Consumers say they're pulling back on tipping servers, drivers and hair stylists
People are a little bit stingier in barber chairs and Ubers than they were just a few years ago.
The shares of adults who say they always tip their hair stylists, servers at sit-down restaurants and food delivery people have each fallen 8 percentage points since 2021, according to a Bankrate survey released Wednesday. That rate slipped 7 percentage points for taxi and ride-hail drivers over the same period.
Three years ago, the economy was reopening from the pandemic and inflation was higher than it is now, but so was concern for front-line workers.
At the time, three-quarters of consumers reported always tipping restaurant servers, but today just two-thirds do. Despite modest upticks since last year, barely more than half of people now count themselves reliable tippers of hairdressers (55%) and food delivery drivers (51%), while only 41% say the same when it comes to ordering a ride.
The survey reflects Americans’ growing ease bypassing ubiquitous tipping prompts, from coffeeshops to airport terminals in the post-Covid economy, especially as sticker prices have risen. While consumer spending has held remarkably steady, many households are feeling the squeeze from persistent inflation and tightening their belts accordingly. Some of that newfound caution may be factoring into when, where and how much people tip.
I'm a generous tipper at sit down restaurants, but draw the line at places where I'm grabbing a prepackaged sandwich and drink and being asked to tip the employee to literally ring up the items at the cash register. I wonder if the expansion of this practice is turning people off of tipping even when it's warranted, hence these statistics
there's a new fast food drive through near me and if you buy a $13 burger with plastic they turn the little machine to you at your car window and expect you to enter a fucking tip.
I'm an overtipping bastard. I learned to tip from Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven. i love to tip.
I even tip at the weed store and the liquor store if they give me suggestions or any kind of service in addition to ringing me up.
YOU CAN SUCK MY DICK ASKING ME TO TIP IN THE GODDAMN DRIVE THROUGH!!!
I'm not eating there because the burgers are too expensive for how good they are ($5.50 for a plain kids burger come on) but even if I loved the food i'm not tipping for fast food.
Yeah. The blurbs examples are places you really need to tip. They are providing a direct service to you. But pretty much every digital pay interface is asking for tips now. And a lot of them aren't even offering 15%. They start at 18% and go up. It is really souring me on going out at all.
Pretty much every sit-down restaurant now has tips calculated on the bill, and 15% is never one of the calculations. It's typically 18%, 20%, and 22%, but I've seen them start higher.
Is this due to the same machines? Since it can differ, I assume it's the owner who chooses to make it higher.
It depends on what payment thing they use. Most places use a third-party payment POS and stick with default settings.
Do you really not realize how ridiculous this sounds?
Yes. But there is no other alternative in America. If you stiff servers, they get hurt. If enough people do it, they quit and your favorite places die. You can encourage places that don't allow tipping and pay a living wage but those are so rare as to be pointless.
Only assholes refuse to tip for service in America.
To be clear, it's never warranted. It's just some cultures that have normalized the practice for certain services. Companies should always fully pay their employees. Full stop.
Not true. It depends on the job and the state. NY for example, has a tip allowance of $5 per hour. That means establishments can pay their servers $10 per hour and still meet minimum wage law, because the staff is expected to make at least $5 per hour in tips.
While I agree that employers should pay their staff well, it’s standard practice for servers in NY to be underpaid and rely on tips as part of their income.
All of that also being known as...normalization.
That’s fair. I thought you were implying societal normalization by identifying cultures rather than governments. I see how this would be considered systemic normalization.
Gotta love corpo news.
Shut the fuck up and pay them a living wage you animals. Don't try and continue pitting individuals against each other. "Blame the consumer for everything" is so played out at this point.
The reality is that many of these jobs rely on tips. If they were to "pay them a living wage" then the cost of the service would just go up.
Don't get me wrong, I want tipping to go away, and it's gotten absurd where people are asking for tips now. But it's absolutely stingy to not tip in these places where traditionally they would be tipped. If you don't want to tip, don't buy their services. It should be a recognized part of the cost: you just think it should be made official, some think it should be based on the quality of service they received.
The cost of the service includes the tip if a tip is expected. The cost would stay the same if you stopped tipping and the establishment raised sticker prices to compensate.
If you count the tip as "part of the service" yes I agree that the price would stay the same. But the way I'm saying it is that there is the charge for service/goods, and then there is the tip. If we get rid of tipping, in favor of high wages, the service charge goes up.
The cost would not increase. That is not how supply and demand works.
It is extremely unlikely this has not been explained to you before.
One of the reasons that the no tipping movement during the mid 2010s failed is because they had to raise prices to give the staff the same pay they would have received with tipping included. And shoppers found that to be a turn off.
