But the thing is, tipping's
actually a lot more complicated
and fraught
than you may realize.
So, given that, tonight,
let's talk about tipping,
why we do it,
what the problems with it are
and how we might be able
to address at least some of them.
And let's start with the fact
that tipping here is way more
pervasive than in most of the world.
In Europe,
tipping is much less of a norm,
while in Japan, it can be "considered
embarrassing and awkward."
Americans traveling abroad
sometimes do find waitstaff confused
if they try and tip, as this man
discovered in Amsterdam.
We got a few beers, and I left,
like, a five on the table.
They're like, "You forgot this."
I'm like, "No, that's for you."
And they're like, "Why?"
And, you know, if they ask why,
it means they're probably
getting paid fine.
And like, they didn't see
that and go, "Yeah."
If you saw somebody in Portland
and a five was on a table
and they didn't know why, they'd
be like, "All right, five bucks."
That tells you something about
the culture of your economy
and how you treat your workers.
Right. You know
a country's in pretty good shape
when their workers
turn down free money.
"We do not need your 5 dollars,
for we are each given a fair wage"
"and universal healthcare
and a beautiful windmill to sleep in"
"at night and all of the tulips
that we can eat."
"Truly it is paradise here, no?"
But while it is now mainly known
as an American affectation,
the origin of tipping is commonly
traced back to Tudor England,
when "visitors to private homes
were expected to give sums of money"
"at the end of a visit for service
rendered by the host's servants."
Hundreds of years later,
visiting Americans brought
the custom back home with them.
And it really took off
after the Civil War,
when some employers hired
formerly enslaved people,
"paid them low wages, and then
encouraged customers to leave tips."
And I will say there's consistently
been pushback against this practice.
William Howard Taft
was once referred to as
"the patron saint
of the anti-tip crusaders,"
which is a fantastic spin
on "cheap bastard",
while Ralph Waldo Emerson complained
about tipping for bad service, writing,
"I confess with shame that I sometimes
succumb and give the dollar,"
"yet it is a wicked dollar"
"which by and by I shall have
the manhood to withhold."
While it is fine to wish
you'll one day be strong enough
to resist pressure to tip,
I'm just gonna say it:
that guy would've absolutely crumbled
in the face of this robot.
He'd have signed his house over
to that googly-eyed monster,
even if it got his order wrong.
The anti-tipping movement
grew so pervasive,
in the early 20th century,
six states passed laws
criminalizing the practice,
but that obviously did not last.
And nowadays,
tipping is everywhere,
though it can seem like no one
really understands the rules
of when and how much to tip.
Even one of the leading academic
experts on tipping has said,
"I don't know how much you're
supposed to tip and I study this."
It's got to the point
where some consumers
are now opting out of the system
altogether, like this guy.
So, I'm not tipping anymore.
I'm done. I'm out.
Used to be you would give a tip if
somebody gave exceptional service.
When was the last time you got
exceptional service anywhere?
They made food.
You carried it to my table.
You got me a Diet Coke. Thank you.
That was your job.
You don't get 25% 'cause you did your
job. And I'm not the bad guy here.
Yeah, are you 100% sure
about that, though?
'Cause you can be irritated with
our current system of tipping,
but protesting it by stiffing your
server is about as effective
as protesting police budgets by
flipping off a police dog.
He has nothing to do with the policy
and the only one whose life
you're making worse is his.
Also, between advocating
for stiffing waiters
and his "I heart fossil fuels" T-shirt,
I'm just gonna take a stab here:
you might
actually be the bad guy.
But to understand why just
not tipping is such a bad idea,
it helps to understand
exactly who works for tips
and how they get paid.
Because while you might primarily
think of servers at restaurants,
who do make up a large share
of those who work for tips,
tipped workers can also include
casino dealers, doormen, golf caddies,
hotel maids, and taxi
drivers, among other occupations.
In fact, under federal law,
workers can be classified
as tipped workers if they receive
just 30 dollars a month in tips.
And that distinction really matters,
because in most states,
employers can legally pay tipped
workers a much lower base wage,
as these cartoon
graphics will explain.
Here's how it works. The federal
minimum wage is 7.25 dollars per hour,
but if you're a tipped worker,
it's 2.13 dollars per hour.
Also referred to
as the subminimum wage.
Yeah.
The federal subminimum wage,
sometimes called
the "tipped minimum wage",
is just 2.13 an hour. And it's been
at that level since 1991.
It may be the most depressing thing
that we're still having to live with
from that year were it not the exact
same year that the Supreme Court
was joined by this fucking guy here.
The motor coach offer is off the table,
by the way. Big mistake. Huge.
Now, for what it's worth:
many states choose
to set a wage higher than that,
but only these seven,
and a handful of cities,
have the same minimum wage for
tipped and non-tipped workers alike.
Meaning everywhere else,
the expectation is that some
workers can be paid less,
because their tips
will make up the difference.
But the thing is, 2.13 dollars
sometimes isn't even enough
to cover payroll taxes,
as this worker explains.
- In Indiana, you make 2.13 an hour.
- 2.13 an hour?
Yeah.
- What does 2.13 buy you?
- You don't see a paycheck.
Your paycheck literally says,
"This is not a check."
It says, "0 dollars,
this is not a check."
'Cause it just goes to taxes?
So, basically,
you're starting at zero.
Right. You can literally be given
a check that has
"this is not a check"
written on it.
And come on, who is writing those
paychecks, René Magritte?
Ceci n'est pas une paycheck,
Magritte?
Hi, if you're seeing this, you
have "explain the joke to me"
toggled on your HBO account.
René Magritte was
a Belgian surrealist painter
whose most famous works include
this painting of a pipe
with the words
"this is not a pipe" beneath it,
because of course:
it isn't a pipe, it's a painting.
That might seem banal now,
but trust me:
if you were sitting in a French art
museum in 1929,
shit like this
blew your fucking dome.
People were speaking in tongues,
throwing up in response.
It was a regular
"Rite of Spring" scene.
Hi. You hit the button again?
"Rite of Spring" is a work
by Igor Stravinsky
that was supposedly so avant-garde,
caused riots at its first performance.
Apparently, Camille Saint-Saens
stormed out of the premiere,
although, admittedly,
that claim is in some dispute.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
I do need to get back to the show.
Takes some
fucking balls there, right?
The point is, you can make
as little as 2.13 dollars an hour.
And if what you make up in tips
doesn't get you all the way up
to minimum wage, theoretically,
your employer is supposed
to cover the difference,
through what is called
the "tip credit".
But that can be hard for employers
to keep track of,
and it's a system
that's easy to cheat,
it's been said that
the tip credit is "often
abused at the employees' expense,"
with one restaurant worker saying,
'As long as I've been doing this,"
"I have never, ever, not one time,
met anyone that's been compensated"
"for a below-minimum pay period."
