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.
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.
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 would never go back to that venue. $12 for a water…
I’ve seen tipping options on websites to pay your landlord
It’s T I M E
My electric company has a tip line when paying the bill.
I don’t get the ones for products. I pay for a trendy pillow or whatever, also shipping at a flat rate, but then there’s a tip button? I just know that’s going straight to Shopify or management.
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.
Tipping culture and systems need to die off. Sadly, because they often get paid more via tips than they would by increased hourly wages, tipped employees are often against such reforms.
And, to be fair, for most restaurants, it would be really hard for them to pay their wait staff appropriate wages in many cities where rent is extremely high and the cost of the food products they use to create their meals is rising as well. It’s not a simple matter of “the employer should pay their employees’ wages, not the customer.” The industry is built around tipping, and that’s not something that can be changed overnight.
Still, I firmly believe it needs to happen. And if that means increasing the price of restaurant meals, so be it. I suspect people eat out too much these days anyway and should learn to cook themselves. I used to eat out a lot until I did some calculations and realized I was spending way too much on it. Since learning to cook, I’ve saved a lot of money and now prefer my own cooking to a lot of restaurant fare out there (although not the really good stuff—I’m no professional chef).
I don’t really agree that restaurants couldn’t make it work. It’s just going to have to take all or nothing.
Getting away from tipped wages is the real problem. Give all restaurant workers fair livable wages, they won’t be on tighter budgets on would spend more going out.
Workers can’t live paycheck to paycheck just for the profits to sit in some CEO or owners back account. The economy is heathy with an exchange of money. More money in the pockets of the people the more they will spend.
Of course it won’t work if one restaurant (or any single company) does it differently when everyone is still on tight budgets. You won’t get the business from your own employees but need others to have the means to come to you too.
I’d rather we just eliminate wait staff in most places. There’s almost zero value to a person over a tablet.
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Tipping is beyond fucked up.
Guy at home depot loading your heavy ass lumber into the truck? No tip.
Some dipshit behind the counter punching numbers on a screen, you better believe that’s a tippin!
STOP TIPPING unless somone is actually serving you!! Ask yourself, is this service closer to the guy loading the lumber, or the gas station attendant sitting behind the register?
STOP TIPPING
unless somone is actually serving you!!FTFY
Also good!
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.
This is only going to get worse as late-stage capitalism continues to wring every last penny it can out of the working class.
“Corporations and Restaurants refuse to pay waiters a living wage, subsidizing their salaries with their already drawn thin customers’ depressed wages.”
There, I fixed the title so it identifies the actual problem rather than causing divisions in the working classes.
Tip fatigue is real. When every interaction with a touchpad asks you for a little something extra on top of inflation, it gets old fast.
I tip 20% when I get served by a person. I typically add 10-15% on carryout, for their troubles.
A brewery I go to weekly for dinner with friends recently changed the tip buttons on the pad to 18, 22, and 25. I like them a lot, but the place is pricey, and you have to go to the bar to order. They get the 18% button now. (I could do the math, but… beer)
I typically add 10-15% on carryout, for their troubles.
When will you start tipping your car dealer 10-15%? your lawyer? PCP? insurance agent?
The troubles are real after all.
Don’t forget to tip your landlord while you’re at it, and give an extra 10% to the fed come tax time (so now.)
Do you tip 10-20% at the drive through? It’s equivalent to take out except you don’t have to get out of your car.
Can’t wait until we start tipping our colleagues for replying to our emails. It’s only fair.
When was a kid in the 90s, tip was 10% of the $20 bill. By the time I was eating out a lot in my 20s we left 15% on the $35 because we liked the servers. Now the check is $50 and the “recommended” is creeping past 30%.
Yes this irks me to no end. The tips were going up on their own, so why did the percentage go up?
Because wages didn’t go up
Wages don’t matter. Nobody working for tips wants to exchange it for wages. The money is in the tips, and that kept going up.
I wonder if all of the places like Subway that are asking for tips and getting $0 because who the hell tips at a Subway, are throwing off this stat at all.
Considering the article specifies “full-service restaurants,” Imma go with no
People will judge you more for going to a subway in the first place then not tipping at one.
You can make a sandwich. I believe in you.
You don’t go to subway because you want a sandwich. You go to subway because you know you need to put a food like substance in your food hole and you don’t have the time or mental capacity to do it properly.