It's just perception. It's the some bullshit logic why sale taxes are not included in the price and calculated at purchase.... makes the product seem cheaper than it actually is.
I agree. Right now with tipping the true cost is obscured. If you take away tipping, the services would just charge more.
Your response is to cite an article proving my point and not understand that?
My article certainly does not prove your point. It shows that when companies replaced tipping with high wages, they had to raise the cost of their goods/services. Which is exactly what I said.
No. It says when they raised their prices according to something other than supply and demand people stopped buying from them.
Because prices are controlled by supply and demand. Not costs.
The fact that they also don't understand that doesn't mean you do.
I tip 10-15%, how are prices so much higher that then jump into the 30s for a meal? Most of my meals our, tip included, don't hit the $30 threshold. I think that their prices, even accounting for tips included, were off.
He thinks people like tipping because they have power? That's kind of fucked.
They spend a bunch of time saying that the locations they included tips in payed $5-6 less per hour. How can they even say they ran a location with tips included if they didn't even match the tipped wages? They overcharged for food and still didn't pay the staff enough. I'd say that's a lot of mismanagement rather than a failure of a no-tipping restaurant.
Here's another core concept that places don't seem to understand, if your business cannot make it without underpaying staff then you shouldn't be in business. Someone else who can manage it will fill your gap in the market or the market will correct itself.
Good. The cost should go up, because that's what it costs the business to run if they pay an actual living wage.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this written about so -
The reason these tipping prompts are so egregiously inescapable now is that those point of sales systems are handed out by Clover and the like when the business starts using them for POS and inventory and credit card processing.
For each CC transaction, the business pays something like 2-3% of the transaction and so the CC processor becomes incentivized to make that transaction amount higher. That’s how we got here. You’re being guilted into tipping a shitty tech company.
Carry cash. Pay cash whenever possible. That’s how you avoid that screen.
Is clover getting money for cc transactions? I thought it was the cc companies charging that fee.
Point of sale companies like Clover charge a fee and the credit card company gets a cut of that. The rest is for the point of sale's services.
Credit Card companies (ie MasterCard or Visa) typically have a flat per transaction fee that is very small (like fractional cent small). The processors are the ones that take the percentage cut (PoS and your bank). It's been a bit since the last time I looked into it, so things could be a bit different, but I would be surprised if it was.
Clover or whoever also gets money for letting whoever use their system. They get an upfront fee then a percent of sales.
These used to be separate things, but now most of the older POS systems have been bought by the processors or, with the "newer" systems, were in the business of processing from the get go. It's all very incestuous.
No
From Germany, wholeheartedly, fuck off with your POS terminal tip prompts. I simply won't.
STOP TIPPING. The whole world doesn't tip, it's a strange and stupid US thing. Just stop tipping please!
Also, while you're stopping dumb shit like tipping, may as well switch to the metric system as part of the integration!
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to embed your gif in your comment. Important is the exclamation mark at the start, which is what distinguishes it from a regular hyperlink.TIL! Good bot.
Thanks, not much of a bot though :p
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Germany does tip sometimes. But mostly we round up to the next thing that feels right. For me it is usually between 1-5€, but I never tip a percentage or use the tip option on a payment terminal. Sometimes I just don't tip. It is never a problem. It is a bonus not a necessity here.
This should be the next “movement” the internet gets behind. Everyone stops tipping, and watch people freak out.
And then, after a bit of confusion, tipping will end and waiters will get paid the right amount – no tipping needed
When they flip that screen, I cringe. US tip culture sucks.
This is the worst I've personally encountered
Shit like this is a good way to prevent me from returning. I don't want to feel bad about giving someone money I didn't need to and if I'm pushing the lowest recommended amount it feels sad.
Returning? I wouldn’t even be completing that order.
I think a lot of these "cab companies" use the tips to pay the drivers now and take more for themselves.
Other > zero
And there is a service fee!
I went to get blood lab work done today. When I went to pay the kiosk asked for a tip.
It happened to me at the urologist. They were taking the piss!
This has to be the USA right?
Yup
I imagine it's just built in to the POS software they use, which is probably generic. Doesn't really make that better, but
Anyone else notice the "essential workers" never got that minimum wage increase?
I get republicans not supporting it, but the moderate Dems not fighting for them is going to hurt in November...
Voters know Republicans obstruct progress, but they need to see that Dems are at least willing to have the fight.
Where I live they got it. While it isn't law, the local fast food is all starting at $16/hour or more.
In California they got it. Fast food is $20 an hour to start.
....
