EP 477: Here's a tip

What Works

Today's episode is about tips. As in gratuity. Wait, wait, wait! Where are you going?

I know, you probably don't receive tips for your work. Maybe you don't live in the US, and you're thinking, 'What is this American BS about tips?'

Well, when I first heard about Trump's (and then Harris's) proposal to eliminate federal taxes of tipped income, my brain went a hundred different places: how many people would it impact, how much savings are we talking about, what will this do to the proliferation of tipped work, and how much could this accelerate re-proletarianization?! You probably weren't expecting that last one.

Here's the thing: tipping is a class issue. Which means it's also a social justice issue. And it's also an issue that intersects with frustrations with the way all of us work. To find out how, you've got to trust me—and listen.

Footnotes:

• Information on the federal tipped minimum wage
• 'Tip baiting' Instacart drivers via CNN
• "The Economic Logic Behind the 'No Tax on Tips' Policy" by Jadrian Wooten
• Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities by Kerry Segrave
• "'It's the Legacy of Slavery': Here's the Troubling History Behind Tipping Practices in the U.S." via Time
• "Tipping is a racist relic and a modern tool of economic oppression in the South" via the Economic Policy Institute
• "Errand Runners of Digital Platform Capitalism" by İsa Demir
• "Defending Hierarchy: The Conservative Impulse" by Matthew McManus
• The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
• "The problem is proletarianization, not capitalism" by Solange Manche (about Bernard Steigler)
• Capitalism is Dead: Is This Something Worse? by McKenzie Wark
• "The Practical Utopian's Guide to the Coming Collapse" by David Graeber

Find essay versions of every new episode at whatworks.fyi!

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