For various reasons, some of which I'll outline below, I always tip about 20%, and more if I really liked the service. My wife has the same philosophy.
We don't dine out often, and at the end of the month, tips we've paid don't cost us very much (on a $40 tab, the difference between 15% and 20% is two bucks), and - maybe just as a symbolic gesture - a decent tip can help improve someone's bad day (or flip a bad attitude).
The "average" tipped wage in the United States is about $11.82 per hour, or just above the federal poverty level for a household of 3 (say, a widowed mother trying to raise two kids).
Note, that is the *average*, as many states have a tipped minimum wage as low as $2.13, and the employer is only required to make up the difference to $7.25 (the laughable Federal minimum wage, which is definitely below the FPL for anyone except a single person). I had a buddy living in Tacoma for a while. He had full-time minimum wage work, paid $300/month for a one-room apartment, and the mother next door was struggling to raise her two kids - on minimum wage - after the father died in an accident. (Subsistence living is devastating and bad economic policy.)
Few restaurants provide benefits to employees, such as health insurance. Instead, they may take tax credits for helping employees scrounge health insurance from outside sources. Thus, whatever they manage to earn can still get sucked away by things that many people consider "basic requirements of life."
I was unemployed for part of last year, and we had to buy insurance through the ACA - we got a plan that was pretty much gambling we would never be in a car accident - for about $300/month (family of 3). At $11.82/hour, that's 15% of gross income (and if we had lived in a one-bedroom apartment, at $300/month, that's another 15% off the top).
My family has been very blessed in life. I tip well, because it doesn't cost us much, I believe in "paying it forward," and the small gesture really can have a big impact.
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