Summary
Tipping in U.S. restaurants has dropped to 19.3%, the lowest in six years, driven by frustration over rising menu prices and increased prompts for tips in non-traditional settings.
Only 38% of consumers tipped 20% or more in 2024, down from 56% in 2021, reflecting tighter budgets.
Diners are cutting back on outings, spending less, and tipping less. Some restaurants are adding service fees, further reducing tips.
Worker advocacy groups are pushing to eliminate the tipped-wage system, while the restaurant industry warns these shifts hurt business and employees.
Key cities like D.C. and Chicago are phasing in higher minimum wages for tipped workers.
The worst part is when you go to a place you need to pay before service is rendered.
If I go to the bagel shop and get a dozen I pay before I pick them out. TIP? Are you kidding me, what what, you have not served me yet.
A tip is to reward good service at a sit down place. I still think it shouldn’t be and if we have it, it should be back to the 5-10% like most countries that have tipping.
But if you ask for a tip before you render service i get a little angry.
I’ve been tipping more, but that’s mostly because I live in a relatively low-income area and I know people around here are cheap/frugal. I’ve also worked in food service before (though not deliveries) and I know just how awful it can be. I hope I can be the one delivery that allows the person to call it an early night and spend time with their family. Shit like that.
That being said, I don’t know what kind of notes the drivers get when they see my order pop up, but I will say that 99% of the time, my service has been impeccable. They know.
HOWEVER, don’t take this as approval for tipping culture. I hate it and would love to do away with it. Unfortunately, I understand that these people depend on my tips for a living wage and that sucks.
Make sure you’re tipping cashiers too then
Tipping was essentially an American invention to not pay black people. (Who were the majority of service industry workers in the late 1800s/1900s?)
Also keeps that servant/master power dynamic.
People tip more than 10%?
Are you American? If so, yes.
It’s $1 per drink at a bar (in most major cities though this is not universal), 20% at sit down restaurants (even if it’s not super nice), it gets ambiguous outside of that.
I’ve been tipping 10% at restaurants for the last decade and don’t tip anywhere else. Shrug
10% is insultingly low. Have you worked in the service industry?
Nope, but I’ve worked for minimum wage.
Not the same thing.
Are you American? If so, yes.
Lol, as an American those tip rates can get fuckef
🙄
American tipping culture is so pervasive, anerican POS software companies don’t even bother localising POS systems to remove the tipping step.
Like, why is this button here, practically no one is ever going to use it.
If we leave a tip, it’s in a tip-jar almost without exception, in cash. It’s where you put your poop change or a couple of gold coins ($1 or $2)
(Australia)
Grumble
That’s funny, wife and I haven’t even tipped at all in years
Wait, no, I lie, I did tip the lady who went above and beyond this one time to make sure my meal went super smooth
ETA: lol, knew I’d get downvoted by butthurt idiots who don’t know shit. I live in one of the states with full minimum wage for the tipped roles (5 bucks more if it’s fast food) so why the fuck should I tip anyone if they’re making the same as anyone else at the bottom of the ladder?
Buncha fools
i actually give everyone a 600% tip because i want to show everyone that i love american lifestyle
Here’s the tip reform I want:
Every restaurant/bar/etc with their staff decides on a default gratuity that represents their service standards/aspirations.Menu prices must include this gratuity. (And include taxes - why not.)
At time of payment, the customer can choose how much they want to tip: the default, or some amount more or less.
Transparent prices. No unwritten rules. Bar staff still make $$. And no disadvantage to restaurants who pay a higher hourly wage instead of tips.
You can bet there was some more tolerance for it when there was some guilt for office workers staying at home while service roles had to stay on site during the height of covid.
The fact that so many point of sale make it a default thing to put it directly out there for someone to tip before any service is done and with that decision in view of everyone around doesn’t sit well either
I’m so fucking done with it, that I just assume everyone behind me is too. I happily hit that “No tip” button. Unless you provided an active service for me, or went above and beyond to get me something, then why do you deserve a tip? I have to pay you extra money for you to do your job correctly?
It’s actually driven moreso by the point-of-sale vendors. They enable it by default, because they make a percentage of the transaction as a processing fee. The merchant has to request that it be disabled.
Not a POS technically but a previous vet had a jar on the front desk to tip the receptionist. They even stuck a QR code on it in case you don’t have cash.
You think you’re tipping the worker, you’re actually tipping Jack Dorsey.
