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People No Longer Know How Much to Tip
As requests for more and bigger tips increase, so does confusion.
Tipping can be seen as an obligation or as a choice—and, as a new study shows, the answer often varies by generation.
Younger people are more likely to tip by default, while older consumers tend to say it is a personal decision, a new survey from the Pew Research Center found. Our attitudes about when and how much to tip have been reshaped by all the screens prompting us for gratuities at cafes and other businesses. There is one area of consensus: Nearly three-quarters said they now get hit up for tips much more often than five years ago.
All these requests for gratuities have only added to people’s confusion about appropriate tipping behavior, said Drew DeSilver, senior writer at Pew Research Center. The level of uncertainty about tipping decreases among those with higher incomes and more education. About 22% of those with postgraduate degrees said it was extremely easy to know the right amount to tip versus 40% of those with a high-school diploma or less.
A paradox of tipping is that a behavior done almost without thinking can also be extremely emotional, said Stephen Zagor, adjunct assistant professor of business at Columbia University. Some have grown so numb to the tip requests they are ignoring them, prompting companies such as the food-delivery app DoorDash to warn customers that a failure to leave a tip could affect the timeliness of their order.
Tipping for food delivery aside, there is already confusion over what is considered counter-service, fast-casual and full-service experiences as these categories collide. Nearly half of the roughly 12,000 people in the Pew study said their decision about whether to tip is determined by the situation. For example, 65% said they always tip at the hair salon and 12% said they do so when buying a beverage at a coffee shop.
Why tip screens are everywhere
New requests for tips accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
“Tipping became almost like combat pay, to pay for someone putting themselves out there on the line,” Zagor said. “That was the evolution of tip expanding, and it took off in an incredibly intense way.”
The Pew survey looked at the rise of tip screens. Some find this new checkout screen manipulative, comparing the multiple-choice options of 15%, 20% or 25% to emotional blackmail. Just under a quarter of those surveyed favor these suggested tips, while 40% oppose them. Even when tipping behavior becomes automatic, DeSilver said Americans feel the money should reflect the quality of service.
Edgar Juarez, a 25-year-old counter-service worker at a pastry shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., said more people started tipping 10% or more after the screens were added. According to the Pew data, the average tip amount is now 15%.
“People also don’t want to carry cash,” Juarez said, nodding to the store’s lack of a physical tip jar. “Everyone is getting used to it.”
As point-of-sale technology expands to more industries, baristas, bartenders and other service workers acknowledge the tipping interactions are just as awkward for them as for the consumer.
Just recently, Zagor said, he was grabbing a premade tray of sushi from a refrigerated counter and was prompted to tip during the checkout. In the past, he said, he wouldn’t have expected to be asked for a tip if a human wasn’t preparing his food to order.
“I went through that moment of tip shock, like sticker shock,” Zagor said. “It seems like not very long ago, I paid $30 and walked out.”
Write to Julia Carpenter at julia.carpenter@wsj.com
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Business NewsSpecial ReportPeople No Longer Know How Much to Tip
First Published:9 Nov 2023, 10:22 PM IST
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