I mean, wages can go down, and will go down when there's a larger labor pool.
Which is why we should have taken advantage of the small labor pool during COVID to raise minimum wage.
We had a chance to raise it while workers have leverage, but republicans will always oppose it and moderate Dems didn't push for it, so nothing happened.
That's wildly considered the biggest negative of moderate Dems, they don't act when we have the leverage to get things done. They tell us to be happy with temporary things we can lose tomorrow, like how they refused to modify Roe v Wade while we had the numbers to codify it, now it's gone.
They don't actually want to fight for us. They're controlled opposition to make sure when we do have the opportunity/leverage to fix shit, we waste that time "looking into" if we should really fix it. Then when the opportunity passes, they say they tried.
But they didn't.
I’ll tip my waiter/waitress. I refuse to tip a PoS device. I have no shame selecting the “No tip” button on those things.
If everyone stopped tipping at the same time, say labor day, then businesses would need to properly pay their staff again. As soon as tipping became expected the whole system was fucked.
For me there's 3 tiers
Takeout/drive thru food of every kind? No tip. If it's labeled fast food and I have to drive to you to get it, you can pry that shit from my cold dead heart.
Family owned non-chain restaurants. That's a tip. These people out here trying their best against a McDonald's franchisee. Easily worth a few extra.
Delivery is where I tip, they put extra wear on a car and had to put up with the American public on roads between here and the store. That's worth the extra $5-10 Dollars. Especially if it's raining/almost midnight.
Pretty much the same, delivery I tip based on how much stuff, how difficult, or bad weather is getting it to me. NOT on the item cost. It's not any harder for the delivery person to deliver sushi than it is a breakfast sandwich.
I don't know about hairdressers and drivers, but many servers are legally paid less than minimum wage because they are expected to make up the difference in tips.
So this is essentially people being fucked over by not being paid enough fucking over other people who aren't being paid enough. And if you object to them not being paid enough, the solution isn't to not tip them, it's to not go to the restaurant.
They are supposed to be paid the difference if tips plus base pay don't add up to minimum wage. But I'm guessing a lot of places don't do it.
If you aren't making up the difference, you probably aren't going to last long anyway.
The minimum wage for tip workers is often lower in most states then minimum wage for non-tipped workers.
New York is the only state that I know of that has a minimum wage equity law where tipped workers have to be paid the same minimum wage as anyone else after tips, and if they aren’t, the employer has to make up the difference.
California has, for a while now, required that tipped workers be paid the same minimum wage as anyone else, period. Tips are extras on top of minimum wage.
No, that's a Federal requirement, too. It only requires them to be brought up to the $7.25/hour Federal minimum wage so it's pretty useless, but it exists.
Interesting. I didn’t actually know that.
In Oregon tipped employees are required to be paid the state minimum wage. Tips are considered extra on top of that. Seems to be an exception though unfortunately.
California as well. Tipped workers make the service industry minimum wage, which is actually higher than the state or city minimum wages, so they make $20 an hour plus tips. Which means that they are barely scraping by.
% based tips are bullshit and always have been. And moving the scale up to 18,20,22 is insane.
Especially because a 15% tip is almost twice as good as it was 10 years ago due to rising food costs
Yes! The raise is already built in.
Pizza Hut prompted me for a (minimum) 18% tip on a take out order. I could see tipping for takeout if it's a large, complicated order, but this was not. 18% is for standard table service.
i stopped tipping when i was double charged for the tip included.
i tried keeping track of each POS that included gratuity but i can only get burned so many times before i stop using that stove altogether.
And I do not do delivery apps.
As a service person, this sounds great. You actually tip your barber more than I do.
The only thing I think you didn't account for is fancier bars with elaborate cocktails, which tbf most people do not frequent. I'd do 15-20% for those, simply because it's more involved service and more involved drinks.
I always tip my hair cutting person 100%. I wanted a hair cut, the hair cut cost $x, that person literally does the entire thing often with their own equipment that they paid for. The place will charge me $x because that’s what the haircut is worth to me but I know the person that actually physically cut my hair with their skills and labor won’t get $x and I think that’s bullshit.
In many other kinds of transactions someone can go “oh well the business deserves a cut of the profits because they provided the ingredients, or they stocked the inventory, or yadda yadda yadda”. But the hair cut is the one place where with my own eyes I witness the full body of labor occur and see who does it. That person deserves the value that their labor produced, not some owner sitting off in their beach house doing plenty I’m sure but one thing I’m damn sure they aren’t doing is cutting my fucking hair.
The more work i have to do the less I tip.
My comment is entirely scoped to to-go orders; I agree with everything else you say (though I haven't used a ride share in forever).