I only tip at restaurants and when I get my hair cut. All of this new tipping stuff, I have always assumed was just a generic update to enable it basically everywhere… I’ve always hit no tip… I don’t feel bad for it… You’re not getting paid 2 dollars an hour working at some random place that’s not a restaurant… I’ve heard stories of employees not even getting those tips… It’s a push for greed… That’s it
Yeah, It was one thing during covid when the waitstaff were all doing takeout but their bills hasn’t changed, but it’s no longer covid, if I wanted to tip I’d sit my ass down or order delivery. If I come to the counter for my food I don’t tip.
And the default options are 20, 25, 30 some places.
Ive been at multiple places starting at 30. Fuck that.
Would you like to tip 5000% so I don’t shit in your coffee?
- 2045 barista
I was in SoCal several months back and ended up in a candy shop. Nothing but drawers of candy on the walls and one desk in the middle with a young woman sitting behind the checkout tablet. I had a question or two, but she was neither helpful or knowledgeable (it’s candy. not a difficult topic). She seemed very disinterested in engagement.
Well, I finish my selection, she scans and the tablet shows the totals with the big tip screen (NoTip-15-20-25%). I was taken aback that her job would get tips and wondered if she was paid enough before I smashed the NoTip button to finish up since she hadn’t done a thing to merit one.
Blame the companies, not the customers. I bought a $12 water at a concert and the attendant acted offended I didn’t tip. Don’t get mad at me.
Yea, we’re getting exhausted from being constantly barraged by demands for tips.
I would never go back to that venue. $12 for a water…
You’re fine with getting overcharged for the concert and the water, but paying the worker for their time is where you draw the line?
Most people going to concerts can’t exactly leave the building, find a different store selling water, buy it, then bring it back in through the concert venue. (Nor are they capable of magically knowing the prices inside beforehand) The reason the price was so high was likely because the venue knew they had a captive audience, and when people need water, they need water. If someone is just forced to pay $12 for water, asking them to subsidize your worker’s wages on top is a shitty move, and if nobody tips, then maybe that company will realize that they can’t subsidize the wages they pay with tips, and stop relying on them.
Then the attendant gets paid fairly from the get go, and they don’t need to be offended if someone doesn’t tip, because why the hell should anybody have to subsidize a corporation’s wages? If they want workers, charge what’s required in the price to pay those workers, no tip required.
I know I’m being redundant, but again: they are okay paying money to Ticketmaster (or another billionaire), they are okay paying money to the venue, but they refuse to pay someone who actually works for a living? It’s not complicated…
The company has to pay the worker enough… it’s not complicated. Just like any other job.
They’re refusing to encourage the venue to underpay the person while using tips to make up for it. In practice, it’s not the same thing.
The immediate direct implication is, yes, not giving that person money, but if people as a whole continue to engage in that behavior, companies can go ahead and tell their workers “sure we aren’t paying you a living wage directly, but everyone will tip you enough to make up the difference” and that will allow them to keep more of the sale proceeds for themselves as profit, rather than paying it to the worker.
However, the more people refuse to tip, the less and less the employer can use the excuse that “they’ll make up for the difference with tips,” and will then be forced to pay the employee directly without making their income dependent on guilt-tripping people for extra cash, because otherwise, that employee will simply quit because they’re not getting paid enough, and no new employee will fill that position if it’s clear there aren’t enough tips to cover the difference between their actual wage, and a livable one.
The only reason tips as a concept exist is to allow employers to pay people less, then promise other people’s generosity will bring that pay up to par. If it’s too expensive for the business to offer fair wages with their current prices, then they should just incorporate tips into the price if it’s going to be necessary for their workers to receive tips anyways. If the business is making more than enough, and is simply using tips to subsidize what they would otherwise pay their workers, then a lack of tips necessitates them slightly cutting into their margins and paying their workers fairly.
The inherent act of not tipping in itself is denying the employee a payment in the moment, but the goal of such an action is to discourage the behavior by the corporation, to then make it necessary for that corporation to pay a living wage directly, which is objectively good for all parties involved (workers know how much they’ll make and get stable, livable wages, and customers know what they’re paying without feeling bad if they can’t afford making their $12 water $15.)
The longer you allow a system like this to exist, the more you’ll see what’s already happening, companies pushing it in where it traditionally was never present, minimum suggested amounts going up from 10% to 12% to 15% to 18% etc, and wages staying low as companies try using your generosity to subsidize wages they would otherwise have to pay themselves to retain workers. Not tipping is inherently a rejection of this system, and the only way you stop such a system from expanding is by rejecting it.
I mean…
2016, I went to a bar and got a 16oz beer, a burger and a basket of fresh fries for $18. I was happy to throw $3-5 on that for decent service, hell even subparbaervice.
