To tip or not to tip? It’s a simple question with a deeply complicated answer, at least in the U.S. Here, the practice of tossing a few bucks to a service worker when you pay your total bill is not only common, but expected in many industries, from grocery delivery to coffee shops. And while European tourists may famously struggle to decipher the rules, Americans are all too aware of how it works. And it’s more than likely they have a very strong—probably negative—opinion about it. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who likes the American tipping system, from the customers who resent paying more to the workers who are often paid too little in the first place.

However, tipping culture and all of its attendant discourse is really just a means of obscuring the real issue: The continuing existence of the sub-minimum wage, and the ensuing expectation that consumers (and their tips) will make up the lost wages that employers avoid paying.

For many workers, tips often make up a significant portion of their take-home pay. While some—like servers and bartenders at high-end restaurants, for example—do manage to make good money off tips, someone else always suffers; deprived of that same opportunity, back-of-house kitchen workers like dishwashers and cooks, who are already at a financial disadvantage, fall even further behind. Other workers who rely on tips may find their own earning opportunities restricted by vindictive employers; for example, after dancers at North Hollywood’s Star Garden strip club unionized, their angry boss instituted new rules that made it nearly impossible for them to earn more than a few dollars a night.

Read More: How Much Should You Tip? Five People Share Their Habits

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