Probably not directly, but I think tipping fatigue is definitely affecting things. If you’ve been prompted 10 times already to tip at places you usually wouldn’t tip and then are in a sit down restaurant, you may very well feel inclined to tip less.
Employees at places like Subway and Starbucks could be getting screwed by no one using cash anymore too.
If I’m using a card there’s no change to toss in the jar.
We shouldn’t have to subsidize someone else’s shitty wages. People who rely on tips need to unionize and put that nonsense to bed for good.
I think at some point we need to agree as a society on a no-tipping day in which we stop paying tips, and just keep it up. After that point, no tipping for anything, and rather than not tipping being a stigma, tipping becomes a stigma.
Not tipping doesn’t fix the problem, it just hurts those barely getting by who are also victims of a shitty capitalist system.
Going Luigi on those furthering income inequality would be better.
You can look at what happens when you actually go Luigi by looking at what happened with Luigi. They’re the ones with the real guns and thanks to advertising dollars and social media ownership, control over the media narrative. Violence is the excuse they need to crack down.
But they can’t make us keep paying them.
We can do both. And the first encourages the second, as well as encouraging unions.
The whole threat of workers suffering without tips is the financial equivalent of terrorism. “Fork over the cash or these innocents get it”.
It needs to end, and it’s not going to end by giving into those demands.
Sorry, I don’t agree. I’ve worked hospitality and a lot of my friends work hospitality. A sudden dry spell of tips would mean unpaid medical bills, no clothes for a kid, no food on the dinner table, no gas to get to work. People have to try and budget just for the shortfall that typically occurs in January.
I’m not opposed to changing the system, but I think you underestimate how many people live day to day or week to week. Suddenly nobody tipping at all won’t magically make people unionize or their bosses pay more.
What needs to happen first are steps to kill the massive and ever-increasing wealth divide.
This isn’t a sudden dry spell though, it’s something that is slowly changing over the years. Part of that is because everyone is in financial pain right now. But that should be your expectation if you’re going into a job where your wages are dependent on how well others are doing, you should expect and prepare for the inevitable times where others aren’t doing great.
What needs to happen first are steps to kill the massive and ever-increasing wealth divide.
Yes, we need to solve that. But people just rolling over and accepting 30% tips at the self serve mini market isn’t the solution here.
Just stop going to places that expect you to tip their workers. It’s easy, as those are often the most expensive places to go to.
Door dasher in Australia here: after about 500 completed orders, I can say I’ve been tipped once, by this old lady like A$5.
Tipping is stupid. I’m not incentivised to do anything better. The app would just give everyone crappier orders if everyone tipped.
The point of tipping isn’t generosity, it’s because some jobs in the US make $2 an hour, that tip is their wage.
You tip servers and delivery drivers.
The point of tipping is to incentivise staff to do a good job. Of course employers saw staff getting extra money and decided they didn’t need to pay as much any more. Tipping has now grown to the point where you are expected to pay extra for just about anything or else the worker doesn’t get paid, which is not only counter-intuitive, it’s just stupid.
I travelled through Eastern Europe a while ago and got so sick of extra “taxes” added to the price of everything that I just stopped buying stuff. I imagine tip fatigue being pretty similar.
The point of tipping is to incentivise staff to do a good job.
Maybe originally, but for servers and delivery drivers, it’s the only compensation for their labor they receive.
This is just wrong. If tips stopped tomorrow you’d still get whatever your state minimum wage is (or at least the $7.50 federal minimum).
The standard federal minimum wage still applies. If tips aren’t enough to get you there then the employer has to make up the difference.
Tips are literally a subsidy paid to your employer so that they don’t have to pay you (just the $2.13 federal tipped minimum wage).
Almost no employers do this. And even if they did, 7.25 isn’t enough to live anywhere in the US.
employers legally have to, if they don’t they are in violation of federal law.
That’s true. They still don’t.
then that’s a crime to be handled by the relevant authorities. Vigilantism is illegal
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A gas station that I go to added a tips jar a few years ago. Wtf. You aren’t doing shit but tapping on a sale screen. I really like the people working there. They remember me and we chat. But I’m not tipping you because I bought a Gatorade and you rang it up.
On the other hand, I dated someone from another country who didn’t live a tipping culture. When she covered a meal and didn’t tip, I’d leave cash because I know it’s expected. I was embarrassed that she didn’t agree with our custom.
Tipping needs to go. Just pay people a fair wage.
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.
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?
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!
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.
They what?