Now it’s an 11oz beer being sold as a 12oz beer for $9 and a $22 burger, add fries for $4
If I get 2 beers, it’s $50 with a tip.
The fuck?
Well, I mean, are you going to continue to go out and hand them all that money? Then they’ll continue to feel like they can safely raise prices. If you start making burgers at home and buying beer at the local liquor store, you’ll be paying a small fraction of what you paid even in 2016. If you need some social interaction, just make it a cookout and invite people. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have you at their place in return.
Making an awful lot of (mostly irrelevant) assumptions here.
I’m simply stating that inflation is a big reason that people don’t tip as much.
Inflation and wages not going up.
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They did if you got tips…
Customers shouldn’t be responsible for ensuring a livable wage for a restaurants employees.
And those employees for the most part don’t want a liveable wage, they don’t want the pay cut.
Maybe I’m just weird (probably), but the cost of something has absolutely nothing to do with my choice of a tip. If item + what I feel is an acceptable tip = more than I want to spend, I simply don’t purchase that thing, not tip less.
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It’s all well and good for him of he stops going, but look at places like McDonald’s which has increased prices 100% in the last couple years. They are getting less business so they raise price to compensate. Now the addicts are getting priced gouged even more, so that the line goes up. Late stage capitalism is a motherfucker.
good work Americans, keep it up.
don’t stop until the rate is 0%. paying workers is the employer’s job.
Sometimes people try to bring tipping culture to NZ. We show them the door.
Whats funny is when Americans dont care about our non tipping culture and tip anyway
saw that once. The waiter said “I am not allowed to accept tips” and the american looked confused/offended. Thought it was quite funny
I once worked for an American company that had a requirement that if you’re using company money to pay for a meal, you tip at least 20%.
That was very awkward in some countries…
One time after a meal out in Wellington, the waiter chased us up the street - he’d just realised he overcharged us for wine, and was bringing us the cash.
Yeah! Thank you so much for punishing the servers and delivery drivers instead of business owners and making it harder for me to pay rent and feed myself! You’re all such wonderful people!
That’s like employers holding someone hostage and then claiming any harm that comes to them is your fault.
I feel like this is 90% of politics; a gun is held to someone’s head for a hostage demand, and to not give in to the demand is to be as bad as the shooter themselves.
“How could you shoot down my bill for a Coal Chugging Committee? It would’ve created so many jobs111”
You’re still not supposed to shoot the hostages.
Not according to Jack Traven.
How about you be angry at the business owner for paying a shit wage? Tips should be a bonus you get for a job well done not something that makes your life liveable, that’s what your wage is for. We aren’t to blame if your boss is a piece of shit who refuses to pay you a liveable wage.
Yes, and the way to take that anger out on the business owner, is not by withholding a tip to the working class driver (who receives 100% of the tip, btw), it’s by not using the fucking service in the first place.
I assure you I am also angry at my corporate masters, but they’re irredeemable scum and aren’t on Lemmy. It angers me more when I see people cheering that food is being taken out of my mouth as though it’s some virtuous blow to my bosses. It’s not. You’re only further exploiting already exploited people
I’m with you, these replies are delusional. Saying that the employer has to pay minimum wage if the servers don’t get tips is so ignorant it’s insane. Servers make like ~$3/hr in a big chunk of the US. That’s slave labor in our modern economy. $7.25 is not much better.
They think they’re making some grand statement by tipping their UberEats driver $0, while in reality they’re just taking money directly from other working class people. And if they actually wanted to make a statement, they would not have used UberEats in the first fucking place.
Edit: To be perfectly clear, when I say servers make $3, I am referring to the federal minimum wage for servers, and yes it is different and much lower than $7.25/hr.
I also agree with you but i wanted to point out that if the worker getting paid $3/hr doesn’t make enough tips to cover the remaining $4.25/hr in tips then theoretically the business is legally supposed to make up that remaining hourly difference. -I’ve never seen that happen but a server making such a low amount in tips repeatedly is a server i’d expect to not remain working in that role.
You are mistaken. The US has two different federal minimum wages. Servers have a lower minimum wage. It’s like ~$3/hour.
I was a server in addition to an Office Assistant that adjusted payroll among other things in the hospitality industry here in the U.S.
-That additional amount is supposed to be made up for by the employer if the server doesn’t make enough in tips. If as a server you are not making at least 7.25/hr in wages or alternatively in combined pay and tips then you need to contact your local states Department of Labor because you’re likely having wages stolen.https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa
According to the DOL, an employer may not pay their employees less than $2.13 per hour even if they make enough tips that they’d still be making minimum wage just off of tips. So there is a separate, lower minimum wage for tipped workers.