So, the fact is,
a lot of tipped workers' pay
may come down to how much
someone chooses to leave as gratuity.
And if you've ever in your life
worked for tips, you know,
you can do very well.
Though, that can depend
on not just where you work,
but when you work, or even what
mood your customers happen to be in,
as this former hospitality
worker explains.
If you come in on a Tuesday,
I mean, some people party on
a Tuesday, but not as much as Saturday.
Put yourself
in a tipped worker's shoes.
Could you survive off of 2.50 an hour
and rely on the drunk guy
in front of you to pay your rent?
Right. Someone's ability
to pay their rent
can be dependent on a person who
may be drunk, or partying on a Tuesday,
or if they happen to be the current
Defense secretary, very likely both!
And all this might help explain
why recent analyses have found
that poverty rates for tipped
workers are over twice as high
as for non-tipped workers.
And some tend to be more
disadvantaged by this than others.
Studies have found that
both Black and white consumers
tip white servers
more than Black ones.
And one paper found that
"waitresses in their 30s"
"and those with large breasts,
blond hair, and/or slender bodies"
"received larger average tips than
those without these characteristics."
And look, it is not news that life is
somewhat easier for attractive people.
I would know.
I was featured in Vogue in 2015
in the gallery titled,
and this is true,
"10 Unconventional Alternatives
to the Sexiest Man Alive."
Who was at the time, by the way,
David Beckham.
You know, life is just
different for us, you know,
whether you're the sexiest man
alive, or his, quote,
"unconventional alternative."
Those higher tips can come
with a lot of unwanted harassment.
And if servers are
making a subminimum wage,
they might feel especially pressured
to put up with that
in order to make a living.
And there is one final twist here.
A server's tips may not even be
entirely theirs either.
In some restaurants, there's
an expectation that servers
will "tip out", or pay a share of their
tips to other restaurant personnel.
And depending
on how that's set up,
it can really put servers
in a bind.
Here is that woman you saw a minute
ago, explaining how it worked for her.
You have to tip out.
Most restaurants is roughly
three to 5% of your sales.
Even if people are tipping the 20%
that is standard for great service,
most servers are tipping out three
to 5% of that to bussers,
hosts and bartenders.
What if I leave you nothing?
What happens?
Then we have to pay that tip out,
whether you give us money or not.
So, like, say your bill is 100 dollars
and I have to tip out 5%,
and you don't tip me at all,
I'm paying 5 dollars to wait on you.
Out of my own pocket.
That is true. At some places, not only
are you subsidizing the servers,
they may be subsidizing other
members of staff, too.
If that seems less like a business
and more like an insane money carousel
where everyone is paying everyone
else and somehow everyone is still poor,
welcome to the restaurant industry!
At this point,
you may be thinking,
"Well, fuck this whole system,
why don't we just get rid of it?"
And you would not be
the first to suggest that.
Here's that guy you saw earlier,
gaming out the system he'd rather see.
If you own a restaurant,
just tell me what it costs.
I don't want people to go hungry.
What does it cost for me
to get my food and also
so that the waitstaff doesn't have
to join the cartel, do some "Lord
of the Flies," "Oliver Twist"…
I want people to be taken care of.
Just tell me what it costs.
That might sound reasonable.
The"paying fair price
for what I'm getting" part,
not the absolute avalanche
of fearing the waitstaff
would "join the cartel"
or do "some 'Lord of the Flies'
or 'Oliver Twist', like" thing,
whatever the fuck
that could mean.
I don't know what versions
of either of those books he's read,
but "Lord of the Flies"
and "Oliver Twist"
had different answers for what children
will get up to when unsupervised,
and neither of them seemed like
they'd apply to workers
making the tipped minimum wage.
But unfortunately,
when many people say,
"Just tell me what it costs",
they also mean,
"And it better cost exactly the same,
or I am gonna be pissed",
as this tipping expert explains.
I've done the research where I give
people hypothetical menus,
one where they have regular prices,
and at the bottom, it says,
"A customary tip
of 15 to 20% is appreciated."
One where
they say tipping's not allowed,
you can't tip, but their
menu prices are 15% higher.
He then asked people how expensive
they thought the restaurant was.
People overwhelmingly thought
the menu with the 15% higher prices
was more expensive than a menu where
they would tip 15% or more anyway.
Yeah. Even if the amount
of money coming out of your pocket
is the exact same both times,
people view the menu with the
built-in tip prices as more expensive.
Because it just feels more expensive.
It's sort of the same way that it feels
like I'm older than David Beckham,
even though, fun fact,
I'm two years younger
than him.
He's aging incredibly,
and I think I'm pickling.
Yeah, I deserve that.
And that has led people to try
and come up with other ways
to relieve the financial stress
on tipped workers.
Which brings us all the way back
to Trump's promise
to eliminate taxes on tips.
It's an idea that he was proud to reveal
had a notable celebrity backer.
On your receipt,
when you get your
receipt for a restaurant,
you know who sent me one?
Kid Rock. How good is Kid Rock?
Isn't he great, that guy?
But he sent me a receipt
and he wrote on the receipt,
"Vote for Trump and you
won't pay taxes on tips."
He wrote that on the receipt.
I said, "That's very smart."
"That's very smart.
Smart guy."
So, for restaurant workers,
for hotel workers,
for caddies, for car people,
it's a lot.
But anybody receiving tips,
there's no more tax on tips,
and I think that's gonna be
a great thing.
Okay, there is so much
to deal with there.
From the phrase "car people" to,
again, the surprise punctuation
on "caddies!"
to the fact the president's taking
policy advice from Kid Rock,
a man who constantly looks
like he's on trial
for something called
"moonshine fraud".
But the thing is,
that idea has broad support.
It's a proposal supported
by "roughly three in four Republicans,"
"Democrats and independents."
I'm all for giving a tax break
to low-wage workers.
But you should know, a lot
of economists have major concerns
with this particular policy.
Starting with the fact
that the tax relief it gives,
it would be haphazard at best.
One of the ways to make taxes fair
is to make sure that people
of the same income level
are paying approximately
the same amount of taxes.
And in this case, you really
wouldn't be doing that.
So, for example, if you took
a delivery worker who delivered food,
they probably get tips, and so they
would qualify for this tax benefit.
If you took a delivery worker
who delivered packages,
they usually don't, so they
wouldn't get a tax benefit.
I can't think of a good reason why you
would want to give a tax break
to the person who delivers food, but
not to the person who delivers mail.
Right. That doesn't make
much sense, does it?
If someone delivering packages
for Amazon makes the same
as someone delivering food
for DoorDash,
it doesn't feel fair for one of them
to be taxed significantly more.