I always tip for to-go orders in my hometown. Now my favorite places call out my name as I enter and treat me great. I've seen them replace the pizza stacked with my order with a fresh pizza right out of the oven, for example, or they've given me an extra pizza or side.
When I'm on the road, I still tip $1 for to-go orders because I know the workers are still getting a shit wage.
Granted, I'm in a financial position where I can afford to do this. But I'd love if we could get rid of the whole tipped-minimum-wage thing and just raise minimum wages across the board/enact UBI to make tipping only for exemplary service.
It's a genuinely nice thing you're trying to do, so on the one hand, I don't want to discourage it, but on the other hand, every tip workers get is an incentive to not raise wages. Hell, if they make enough in tips, they'll start actively lowering wages for new hires. Someone I know always likes to tip, but I just see management thanking them for covering their labor costs for them.
I’m mostly with you. To-go gets $1-$2.
Stop that.
Nope.
Basically, tip based on effort. Or you will end up with people who do not put in effort. It's true they don't tip in Europe. But it's much harder to get the attention of a waiter there. "Oh I'm sorry, am I interrupting your coordinated smoke break with all the other waiters? I just wanted to exchange money for food if that's ok with you."
Bullshit, I get good service, even in Germany. People take their jobs seriously if they get paid enough. We just round up to a sensible sum and that's it. Fuck shelling out 20% for a tip, that's just straight up dumb.
I quit tipping. That is not true. The last pizza I had delivered to work I gave the lady a ten. Physically gave it to her. Not added it to a app that you know is going to give them less than the tip. If they give them anything at all. I quit tipping through the checkout/payment process.
In the US, it is quite illegal to not give any of the tip to the worker. Managers and apps can't keep any amount of the tip, and the only way it's legal for the worker to not get the whole thing is if the service uses a tip sharing setup where it goes into a pool that is distributed (in which case it is evenly distributed amongst the participating workers, management still can't legally take any).
Illegal things happen, but almost certainly not as often on an app that helps records like that than you'd think
I worked in craft beer pre-pandemic. Man, beer release days were nice. Get a bunch of bozos all lined up for the minute we open, all want a whole case of the latest IPA for like $100, all of em blindly tapping the 20% tip option. Like, homie, I did nothing for that tip. I'm over here bartending, getting less from the people I'm actually serving beers to. Thanks I guess?
So now, especially that the economy is fucked, I'm very particular about what I tip on.
Yesterday I went to a juice place. Got 2 bottles of juice and a fruit bowl thing. I'm only tipping on the fruit bowl thing. I'll tip 20% on it, but you simply grabbed the bottle of juice from a fridge. That's not a service.
All in all it looks like an 8% tip, because their juice is $11 a bottle and the fruit bowl is like $20 after everything I added to it.
$4 tip. That's 20% on your $20 bowl. I'm ignoring the other $22 on the bill. That wasn't a service. I'm not tipping $9 for this interaction. A fruit bowl and two juices isn't worth $51 dollars. It's hard enough to justify the $4 tip when the juice is $11... The boss can't pay you better with margins like that? Or is the fruit vendor raking it in? Fruit isn't that expensive...
I don't get it.
What's not to get? You seem to understand it just fine. Rather than actually paying their workers a living wage, they can have customers subsidize their pay.
And then when they have a bad night and end up making $4/hour, tips included, you blame the customers for not tipping and not the employer who pays you literally $3/hour.
I do that too. Get draft beer, pizza and then a bunch of cans at a brewery. 60% was prepackaged so I'm not tipping 20% on the whole bill. Did my own math and it was like 10%.
I ain’t never been into tipping as I’m not contributing to this system by playing along.
Sure it sucks if you’ve gotta work for tips but still.
You aren't fighting the man by not tipping (in the traditional areas), you're screwing your fellow worker.
You're just being cheap.
Don't forget that it's the employer paying the shitty wage that is the one screwing over the worker. This is exactly what those employers want, to be able to pay shitty wages and have the blame shifted to someone else.
I'm not defending the tipping culture, but it's baked into the idea of how much these people are paid by their employer. By not tipping, you're just screwing them, not sticking it to the man. It's just an attempt to justify being cheap.
Again you're blaming the consumer but totally overlook the employer being cheap and paying shitty wages. You're playing right into their hand.
It's currently part of our culture and an expectation. We all agree that it should go away, but as of now, regardless of whether the boss is being cheap, if you don't tip you're being cheap and only screwing the worker, as the boss still makes their money.
I really really don't agree with this. They have already been screwed by their boss, you are choosing whether to Bail the boss out or not. The dynamic will never change by continuing your stance, you'll just keep on bailing out the rich guys.