At the same time though, tipped workers still have to make the full (federal) minimum wage. If your $2.13 per hour plus your tips only come out to $6 per hour, your employer has to pay the other $1.25 per hour.
Enforcement is another issue, of course, but tipped workers have the same minimum wage as everybody else. The tipped wage just allows businesses to count tips as wages up to a certain point. If a tipped worker is only being paid $3 per hour because they didn’t get enough tips, that business is stealing their labor and needs to be smacked.
It angers me when I have to subsidize someone else’s wages because they’re not built into the price I’m paying.
Do you tip the cashier at the grocery store? The technology employee who recommended what TV to buy? The book store worker who helped you find a book?
No, you don’t.
Why? Because their pay is already factored into the price of the goods being sold or the service being provided.
If anyone’s stealing food from your mouth it’s your employer.
“Do you tip the cashier at the grocery store?”
What cashiers? All of the cashiers have been replaced by electronic self-checkout systems.
Even if they have, that doesn’t negate the other two examples.
And every grocery store I’ve been to still has human cashiers even if they’ve implemented self checkout.
Good day, sir.
Yes, blame the exploited for their exploitation and never acknowledge your participation in it. You are a good American
the exploited are in on it in this case. Because, by federal law, “below minimum wage jobs” don’t exist. You either make minimum with tips, or the employer is forced to pay the full amount. So the problem is wage theft. That is not the concern of the clients, but of the relevant authorities, if the servers bothered to report, of course
Try to live off $7.25/hour, let alone raise a family. Servers make even less (~$3 something/hour?).
This shit is so fucking tone deaf and misguided.
A very good American.
It’s so much nicer travelling in places where service workers are valued by their employers.
I still support the anti-tipping people though - it’s the single best option they have to effect change. It’s something small, concrete, and moves things to the desired end-state.
Stop tipping and donate the amount to community organizations fighting poverty instead.
Or better yet advocate for a minimum wage that is actually livable so people don’t have to rely on charity organizations that often come with religious strings attached.
You’re a victim of the system you’re protecting. Enough with the Stockholm Syndrome.
The ones funding my bosses and not me are doing a lot more to protect the system than I am. Not tipping has no effect on the employer and only punishes the person providing you a service.
Not tipping has no effect on the employer and only punishes the person providing you a service.
We’re here talking about it
Tipping only benefits your employer.
Your employer is required to pay you minimum wage if tips don’t make up the difference. If people stop tipping entirely, it actually will impact your boss.
A. Wage theft is widespread and hard to fight without money
B. Minimum wage hasn’t been a livable wage since the 70’s
Sounds like you need a union.
different problems. Maybe try to tackle those instead?
This makes absolutely no sense. Do you even think before you type or…?
They’re absolutely correct though and it makes perfect sense. This is a systemic problem. Don’t use the service at all if you want to make a statement.
Use the service, and then refuse to tip (100% of which goes to the driver btw), and you are doing nothing but directly hurting other working class people. Good job.
Customers fund businesses. Customers who don’t tip still fund businesses. Not tipping makes no impact on the business’s pay scale.
I mean this is the better way to do it honestly. People generally tipping less means those positions basically pay less. The whole reason people work those jobs is because with good tips you can make some serious bank. Stop making bank, people will move elsewhere, can’t hire servers because tips don’t pay well enough? Then start paying them. If the alternative is everyone just stops tipping tomorrow then people would really be screwed, because they wouldn’t have time to transition.
Sure it sucks they’re getting paid less, but if the alternative is this “you better pay our workers so they can eat because we ain’t gonna do it” then I’d say it’s a pretty welcome change.
It’s also not like the tip amount dropped to 5% or something. Prices have been going nuts lately, so the tips are probably about the same cash amount as they have been, which is just a smaller percent of the now larger bill.
“I mean this is the better way to do it honestly.”
It’s not. The better way is for people who don’t want to tip to stop going out to places or using services where tipping is customary. That way nobody is increasingly encouraged to perform labor for less than they’re work is worth. If there are not enough customer’s because of this then the businesses will change or perish. All of this anti-tipping sentiment leads me to believe is that if these customers were to trade places with the owners then they’d pay their laborer’s just as little.
That way nobody is increasingly encouraged to perform labor for less than they’re work is worth.
You negotiated what your labor is worth when you took the serving job; below minimum wage. Don’t like it? Go find a non tipped job that doesn’t rely on patrons subsidizing your wages.
What other industry relies on paying for something and then having to pay more after you’ve already paid the agreed upon price?