Although,
if we're gonna be even fairer,
we'd probably tax the guy
who owns the company
that sends out those packages
a fuckton more as well,
but that's not what we're
talking about tonight.
The point is, Trump's plan
would essentially be a tax break
for only the two and a half percent
of American workers who work for tips
and not even all of those, given that
"more than a third of tipped workers"
"had incomes low enough"
"that they face no federal
income tax" to begin with.
And that's not the only issue
with this idea.
It's also a policy
that could be exploited.
For instance, people with higher
incomes might find ways
to designate some of their wages
as tips to avoid paying taxes.
And there've been concerns
that it could "push some employers"
"to restructure their pay to lean
more heavily on tips",
meaning prompts to tip could
"start showing up in whole new
categories of consumer transactions."
So, you might actually be prompted
to tip even more than you are now.
The point is, while "no tax on tips" is
an easy applause line at rallies,
it wouldn't be nearly
as effective as it sounds.
If you really want to give relief
to tipped workers,
I'd argue the solution would be
to eliminate the subminimum wage.
Basically, everyone gets
at least the minimum wage,
and then your tip
goes on top of that.
A proposal that this advocacy group
has been pushing for nationwide.
But I will acknowledge, not everyone
is on board with this idea.
In Michigan, there's been
an ongoing fight
over raising
its subminimum wage.
And even some who might stand
to benefit do have concerns.
Andrea Souther works hard
for her tips.
It's what keeps my lights on. That's
what keeps me going back for sure.
Because she makes tips, her minimum
wage is about 4 dollars an hour.
Soon that'll change, and she'll make
minimum wage like any other worker,
which right now is roughly 10 dollars
an hour in Michigan.
When people start to realize you're
making hourly, they'll tip less.
They'll be like, well, they're already
making their minimum wage,
which is 10-something an hour.
Yeah, I could see
worrying about that.
And while I'm not saying it's
the only reason she feels that way,
having what seems to be her boss
standing three feet away
staring daggers at the camera might
also have something to do with it.
But I do get those concerns.
Although, it is worth remembering,
there are seven states that haven't
had a subminimum wage for decades.
And people still tip there.
In fact, one study found
that tipped workers in those states
typically earn 10 to 20% more
in wages and tips.
And I'm not saying
switching over is easy.
There are good-faith concerns
from restaurant owners,
who are often having to operate
on very thin margins,
about what sudden pay hikes
could mean.
That's why, in many places
where the subminimum wage
has been eliminated,
it's been done gradually,
so that restaurants can figure out
an approach that works for them,
like adding a service charge,
or raising prices slowly.
And it's worth knowing,
where it's been done,
the restaurant industry
hasn't imploded.
Flagstaff, Arizona has been
incrementally doing away
with its subminimum wage
since 2017,
and both restaurant employment
and the number of restaurants
in its county have risen.
Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. is now
two years into its phase-out,
so it's still too early to know
the full impact,
but numbers currently don't show any
obvious problems on the job front.
"There are somewhat fewer bartenders,
an increase in waiters and waitresses,"
"and earnings that are broadly
consistent with recent years."
But maybe the clearest expression
of the difference eliminating
the subminimum wage can make
is looking at states that have done it
and neighboring states that haven't.
Just watch as a waitress in Wisconsin,
which has a subminimum wage
for tipped workers,
is asked about Minnesota,
which got rid of it.
What if someone said to you,
"We're going to be just like
your neighbors over there in Minnesota"
"and you're going to get minimum wage
as your base salary, plus your tips?"
I would love that.
I actually know some people
who used to work
in Minnesota as a server,
and then they came over here.
And they realized that they're only
making 2.33, and they're like,
"I'm losing thousands of dollars
by coming over here in Wisconsin."
That's not great!
You shouldn't lose thousands of dollars
just because you're in Wisconsin.
Especially because those dollars
are actually more useful there,
because Wisconsin is where
the National Mustard Museum is,
and it has everything.
It sells membership to
a mustard of the month club.
And this excellent
Poupon U sweatshirt.
That's the kind of thing
you want some extra cash for.
When you take all of this together,
a few things are clear about tipping.
First, it's unlikely
to ever go away completely.
At this point, it's just too culturally
ingrained, no matter what happens.
Second, it just isn't the gratuity
that many seem to think it is.
In fact, in a lot of places right
now, it's an absolute necessity.
So, if you're eating at a restaurant,
you have to tip.
And there are other jobs where
that might also be the case,
up to and including
"car people" and "caddies"!
Now, does that mean you should
also be tipping at an impound lot?
No. Absolutely not.
Should you be tipping this robot?
Fuck no!
That shouldn't happen under
any circumstances.
That robot should go to hell
and it will.
But if you didn't know that workers
in most states rely on tips
to make up for subminimum
wages, now you do.
And if you'd rather a tip
be just a little bonus
instead of critical to someone's
survival, that's great,
that means you support eliminating
the subminimum wage,
and you should yell at your state
and federal lawmakers about it.
But if you're considering
withholding tips
to prove some kind of point
about the unfairness of the industry,
I hate to say it,
you might be the bad guy.
Anyway, that is the end of this story,
and it's the end of this episode.
For those of you at home,
your screen's just gonna ask
you a question real quick.
Just go ahead and tap
to make your selection.
No pressure,
but we worked pretty hard.
If you fell asleep, but there is a cat
that's still awake in your home,
just mash your little paws
at the screen.
Daddy wants some money.
That's our show, thanks
so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Not 15. Over here,
we'll take the 25 please.
We worked hard this week.
Get it!
Get it. Get it, cat!
25!
Get it!
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Andrew Cuomo announced
his candidacy for New York mayor,
a 19 dollars strawberry
went viral on social media,
and in California,
the Silicon Valley Auto Show
touted something
that sounded incredible.
There's no shortage
of impressive-looking cars here
with all sorts
of innovative technology,
but one of the ones getting the most
attention at this auto show
is the Alef Flying Car.
It's a regular electric vehicle,
with one more function
which none of the cars here have.
It can actually
vertically take off and fly forward.
Okay.
First, let's deal with the car.
It is a little disappointing.
When I pictured what flying cars
would look like in the future,
I imagined little rockets with
leather seats and drink fridges,
not something that looks
like Lightning McQueen
got canceled and rebounded by
starting his own energy drink company.
And as for that guy,
if he ever walked up to me
and offered me a ride in a flying car,
I'd just assume he was
trying to sell me molly
and not even good molly.
And if he looks at all to you
like a seventh-rate DJ
who goes by "DJ Wizard" and put
out a song called "Sex Machine"
that amassed 115 views on YouTube
over nine years,
that's only because
that is exactly who he is.
And you should know,
at least 50 of those views were
probably ours this week.
