A new survey reveals some fascinating details on The State of Tipping in America. Among the biggest revelations: Tipping was down overall last year – in spite of increased pressure on consumers, from both restaurants and other service providers, to tip more…
Americans are strongly opposed to digital tipping
screens that suggest or mandate tip amounts…
Anyone who eats out or orders food in will be aware – perhaps painfully so – of the recent trend by restaurants, food delivery services and other service providers to force, or compel tipping by their customers….
Getting crazy
In fact, many folks who responded to a recent survey by financial advice company Bankrate found that, “35 percent of Americans believe tipping culture has gotten out of control.” That represents a 5 percent increase over last year.
New analysis
A new analysis by UpgradedPoints, of tipping info from a number of independent sources, has yielded some fascinating – and occasionally surprising – answers to tipping ‘FAQ’s…
- Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers agree decisively that tipping needs to be ‘reigned in’.
- Men feel more pressure to tip than women.
- But women tend to tip more than men.
- Americans aged 65 and older tip the most.
- 18 to 29 year-olds tip the least.
- Millennials tip the most when the server is attractive.
- New Hampshire residents tip the most – 20.47 percent on average.
- Idaho residents tip the least – 16.71 percent on average.
- 15 percent of Americans say they don’t know how much to tip, or when it is or isn’t appropriate.
- More than 25 percent said they tip more when they’ve had a few drinks.
- More than 1 in 4 Americans regularly tip 20 percent or more. In other countries, customers of all services rarely tip more than 10 percent.
- When presented with a tipping screen, the majority enter their own, ‘custom’ tipping percentage or dollar amount.
- Digital tips trend to be significantly higher than cash tips.
- Service is still the single most important motivator for folks to tip.
And that’s just a sample of the 40+ info points the analysis developed…
Employers need to ‘do more’
One particularly insistent point raised by survey respondents addressed the employer’s perceived responsibility to ensure that their workers are paid a ‘living wage’.
“Forty-one percent of those surveyed said it’s the businesses that need to do more to ensure that people working in lower-paid positions are earning enough to comfortably live off of. It’s this backlash from customers that has inadvertently meant tips are down across the board for the people who need them most.”
The customers, of course, are aggravated that the employer’s ‘responsibility’ to its workers is being shifted onto them.
A rock and a hard place
However, restaurant operators, especially, are stuck between a menu-price rock and a cost-of-doing-business hard place. Food prices are rising. Employee minimum wages are rising (sharply in some jurisdictions), and all other costs are creeping up with inflation.
Many resto owners today are faced with a choice: to find new revenue streams, cut costs or… Just close their doors.
My take
Asking – or worse, mandating – that customers directly subsidize their businesses through tipping, allowing them to pay less in wages, is an obvious tactic that many have resorted to. The problem is, they’re finding they can only squeeze their customers – and their employees – so far before they rebel.
It’s a new world, in the post-COVID era. And resto operators must start thinking differently to survive…
~ Maggie J.