I sympathize with the barista here, but mindset that customers need to cover 10 to 20% of his income is symptom of decades of brainwashing of employees and customers alike. In this case NPR is part of this brainwashing. I will not tip someone for doing their job. I will only tip when I feel it is needed based on the service provided.
Look, I know it's idealist, but corporate profits are at an all time high. C-level execs make hundreds to thousands times what their lowest level employee does. It's disgusting. The greed and their assumption that we will just let them continually be more greedy is disgusting. Maybe they don't need all that. They can actually pay their employees better. They choose not to because we have barely any social nets in this country, what does exist can be really hard to get, and people have to eat and have a home. They prey on desperate people, hide behind the idea that minimum wage is "supposed to be for teenagers, and refuse to entertain the notion that they are the problem.
If you think big corporations subtract money from the employees payroll and add it to the C-suite salaries, you don't really understand the financials of a big corporation.
I agree that execs make too much money, but it's really not a mutually inclusive thing. CEOs can make the same amount of money they currently are, and people can make a living wage. It's the legal requirement of perpetual growth that's ultimately to blame.
No, I know it's not mutually inclusive. I just think that profit is going somewhere. It's not just hanging out in the ether. Maybe it's not execs, sure. Maybe it's someone else. But someone is absolutely taking the money that every day employees should be getting.