Because let's all take a quick listen.
Cool.
Although, you know who wouldn't need
to announce they're a sex machine?
An actual sex machine.
Everyone knows a true sex machine
is respectable, professional, and
focused on their weekly TV show.
I'm of course referring
to Noah Wyle.
And if at this point you're having
any doubts about that flying car,
I should note, they granted
media some limited access
with the emphasis on "limited".
NBC News was given exclusive access
to see their concept model
with our own eyes.
Sure enough,
we watched it soar through the air,
over another car, and land.
But for all the magic of this moment,
we were heavily restricted,
forced to shoot at least
half a football field away,
and we actually never saw the driver
entering or exiting the vehicle.
Yeah, 50 yards away
and no visible driver.
Are we sure that's a flying car,
not just a drone in a car costume?
Because I have about as much faith
in that safely delivering me
from one place to another as
I currently have in Delta Airlines.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration
had another week of horrors,
from Trump boosting
an AI-generated video
envisioning the future of Gaza,
featuring a somehow more
human Elon Musk enjoying hummus,
gold Trump statues,
and Trump and Netanyahu
taking sips
and showing nips by the pool.
Yet somehow, that still wasn't
the most shocking incident
to come out of the White House
this week.
That would be Friday's disastrous
meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky
in the Oval Office,
which went off the rails
after JD Vance
suggested Ukraine try diplomacy,
Zelensky countered that Russia
had broken a ceasefire before
and things
quickly escalated from there.
You don't have
the cards right now.
With us, you start having cards.
I'm not playing cards.
I'm very serious, Mr. President.
I'm very serious.
You're gambling
with the lives of millions of people.
You're gambling
with World War III.
And what you're doing
is very disrespectful to the country,
this country, that's backed you
far more than a lot of people
said they should have.
Have you said "thank you" once?
This entire meeting?
The disastrous meeting ended.
The planned
press conference was canceled.
And Zelensky and his entourage
were told to leave the White House.
"Come back," they were told
by the secretary of state,
"when you're ready for peace."
Trump later left for a weekend in
Florida, having said his piece.
This is gonna be great television,
I will say that.
Well, that depends. Is watching
the president shit on a weaker ally
for not wanting to be conquered,
while his goon VP tries to see
if he can wrap his lips
around his boss's asshole
from a neighboring
couch good television?
I'd argue it's more
"hit your TV with a hammer
until the pain stops" television,
but reasonable people
can disagree.
The whole spectacle was awful.
The Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S.
had her head in her hands.
Marco Rubio seemed to be actively
trying to sink inside the couch.
And for what it's worth, Zelensky
has thanked Americans and the U.S.
33 times at the very least,
which feels like enough.
He shouldn't be constantly
urged to say "thank you,"
he's a president in the middle
of a war,
not a toddler opening
a present from Mee-maw.
We're taping this on Saturday,
so who knows what's happened since,
but on Friday night,
while leaving the White House,
Trump made sure to send
Zelensky this message.
He's gotta say,
"I want to make peace."
He doesn't have to stand there
and say about Putin this, Putin that,
all negative things.
Yeah! What's Putin
ever done to Zelensky
other than kill
tens of thousands of people
and cause
untold damage to his country?
Can't he find anything good
to say about him,
like how his cheeks are puffy like
a couple of Hawaiian rolls,
or how this horse definitely didn't
kill itself after this photo shoot?
It's not that hard to be nice!
But it's not just international affairs
where the administration
has been on a rampage.
It's also continued its draconian cuts
to domestic budgets and staffing.
And the problem is not just
who's leaving government,
it's who's joining.
Take the FBI!
Last week, Kash Patel, seen here
either mid-shart
or watching a giraffe give birth,
was confirmed as FBI director.
We've mentioned him before
on this show.
He served
in the first Trump administration,
before going on to become
a right-wing personality.
He's written
a series of children's books
about a wizard named Kash
who tries to save King Donald
from political opponents
like Hillary Queenton,
and he's written a memoir
titled Government Gangsters,
which was turned into a film
produced by Steve Bannon
starring Patel himself, which,
we can officially report now,
won no Oscars tonight.
And after being sworn in last week,
again, as FBI director,
even he didn't seem
to quite believe it.
First and foremost, we were
just with President Trump
and I just want to thank him.
I know he's not here in the room,
but what a ride we have been on.
What a courageous warrior
and leader he has been.
And the faith and trust he has
put in me to lead the FBI
is the greatest honor
that I'll ever have in my life.
Man, this is effin' crazy!
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
It's fucking crazy!
It is nuts to have an FBI director
who never worked for the FBI,
appeared at least seven times
on the podcast of a Holocaust denier
who's praised Hitler,
and who, when Trump proposed him as
deputy FBI director in his first term,
prompted Bill Barr to say,
"Over my dead body."
Little did he know,
the only qualification for Trump's
second term appointees would be,
"Will this kill Bill Barr?"
Patel has gotten off
to a predictably chaotic start.
He held a video call
with FBI officials
in which he "rattled off so many
changes that employees couldn't tell"
"if he was serious
about all of them,"
said he didn't like meetings,
and at one point stepped out
to take another phone call,
told people he "planned to spend a lot
of time in Las Vegas," where he lives,
and also said he hoped to
"arrange a partnership
between the FBI and the UFC."
But what's even wilder is who was
appointed as his deputy this week.
Dan Bongino will be deputy director
of the FBI.
No Senate confirmation necessary,
and apparently no FBI experience
necessary either.
Dan Bongino touts
his army of followers,
millions of talk radio and podcast
listeners who share his devotion
to President Trump, his conspiracy
theories about the 2020 election,
and his pledge
to "own the libs".
Bongino's new position was announced
just hours after an association
of current FBI agents said
it asked Patel to ensure
an "active special agent
would get the post,"
"as has been
the case for 117 years."
It's true.
Patel was specifically asked by current
agents to appoint an FBI veteran.
Apparently,
he told them he would,
and then they got
Dan Bongino instead,
which is basically like a mom
promising her eight-year-old
she'll get a magician
for his birthday party,
and then choosing
to hire Ken Burns.
"What the fuck, mom?"
"This is the opposite
of what we just agreed to!"
And to be clear,
this is a really important job.
In fact, some FBI officials consider
the deputy job more important
than the director role, because
the deputy oversees operations,
supervises the heads of field offices,
and handles
some of the most sensitive intelligence
in the federal government.
But Bongino,
a former Secret Service agent,
NRATV and Fox News host,
doesn't seem remotely
qualified for this role.
He's currently
still hosting his podcast.
And it's hard to sum up
the general vibe of it,
but this clip
gives you a pretty good taste.
There's now no longer a serious
question that the FBI,
the government, and the Democrats
rigged the 2020 election.
