Funding service industry wages through customer tips has long been the norm in the United States. The practice has a history tracing back to Europe and was codified in the United States in 1938 and 1966, after more acceptance — largely from restaurant and railroad industries — following the Civil War.
A Nov. 24 tweet from UberFacts said: "Tipping became popular in the U.S., in part, because restaurant owners didn't want to pay black Americans after the ratification of the 15th Amendment. This way, owners could set a $0 wage for waiters and rely on voluntary tips from customers to pay them."
On Nov. 25, MyMixtapez, a hip-hop music app that also reports entertainment news , posted a graphic to Instagram, including only information from the first sentence of the tweet.
The 15th Amendment — the last of a trio that abolished slavery and freed enslaved people, gave them citizenship, and gave formerly enslaved men the right to vote — was ratified in 1870, after the Civil War. But its passing wasn't the direct or only reason that tipping became popularized and a mainstay in the United States.
More: Fact check: Historical claims about constitutional amendments lack context
The practice of tipping workers has unclear origins but likely began as a result of the caste system in Europe in the late Middle Ages.
At least two accounts state that there was no tipping in the United States prior to 1840, Kerry Segrave writes in "Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities." Wealthy Americans are thought to have brought tipping back to the United States from lavish trips to Europe in the years leading up to the Civil War.
The new custom was thought of by many as un-American because it was classist, Saru Jayaraman has explained to several reporters over the years. Jayaraman wrote "Forked," a book about restaurant worker pay, and, in 2018, was co-founder and president of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and the director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.
That anti-tipping sentiment found its way back to Europe, contributing to labor movements that ended the practice.
But in the United States, fresh out of the Civil War, formerly enslaved people were able to find most work in food service or as railroad porters, jobs that relied on tips. Many employers who wanted to hire the formerly enslaved also wanted to keep them at a low wage.
"When the practice came to the United States, the newly freed slaves, the black workers, were the equivalent of the proletariat in the feudal system," Jayaraman has explained in The Washington Post.
In 1915, several states passed laws prohibiting tipping, which was a growing practice but unpopular at the same time. All six of the bans were overturned or ruled unconstitutional by 1926.
"When these states banned tipping, it was because they were trying to discourage whites from tipping instead of actually paying former slaves," Jayaraman told the Post. Of six states that made tipping illegal, five were in the South, where the idea was that only Black workers were making tips because "you only tip inferiors," Jayaraman explained.
Also in the early 1900s, Pullman rail company was investigated by the Railroad Commission of California. Even though the company, which employed mostly Black workers, was a proponent of tipping, it was for their own financial gain, Segrave writes, not for the financial gain of the worker. In response to another federal report pointing out the Pullman's savings by relying on tips, a Pullman representative said: "The company simply accepts conditions as it finds them. The company did not invent tipping. It was here when the company began."
Tipping was codified in 1938 as part of the New Deal, Jayaraman has said, because the Fair Labor Standards Act allowed federal minimum wage to be earned through wages or through tips. And then in 1966, "tip credit" amendments were made to the act, paving the way toward the current minimum wage of $2.13 for tipped employees, like restaurant workers. In seven states, local laws require all workers must be paid the full federal minimum wage before tips.
Rail workers went on strike and eventually received higher wages.
The users who posted the claim on Instagram and Twitter did not return messages seeking comment.
Based on our research, the claim that tipping became popularized by restaurant owners who didn't want to pay Black workers after the passage of the 15th Amendment is generally TRUE, though more context is helpful.
Tipping in America began before the Civil War. But afterward, it is true that employers in the restaurant industry, railroads and more used the practice of tipping as a way to keep some wages low. Formerly enslaved Black people worked in many of these jobs.
Additionally, five Southern states actively banned tipping. Those bans, though, were more concerned with discouraging white people from tipping than they were concerned with not encouraging a tip-based business model exploitative of cheap Black labor that others had adopted.
Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities, Kerry Segrave (1998)
When Tipping Was Considered Deeply Un-American, NPR (2015)
Why Tipping Is Wrong, New York Times (2015)
I dare you to read this and still feel good about tipping, Washington Post (2016)
How American tipping grew out of racism, Quartz (2016)
The Racist, Twisted History of Tipping, Mother Jones (2016)
'It's the Legacy of Slavery': Here's the Troubling History Behind Tipping Practices in the U.S., Time magazine (2018)
Pullman Porters, History (2019)
The Racist History of Tipping, Politico (2019)
The disturbing history of tipping in the U.S.: "It's literally a slave wage", CBS News (2020)
Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino
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