As a delivery driver, I rely on tips as my main form of income. More often than not, I get ‘stiffed’ or the customer doesn’t tip. This has caused so many issues relating to money on my end such as not paying rent on time or being able to afford basic needs. With rising gas prices and living overall, something needs to change. Service fees need to be implemented to make sure employees are paid competitively and fairly but why are the customers not tipping? The Customer can be ‘stiffing’ tip based workers for many reasons…

 - Customer might not be able to afford a tip.

- Customer doesn’t ‘believe’ in tipping or doesn’t want to tip. 

- Genuinely had poor service and doesn’t believe that the employee shouldn’t be tipped. 

Because of the nature of service based jobs, companies are able to pay those workers less than minimum wage. This is because the companies that are employing these individuals are expecting the customer to pay the workers and not the company.

I want to change that entirely. I believe that all tip based jobs should charge a service fee (a 15-20% charge of the final cost to make sure employees are paid. That 15-20% goes to the employee.) and not do tips at all. This would be a mandatory rule for ALL tipped based jobs. This would go through congress and passed as a law.