There's no longer a question.
You want us to stop complaining
about rigged elections?
Here's a quick way to do that:
don't rig elections! Just an idea!
All right, let me get to this.
Today's show brought to you
by our friends at My Patriot Supply.
Folks, here's some good news:
it's now more affordable than ever
to prepare for this poor economy.
For more inflation, food shortages
and whatever else is coming next.
Yeah, Bongino is basically
just an Alex Jones lite,
yelling conspiracy theories
in between selling supplements
and doomsday prep supplies.
Even though he doesn't seem
that excited about selling them there.
Because he just said
"all right, let me get to this"
in the exact tone
of a high school janitor
who was told one of the kids
puked in the gym.
And honestly, I feel bad for his
friends over at My Patriot Supply.
It's tough enough to scare people
into buying things
like anti-radiation tablets,
edible wild plant playing cards,
and a bucket of "survival coffee",
about which My Patriot Supply
helpfully clarifies,
"Not into coffee? Never fear."
"It makes an invaluable item
for barter or trade!"
Which is great, isn't it?
Because the last thing you'd want
is to buy a bucket of apocalypse
coffee and then realize:
"Shit, I don't even like coffee."
And when he said
the FBI "rigged the election,"
that's not a one-off.
He's spent years complaining
the FBI is too aggressive
in investigating conservatives,
and gives Democrats a pass,
and he's repeatedly proposed
a solution for that
that I'm sure will endear him
to all of his new employees.
The FBI needs to be disbanded.
It is an entirely,
completely failed operation.
The FBI, we need to stop
dilly-dallying and dicking around,
needs to be disbanded.
There is deep systemic
corruption at the FBI.
It is not fixable.
The agency's broken,
needs to be disbanded,
period, full stop,
the gavel's down. Thank you very much.
Hold on!
You do not get to have a gavel!
Who the fuck do you think you are?
The honorable Judge Steve Harvey?
Though, to be fair,
I will say, I get the appeal.
A gavel whack makes any statement
sound more official. I'll show you.
Dan Bongino looks like a dad
at a Little League game
who's about to go to prison.
Full stop, the gavel's down.
He looks like a freeze-dried
Joe Rogan. Full stop, case closed.
See? You can't argue
with me now, can you?
Because I made my little boom-boom
stick go whack-whack.
I'm not a huge fan of the FBI
or how it operates.
There are lots and lots of problems
with it.
But there are now real concerns
that Bongino may be about to use it
as a cudgel against what he sees
as "America's enemies",
basically,
everyone to the left of him.
And now he's the agency's deputy
director, working under this guy.
So, the brakes are fully off.
And it seems every decision
in this administration-every cut,
every tantrum, every personnel choice,
makes it clearer that our government
and its most important agencies
are currently in the hands
of people intent on using them
for their worst possible purposes.
Which isn't just terrifying.
If I may quote our new FBI director,
it is effing crazy. And now, this.
And Now:
C-SPAN Callers Have Thoughts
About the Once
Per Thirty Days Rule.
Let's talk to Alexis, who's calling
from Wilmington, North Carolina
on the Independent line.
Alexis, good morning.
Good morning to you,
thanks for taking my call,
it's been 30 days to the day
and I'm so happy to get on.
Bill in Waycross, Georgia,
Democrats line, hello.
Good morning. It's tough when I have
to wait 30 days, I go crazy.
And I just thank you
for taking my call.
You're making me wait too long.
I had to go 30 days!
Good morning,
thanks for having me on.
It's really hard to wait 30 days.
This is Joe the counselor.
I know you well, Joe.
You call in every 30 days
and that's when folks can call in.
Hi, George, good morning to you.
Has it been 30 days?
Yes, ma'am, it's,
I called on, uh, March 31st.
- Greta, good morning.
- Good morning.
Your buddy George.
You know what I have to ask you.
Yes, thanks, George.
Are you waiting every 30 days?
Is there any way that you could change
the 30-day rule for calling?
The 30-day rule's been in existence
as long as I've been with this program.
We generally find that it works
for the most part.
Wait, did you call before?
- Yeah.
- We're gonna ask you not to do that.
Wait a minute,
before you go too far,
when you say call earlier,
you mean call today?
- Yes.
- Sorry, gonna have to leave it there.
Hold on, caller,
did you call today already?
Yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna have
to leave it there, I apologize.
Have a good day, Bill.
I love me some C-SPAN.
And thanks for your reminder for
folks to call just every 30 days,
if you called in the last 30 days,
don't even try calling.
We will generally
know who you are,
so appreciate your kindness and
playing by the rules as Debbie said.
Moving on. Our main story
tonight concerns restaurants,
one of the dumbest things we've
used HBO's money to pay for,
tied with Russell Crowe's jockstrap,
this giant cake,
and the contractual day rate
of Armie Hammer.
Three days plus transportation,
by the way. There's not a lot to say.
More broadly, we're gonna talk
about tipping.
Lately, we're not just
seeing it in restaurants,
we're being asked to do it everywhere
and people are fed up.
I'm purchasing an office chair online,
and they're asking me
if I want to leave a tip.
Are we tipping at drive-thrus?
The airport in New Jersey
just asked me to tip at self-checkout.
Tip myself? I did all the work.
Who am I tipping?
We got fro-yo last night,
and it was serve yourself.
Then when I go to pay,
the kid at the register is like:
"It's just going to ask
you a question."
And the question says, "How much
tip do you want to leave?"
I was like, "What the fuck
am I tipping you for?"
It was literally serve yourself!
I grabbed the container,
I pulled that lever, I even
sprinkled the cookie dough bites!
If anybody should be getting
a tip around here, it's me!
First, no one should ever be getting
that worked up about frozen yogurt.
It is ice cream for people
who hate themselves.
That said, I do agree that you
should be able to tip yourself
when you do a good job.
In fact, I'm going
to start something tonight.
I'm putting a little bit of money
into this jar every time I make
a good joke or a salient point.
Watch this space.
The point is,
people are furious at how often
they're seeing the tip screen.
It is now the least welcome way
to encounter an iPad in public,
outside of "guy watching
PornHub on the bus."
In fact,
nearly three in four people think
tipping culture
has gotten out of control.
There are so many stories of people
being asked to tip in weird places,
from one woman saying
"her mortgage company
has been asking for tips lately"
to another sharing how her
Chevy Cruze got towed,
and when she went to the impound
lot and it came time to pay,
"on the screen, additional
gratuity options appeared."
And getting asked to tip
at an impound lot
might seem like
the craziest possible example,
until you see this TikTok of
a fully automated coffee kiosk.
You want a fucking tip?
Are you serious? You too?
I think we can all agree,
that is ridiculous.
Especially because that piece
of machinery with googly eyes
doesn't want a tip.