You agree to tipping by using services and patronising businesses where tipping is customary. Let’s not act like you don’t understand this ahead of time. People only argue against tipping in these fields to this degree because they want to virtue signal as a cope for making waiters, bartenders, porters, delivery drivers, etc just as poor as they are. -Which is too poor to use or patronize these businesses in the first place.
–They could also simply be astroturfing to sow discord.
If you really care about the businesses paying their staff the full wages then you understand that either way the cost will still be passed onto the patrons, regardless, and the people that claim to be upset are arguing over a pedantic order of operations in the finances.
You agree to tipping by using services and patronising businesses where tipping is customary.
I do not agree but am forced into this crap system like shitty “healthcare” or Papa John’s pizza.
When all servers claim 100% of their tipped wages on their taxes then we’ll talk. Until then STFU. And this.
So I take it you see yourself as a guy in the top-hat? Customers encouraging other customers to betray workers by refusing to pay for services rendered is a perfect example of a class-traitor.
there are no “below minimum wage jobs”. Minimum is minimum. If you don’t tip, the employer has to pay the full minimum wage. If you end up with less than minimum wige, then you were stolen from by your employer. The proper response to which is to go to the authorities, which take this kind of thing quite seriously, not guilt tripping the clients
yeah those are both ignorant of the law. No, the job pays minimum wage. If you don’t tip, the employer must.
Wage theft is what’s going on. Which is a different problem. And if that is solved and minimum wage isn’t enough, then that’s a minimum wage problem. Which affects everyone. Servers aren’t special. Neither require tipping.
nah, by law if nobody tipped, they’d have to be paid by their employer in full. You’re not punishing them, you’re just not accepting responsibility that, by law, is not yours
Paid in full to… checks notes, ~$3/hour (if they make server rates) or $7.25/hour (if they make federal minimum wage)? Wow. Not sure if they make the higher or lower of the two, but either way…
Also, lots of places straight up just won’t do that. They might eventually get caught, and pay a fine or whatever.
Refusing to tip, at the consumer level, will change nothing besides ruining the day/week of the person delivering your order.
there are no server rates. minimum is minimum. the server rate only applies if you tip.
Worker advocacy groups are pushing to eliminate the tipped-wage system, while the restaurant industry warns these shifts hurt business and employees.
Imagine having to pay a living wage, burger prices would explode!
Except, for example, there is a 12.82€ minimum wage in Germany and a hamburger ist still around 2€ at Burger King (about 1:1 in $ atm). Food and work safety are stricter too iirc. Workers also have 20 days of vacation minimum (if your work full-time), 60h weeks maximum @ 40h on average, as well as extra pay for night, weekend and holiday shifts. And health insurance is about 200 a month at that income I think.
Edit: Oh, and of course still 5-20% tipps.
You are getting screwed over completely. Anyone who claims otherwise is your enemy.
We had 150 million people decide to keep things going the way they are. Until a major slice of shit hits the proverbial fan, nothing will change. The American population is too fat, stupid, and lazy to make the change on its own.
I think it’s more of a subsidizing thing. In the UK they get all these things and can’t budge due to pushback and culture, so they subsidize those costs with cuts to other places, like shrinkflation in the US, and other places. Costs went up to ship their foodstuffs all over the world, buuuut they enabled tipping at POS in the US, getting poor suckers to make up the difference (they hope)
Not an excuse, but if the US put in place the same things the UK has, fast food would lose their biggest cost subsidy for more expensive places like the UK, and prices would actually go up (because the corpo suits can’t take a fuckin pay cut obviously!)
People who earn tips don’t want “liveable” wages. They would hate the pay cut.
Stop tipping culture. Pay your workers.
American tip culture is fucked, and it has been for a very long time. Once gas stations started begging for a tip on my soft drinks I figured it was about time to rip the band aid off.
Unfortunately tipping less means wait staff are gonna get fucked – no way to soften that. We need to get to a place where their livelihoods aren’t dependent on generosity.
at one point they need to learn that to protect their livelihood unionize is the answer, not asking customers to subsidize what the employers are not giving.
I still tip wait staff 20% I just don’t tip at the grocery store. The most egregious I’ve seen was a tip at a full self-service counter. Like who am I even tipping? The cash register?
I still tip wait staff 20%….
Why? Did your salary increase with inflation these last several years vs food pricing that’s unhinged from reality?
15% is the new normal.
I’m eating out less instead of tipping less
I did self checkout for the first timw last week. Mothee fucking thing asked for a tip!
They what?
no way to soften that
Don’t go there. E Z
I don’t understand how this is any different to just not tipping? Both situations lead to the worker needing to look for another job, right?