There's an expectation that you tip, right or wrong. If you don't tip, you're just screwing them, not the boss.
If you want to change it, screwing the worker is not the best path.
I didn't say you would be screwing the boss. What you are doing by tipping is letting them away with it. I understand the expectation, I think it shouldn't exist, I think it's wrong. I also refuse to take a job like that which I believe IS the way to change it.
Going and not tipping is still letting them "get away with it" because they still make their money. The person who makes less is the worker who served you the food. The owner still gets their money. If you want to hit the boss in the pocket book, you don't go to places that rely on tipping their workers. That's how you put pressure on the owner.
You're absolutely "fighting the man". You not tipping puts pressure on the owner class to pay a decent living wage to their employees or risk losing their workforce over time. Just need to all continue to hold on this trend that the article describes and keep that arrow going down. At the same time, these workers will be motivated to unionize and get the worth of their labor with current union momentum that's on the increase.
"Not fighting the man".... What a hollow statement?
No, you've got it wrong. By going and not tipping, "the man" is still making their money. It's the server you're putting pressure on to leave that job and find something better. Sure, at some point, this might rise up and screw "the man" but the reality is that it requires stomping on a bunch of workers for your own benefit. You're basically telling a server, who might even like tipping because it benefits them, that they have to do the work to make the change you want. It's selfish, just like not tipping.
If you want to stick it to those owners who don't pay fair wages to their workers, don't patronize their establishments.
Don't have the energy for everything that needs response in that, maybe reread it a couple times and respond to yourself
Then just leave? What's the point of a comment like this? Do you not realize how childish it makes you look?
Childish is you being completely oblivious to any nuance in my previous post and not responding to it substantively when you choose to respond. You're a child in a room full of adults having a conversation and you're punching kneecaps and screaming down there, feisty little guy!
You hold a smartphone with the collective knowledge of humanity in your hand, and you think that because you have quick access to that intelligence, it means you are intelligent. But you have no idea what you're actually talking about.
You don't have the energy to make a point, but you do have the energy to throw around empty insults. Good for you, really have your priorities straight.
This only works in an idealized perfect scenario which doesn't exist. You not tipping only hurts the delivery driver and doesn't touch the man whatsoever. Furthermore companies are only required to pay 7.25 federally unless state has other laws, which many don't. So best case scenario you are bumping people up to 7.25 which isn't even close to a living wage and wouldn't do a thing for vehicle maintenance and gas.
You are welcome to believe that you are sticking to the man not tipping but the reality is that you are fucking over hard working people short term. Even if everyone unilateral agreed to stop tipping it would take years for the system to fully catch up and again you would be fucking them over during those years.
It will always be like this... until it isn't. Your argument is tired. "The moment" eventually has to happen to force change. You take things like the 40 hour work week and weekends for granted, but people died in labor demonstrations and factory disasters to secure that comfort for us all. I pay my federal/state taxes and local levies, I support social safety net programs. These tips will not be the difference between someone eating or not, but it may be enough for them to force the ruling class to cede just a little more profit to the workers (or pressure the state to act against business of those social safety net programs are being more heavily utilized).
Your argument isn't grounded in reality which is my argument, propose a plan that will actually have impact past screwing service workers.
I'm not sure what your point is with labor demonstrations, those people got change though very bloody(not voluntarily bloody) organized protests, not tipping isn't even close to an accurate comparison. A little more profit to the working class is a crumlet and just doesn't do shit for service workers, let's focus on taking the pie back which again not tipping isn't doing.
they should honestly ban tips on credit card machines and mandate a "cashback" option instead allowing 1-10 dollars of cash back.
I tip if there was something to tip. Fast casual dining with me bussing, nope. Receiving a cup for coffee that I pump and setup, nope.
Its crazy how many businesses in the US are asking you to tip on checkout and make it appear that's normal. WTF would I be tipping at Subway
I have a rule I've long lived by: never piss off the people who cut your hair, make (or get) your food, and work on your teeth.
We tipping fucking dentists now??
No. Just don't piss them off.
Drivers should not be tipped as they cannot do anything different. Either you get there or you don't. If you get there slower they are incomitent. If you get there faster they broke the law and your tip indicates you enticed them to do so and so you are guilty.
Unless you're tipping them for driving smoothly.
Hahahahaha... Is this for real?
This is very real. Take an ethics class sometime - indirect effects and what things look like are very important.
Dude, pizza delivery guys in the days of "30 minutes or it's free" were fucking crazy.
Yes they were. It wasn't right then, and it isn't right now.