All it wants
is the sweet release of death
and to be welcomed
into the kingdom of heaven,
but, newsflash, robot,
that's never gonna happen,
you're not getting into heaven,
you know why?
Say it with me, folks:
you were never baptized!
Exactly. Bingo bango,
enjoy robot hell, down you go,
and stay there.
The point is, you're not wrong
for thinking tip requests
are showing up in more places.
But as frustrating as that can be,
lots of people depend on tips
for their livelihood and this
subject took center stage last year,
when Trump made
this bold promise.
I will eliminate taxes on tips
for restaurant workers
and hospitality workers,
and anyone else relying on tips.
No more taxes on tips.
No taxes on tips.
None!
Look, Trump may be the most
predictable man who has ever lived,
but at least he's out there trying
to generate suspense
at random points in the middle
of otherwise normal sentences.
"Tips!"
Once every three or four minutes,
he belts out a random word
like he's announcing it as the musical
guest on "Saturday Night Live".
But it is true, Trump's promised
to eliminate taxes on tips,
and Kamala Harris followed suit,
adopting a similar proposal.
And right now,
lawmakers are deciding
whether or not this proposal
will make it into the budget.
But the thing is, tipping's
actually a lot more complicated
and fraught
than you may realize.
So, given that, tonight,
let's talk about tipping,
why we do it,
what the problems with it are
and how we might be able
to address at least some of them.
And let's start with the fact
that tipping here is way more
pervasive than in most of the world.
In Europe,
tipping is much less of a norm,
while in Japan, it can be "considered
embarrassing and awkward."
Americans traveling abroad
sometimes do find waitstaff confused
if they try and tip, as this man
discovered in Amsterdam.
We got a few beers, and I left,
like, a five on the table.
They're like, "You forgot this."
I'm like, "No, that's for you."
And they're like, "Why?"
And, you know, if they ask why,
it means they're probably
getting paid fine.
And like, they didn't see
that and go, "Yeah."
If you saw somebody in Portland
and a five was on a table
and they didn't know why, they'd
be like, "All right, five bucks."
That tells you something about
the culture of your economy
and how you treat your workers.
Right. You know
a country's in pretty good shape
when their workers
turn down free money.
"We do not need your 5 dollars,
for we are each given a fair wage"
"and universal healthcare
and a beautiful windmill to sleep in"
"at night and all of the tulips
that we can eat."
"Truly it is paradise here, no?"
But while it is now mainly known
as an American affectation,
the origin of tipping is commonly
traced back to Tudor England,
when "visitors to private homes
were expected to give sums of money"
"at the end of a visit for service
rendered by the host's servants."
Hundreds of years later,
visiting Americans brought
the custom back home with them.
And it really took off
after the Civil War,
when some employers hired
formerly enslaved people,
"paid them low wages, and then
encouraged customers to leave tips."
And I will say there's consistently
been pushback against this practice.
William Howard Taft
was once referred to as
"the patron saint
of the anti-tip crusaders,"
which is a fantastic spin
on "cheap bastard",
while Ralph Waldo Emerson complained
about tipping for bad service, writing,
"I confess with shame that I sometimes
succumb and give the dollar,"
"yet it is a wicked dollar"
"which by and by I shall have
the manhood to withhold."
While it is fine to wish
you'll one day be strong enough
to resist pressure to tip,
I'm just gonna say it:
that guy would've absolutely crumbled
in the face of this robot.
He'd have signed his house over
to that googly-eyed monster,
even if it got his order wrong.
The anti-tipping movement
grew so pervasive,
in the early 20th century,
six states passed laws
criminalizing the practice,
but that obviously did not last.
And nowadays,
tipping is everywhere,
though it can seem like no one
really understands the rules
of when and how much to tip.
Even one of the leading academic
experts on tipping has said,
"I don't know how much you're
supposed to tip and I study this."
It's got to the point
where some consumers
are now opting out of the system
altogether, like this guy.
So, I'm not tipping anymore.
I'm done. I'm out.
Used to be you would give a tip if
somebody gave exceptional service.
When was the last time you got
exceptional service anywhere?
They made food.
You carried it to my table.
You got me a Diet Coke. Thank you.
That was your job.
You don't get 25% 'cause you did your
job. And I'm not the bad guy here.
Yeah, are you 100% sure
about that, though?
'Cause you can be irritated with
our current system of tipping,
but protesting it by stiffing your
server is about as effective
as protesting police budgets by
flipping off a police dog.
He has nothing to do with the policy
and the only one whose life
you're making worse is his.
Also, between advocating
for stiffing waiters
and his "I heart fossil fuels" T-shirt,
I'm just gonna take a stab here:
you might
actually be the bad guy.
But to understand why just
not tipping is such a bad idea,
it helps to understand
exactly who works for tips
and how they get paid.
Because while you might primarily
think of servers at restaurants,
who do make up a large share
of those who work for tips,
tipped workers can also include
casino dealers, doormen, golf caddies,
hotel maids, and taxi
drivers, among other occupations.
In fact, under federal law,
workers can be classified
as tipped workers if they receive
just 30 dollars a month in tips.
And that distinction really matters,
because in most states,
employers can legally pay tipped
workers a much lower base wage,
as these cartoon
graphics will explain.
Here's how it works. The federal
minimum wage is 7.25 dollars per hour,
but if you're a tipped worker,
it's 2.13 dollars per hour.
Also referred to
as the subminimum wage.
Yeah.
The federal subminimum wage,
sometimes called
the "tipped minimum wage",
is just 2.13 an hour. And it's been
at that level since 1991.
It may be the most depressing thing
that we're still having to live with
from that year were it not the exact
same year that the Supreme Court
was joined by this fucking guy here.
The motor coach offer is off the table,
by the way. Big mistake. Huge.
Now, for what it's worth:
many states choose
to set a wage higher than that,
but only these seven,
and a handful of cities,
have the same minimum wage for
tipped and non-tipped workers alike.
Meaning everywhere else,
the expectation is that some
workers can be paid less,
because their tips
will make up the difference.
But the thing is, 2.13 dollars
sometimes isn't even enough
to cover payroll taxes,
as this worker explains.
- In Indiana, you make 2.13 an hour.
- 2.13 an hour?
Yeah.
- What does 2.13 buy you?
- You don't see a paycheck.
Your paycheck literally says,
"This is not a check."
It says, "0 dollars,
this is not a check."
'Cause it just goes to taxes?
So, basically,
you're starting at zero.
Right. You can literally be given
a check that has
"this is not a check"
written on it.
And come on, who is writing those
paychecks, René Magritte?
Ceci n'est pas une paycheck,
Magritte?
Hi, if you're seeing this, you
have "explain the joke to me"
toggled on your HBO account.
René Magritte was
a Belgian surrealist painter
whose most famous works include
this painting of a pipe
with the words
"this is not a pipe" beneath it,
because of course:
it isn't a pipe, it's a painting.
That might seem banal now,
but trust me:
if you were sitting in a French art
museum in 1929,
shit like this
blew your fucking dome.
People were speaking in tongues,
throwing up in response.
It was a regular
"Rite of Spring" scene.
Hi. You hit the button again?
"Rite of Spring" is a work
by Igor Stravinsky
that was supposedly so avant-garde,
caused riots at its first performance.
Apparently, Camille Saint-Saens
stormed out of the premiere,
although, admittedly,
that claim is in some dispute.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
I do need to get back to the show.
Takes some
fucking balls there, right?
The point is, you can make
as little as 2.13 dollars an hour.
And if what you make up in tips
doesn't get you all the way up
to minimum wage, theoretically,
your employer is supposed
to cover the difference,
through what is called
the "tip credit".
But that can be hard for employers
to keep track of,
and it's a system
that's easy to cheat,
it's been said that
the tip credit is "often
abused at the employees' expense,"
with one restaurant worker saying,
'As long as I've been doing this,"
"I have never, ever, not one time,
met anyone that's been compensated"
"for a below-minimum pay period."
So, the fact is,
a lot of tipped workers' pay
may come down to how much
someone chooses to leave as gratuity.
And if you've ever in your life
worked for tips, you know,
you can do very well.
Though, that can depend
on not just where you work,
but when you work, or even what
mood your customers happen to be in,
as this former hospitality
worker explains.
If you come in on a Tuesday,
I mean, some people party on
a Tuesday, but not as much as Saturday.
Put yourself
in a tipped worker's shoes.
Could you survive off of 2.50 an hour
and rely on the drunk guy
in front of you to pay your rent?
Right. Someone's ability
to pay their rent
can be dependent on a person who
may be drunk, or partying on a Tuesday,
or if they happen to be the current
Defense secretary, very likely both!
And all this might help explain
why recent analyses have found
that poverty rates for tipped
workers are over twice as high
as for non-tipped workers.
And some tend to be more
disadvantaged by this than others.
Studies have found that
both Black and white consumers
tip white servers
more than Black ones.
And one paper found that
"waitresses in their 30s"
"and those with large breasts,
blond hair, and/or slender bodies"
"received larger average tips than
those without these characteristics."
And look, it is not news that life is
somewhat easier for attractive people.
I would know.
I was featured in Vogue in 2015
in the gallery titled,
and this is true,
"10 Unconventional Alternatives
to the Sexiest Man Alive."
Who was at the time, by the way,
David Beckham.
You know, life is just
different for us, you know,
whether you're the sexiest man
alive, or his, quote,
"unconventional alternative."
Those higher tips can come
with a lot of unwanted harassment.
And if servers are
making a subminimum wage,
they might feel especially pressured
to put up with that
in order to make a living.
And there is one final twist here.
A server's tips may not even be
entirely theirs either.
In some restaurants, there's
an expectation that servers
will "tip out", or pay a share of their
tips to other restaurant personnel.
And depending
on how that's set up,
it can really put servers
in a bind.
Here is that woman you saw a minute
ago, explaining how it worked for her.
You have to tip out.
Most restaurants is roughly
three to 5% of your sales.
Even if people are tipping the 20%
that is standard for great service,
most servers are tipping out three
to 5% of that to bussers,
hosts and bartenders.
What if I leave you nothing?
What happens?
Then we have to pay that tip out,
whether you give us money or not.
So, like, say your bill is 100 dollars
and I have to tip out 5%,
and you don't tip me at all,
I'm paying 5 dollars to wait on you.
Out of my own pocket.
That is true. At some places, not only
are you subsidizing the servers,
they may be subsidizing other
members of staff, too.
If that seems less like a business
and more like an insane money carousel
where everyone is paying everyone
else and somehow everyone is still poor,
welcome to the restaurant industry!
At this point,
you may be thinking,
"Well, fuck this whole system,
why don't we just get rid of it?"
And you would not be
the first to suggest that.
Here's that guy you saw earlier,
gaming out the system he'd rather see.
If you own a restaurant,
just tell me what it costs.
I don't want people to go hungry.
What does it cost for me
to get my food and also
so that the waitstaff doesn't have
to join the cartel, do some "Lord
of the Flies," "Oliver Twist"…
I want people to be taken care of.
Just tell me what it costs.
That might sound reasonable.
The"paying fair price
for what I'm getting" part,
not the absolute avalanche
of fearing the waitstaff
would "join the cartel"
or do "some 'Lord of the Flies'
or 'Oliver Twist', like" thing,
whatever the fuck
that could mean.
I don't know what versions
of either of those books he's read,
but "Lord of the Flies"
and "Oliver Twist"
had different answers for what children
will get up to when unsupervised,
and neither of them seemed like
they'd apply to workers
making the tipped minimum wage.
But unfortunately,
when many people say,
"Just tell me what it costs",
they also mean,
"And it better cost exactly the same,
or I am gonna be pissed",
as this tipping expert explains.
I've done the research where I give
people hypothetical menus,
one where they have regular prices,
and at the bottom, it says,
"A customary tip
of 15 to 20% is appreciated."
One where
they say tipping's not allowed,
you can't tip, but their
menu prices are 15% higher.
He then asked people how expensive
they thought the restaurant was.
People overwhelmingly thought
the menu with the 15% higher prices
was more expensive than a menu where
they would tip 15% or more anyway.
Yeah. Even if the amount
of money coming out of your pocket
is the exact same both times,
people view the menu with the
built-in tip prices as more expensive.
Because it just feels more expensive.
It's sort of the same way that it feels
like I'm older than David Beckham,
even though, fun fact,
I'm two years younger
than him.
He's aging incredibly,
and I think I'm pickling.
Yeah, I deserve that.
And that has led people to try
and come up with other ways
to relieve the financial stress
on tipped workers.
Which brings us all the way back
to Trump's promise
to eliminate taxes on tips.
It's an idea that he was proud to reveal
had a notable celebrity backer.
On your receipt,
when you get your
receipt for a restaurant,
you know who sent me one?
Kid Rock. How good is Kid Rock?
Isn't he great, that guy?
But he sent me a receipt
and he wrote on the receipt,
"Vote for Trump and you
won't pay taxes on tips."
He wrote that on the receipt.
I said, "That's very smart."
"That's very smart.
Smart guy."
So, for restaurant workers,
for hotel workers,
for caddies, for car people,
it's a lot.
But anybody receiving tips,
there's no more tax on tips,
and I think that's gonna be
a great thing.
Okay, there is so much
to deal with there.
From the phrase "car people" to,
again, the surprise punctuation
on "caddies!"
to the fact the president's taking
policy advice from Kid Rock,
a man who constantly looks
like he's on trial
for something called
"moonshine fraud".
But the thing is,
that idea has broad support.
It's a proposal supported
by "roughly three in four Republicans,"
"Democrats and independents."
I'm all for giving a tax break
to low-wage workers.
But you should know, a lot
of economists have major concerns
with this particular policy.
Starting with the fact
that the tax relief it gives,
it would be haphazard at best.
One of the ways to make taxes fair
is to make sure that people
of the same income level
are paying approximately
the same amount of taxes.
And in this case, you really
wouldn't be doing that.
So, for example, if you took
a delivery worker who delivered food,
they probably get tips, and so they
would qualify for this tax benefit.
If you took a delivery worker
who delivered packages,
they usually don't, so they
wouldn't get a tax benefit.
I can't think of a good reason why you
would want to give a tax break
to the person who delivers food, but
not to the person who delivers mail.
Right. That doesn't make
much sense, does it?
If someone delivering packages
for Amazon makes the same
as someone delivering food
for DoorDash,
it doesn't feel fair for one of them
to be taxed significantly more.
Although,
if we're gonna be even fairer,
we'd probably tax the guy
who owns the company
that sends out those packages
a fuckton more as well,
but that's not what we're
talking about tonight.
The point is, Trump's plan
would essentially be a tax break
for only the two and a half percent
of American workers who work for tips
and not even all of those, given that
"more than a third of tipped workers"
"had incomes low enough"
"that they face no federal
income tax" to begin with.
And that's not the only issue
with this idea.
It's also a policy
that could be exploited.
For instance, people with higher
incomes might find ways
to designate some of their wages
as tips to avoid paying taxes.
And there've been concerns
that it could "push some employers"
"to restructure their pay to lean
more heavily on tips",
meaning prompts to tip could
"start showing up in whole new
categories of consumer transactions."
So, you might actually be prompted
to tip even more than you are now.
The point is, while "no tax on tips" is
an easy applause line at rallies,
it wouldn't be nearly
as effective as it sounds.
If you really want to give relief
to tipped workers,
I'd argue the solution would be
to eliminate the subminimum wage.
Basically, everyone gets
at least the minimum wage,
and then your tip
goes on top of that.
A proposal that this advocacy group
has been pushing for nationwide.
But I will acknowledge, not everyone
is on board with this idea.
In Michigan, there's been
an ongoing fight
over raising
its subminimum wage.
And even some who might stand
to benefit do have concerns.
Andrea Souther works hard
for her tips.
It's what keeps my lights on. That's
what keeps me going back for sure.
Because she makes tips, her minimum
wage is about 4 dollars an hour.
Soon that'll change, and she'll make
minimum wage like any other worker,
which right now is roughly 10 dollars
an hour in Michigan.
When people start to realize you're
making hourly, they'll tip less.
They'll be like, well, they're already
making their minimum wage,
which is 10-something an hour.
Yeah, I could see
worrying about that.
And while I'm not saying it's
the only reason she feels that way,
having what seems to be her boss
standing three feet away
staring daggers at the camera might
also have something to do with it.
But I do get those concerns.
Although, it is worth remembering,
there are seven states that haven't
had a subminimum wage for decades.
And people still tip there.
In fact, one study found
that tipped workers in those states
typically earn 10 to 20% more
in wages and tips.
And I'm not saying
switching over is easy.
There are good-faith concerns
from restaurant owners,
who are often having to operate
on very thin margins,
about what sudden pay hikes
could mean.
That's why, in many places
where the subminimum wage
has been eliminated,
it's been done gradually,
so that restaurants can figure out
an approach that works for them,
like adding a service charge,
or raising prices slowly.
And it's worth knowing,
where it's been done,
the restaurant industry
hasn't imploded.
Flagstaff, Arizona has been
incrementally doing away
with its subminimum wage
since 2017,
and both restaurant employment
and the number of restaurants
in its county have risen.
Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. is now
two years into its phase-out,
so it's still too early to know
the full impact,
but numbers currently don't show any
obvious problems on the job front.
"There are somewhat fewer bartenders,
an increase in waiters and waitresses,"
"and earnings that are broadly
consistent with recent years."
But maybe the clearest expression
of the difference eliminating
the subminimum wage can make
is looking at states that have done it
and neighboring states that haven't.
Just watch as a waitress in Wisconsin,
which has a subminimum wage
for tipped workers,
is asked about Minnesota,
which got rid of it.
What if someone said to you,
"We're going to be just like
your neighbors over there in Minnesota"
"and you're going to get minimum wage
as your base salary, plus your tips?"
I would love that.
I actually know some people
who used to work
in Minnesota as a server,
and then they came over here.
And they realized that they're only
making 2.33, and they're like,
"I'm losing thousands of dollars
by coming over here in Wisconsin."
That's not great!
You shouldn't lose thousands of dollars
just because you're in Wisconsin.
Especially because those dollars
are actually more useful there,
because Wisconsin is where
the National Mustard Museum is,
and it has everything.
It sells membership to
a mustard of the month club.
And this excellent
Poupon U sweatshirt.
That's the kind of thing
you want some extra cash for.
When you take all of this together,
a few things are clear about tipping.
First, it's unlikely
to ever go away completely.
At this point, it's just too culturally
ingrained, no matter what happens.
Second, it just isn't the gratuity
that many seem to think it is.
In fact, in a lot of places right
now, it's an absolute necessity.
So, if you're eating at a restaurant,
you have to tip.
And there are other jobs where
that might also be the case,
up to and including
"car people" and "caddies"!
Now, does that mean you should
also be tipping at an impound lot?
No. Absolutely not.
Should you be tipping this robot?
Fuck no!
That shouldn't happen under
any circumstances.
That robot should go to hell
and it will.
But if you didn't know that workers
in most states rely on tips
to make up for subminimum
wages, now you do.
And if you'd rather a tip
be just a little bonus
instead of critical to someone's
survival, that's great,
that means you support eliminating
the subminimum wage,
and you should yell at your state
and federal lawmakers about it.
But if you're considering
withholding tips
to prove some kind of point
about the unfairness of the industry,
I hate to say it,
you might be the bad guy.
Anyway, that is the end of this story,
and it's the end of this episode.
For those of you at home,
your screen's just gonna ask
you a question real quick.
Just go ahead and tap
to make your selection.
No pressure,
but we worked pretty hard.
If you fell asleep, but there is a cat
that's still awake in your home,
just mash your little paws
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Daddy wants some money.
That's our show, thanks
so much for watching.
We'll see you next week,
good night!
Not 15. Over here,
we'll take the 25 please.
We worked hard this week.
Get it!
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