I Used to Support Tipping Culture — Now, I Think It Has Gone Too Far

I have always staunchly defended the whole practice of tipping 20%, no matter what I actually think of the service. I did it out of a sense of principle and solidarity with people who might not make the most in wages and be very reliant on tips.

It was a part of my identity, and I could not live with myself if I left a restaurant without having tipped 20%. I could not live with myself, still, if I didn’t tip the Uber driver or DoorDash driver, and my personal experience as both a Uber and DoorDash driver in the gig economy most made me see things from the other side.

However, in the past couple of years, many of us, myself included, have become familiar with paying at the cash register and having the screen reader in front of us. Tipping culture has changed, and it has changed very, very fast. The options on the screen might be 20%, 22%, and 25%, and “Other.” The baseline has gone up from options of 15%, 18%, or 20% quite significantly. The cashier is usually very nice, but can usually see exactly what we’re deciding to tip. It also can seem like everyone expects a tip these days, or at least significantly more people and services than five years ago.

Personally, I have even had occasions where I have not looked carefully at the bill and seen that there was a mandatory service charge. It is certainly my fault for being in a hurry and just not reading carefully, but I will write in a 20% tip thinking the tip was not already attached. I would get a bill much larger than what I actually paid for, thinking there was something wrong or I was charged for an item I did not actually order. However, it turns out that I tacked on an additional 20% tip to the already existing service charge.

“Well, at least I made that server’s day,” I think.

This never happened to me prior to the pandemic, but it has happened two or three times since. It has caused me, unfortunately, to look at receipts with a much higher degree of scrutiny than before. I don’t want to be that person. I will look where exactly in the company’s or restaurant’s policy or sign it says the mandatory service charge is on the receipt, especially for a small party of just myself and my wife.

I do not want to think this way, but we are not incredibly wealthy people with unlimited finances. We are just a newly married couple with a new mortgage and plenty of bills, and there is a conflict between our desire to, in our moral sensibilities, do the right thing while simultaneously looking out for our own finances. We’re both teachers with a middle-class salary — how would everyone else who doesn’t make as much feel when they’re prompted to tip a minimum of 20% to the cashier?

It’s a broad consensus that tipping culture has changed significantly in the past five years. I often ask people what they think of the transitions in tipping culture.

My usually pretty progressive friends, who are so progressive that they would not vote for Biden over how he has handled the Israel-Palestine conflict, have almost always lamented how we’re now expected to tip the cashier who did nothing but hand us a muffin or donut, and we lament how we’re sometimes expected to tip these cashiers just as much as we tip actual servers who might be making less than minimum wage. I have seen these same friends relay stories of how they have felt finessed by the “additional tip” phenomenon, or how they have been uncomfortable not leaving a tip or tipping less than the designated minimum amount when they have the screen reader in front of them.

While I have personally been dogmatic in what I view as doing the right thing, there was a time when a cashier actually told me not to tip, as I had been doing before. I will not list this particular restaurant because the cashier never asked to become a whistleblower and I don’t want to get her in trouble, but we converse and get along pretty well whenever I go to this restaurant for lunch, once or twice a week.

I had been tipping 15–20% to the card reader every time I got a sandwich, but apparently, none of it went to the cashier. I don’t know how that was legal or allowed, but she said it in a hushed voice, as if a manager might be listening in the back. When I paid with my card, she turned the screen reader back to herself and ensured that I did not pay any tip for that reason. I have not tipped at this restaurant with my card since, but if I have any cash on me, I will attempt to tip in cash.

Here I was, being dogmatic with my progressive and interpersonal sensibilities on the morality of tipping, actually giving my money to someone who wasn’t the cashier I thought I was helping. Perhaps the manager has been engaging in wage theft. Perhaps the restaurant itself pocketed tips from the screen readers.

Regardless, my views about tipping, like many others, have grown more complicated over time. I don’t always tip 20% at the cash register anymore, although I still always tip something. Maybe I’ll give 10 to 15% to the cashier who just gave me a bagel, donut, or muffin. But to give just as much as I would a rideshare driver, delivery driver, or server, is, I hate to say, just not very equitable. The rideshare driver, delivery driver, and server did a whole lot more to provide fast and good service, whereas the cashier was just doing their much more transactional job. This is not to say I don’t think cashiers should be paid more, or that all parties should be paid more, which I absolutely do.

It is very tragic that our essential workers in delivery drivers or rideshare drivers were not paid more during the pandemic and even before. However, pushing this responsibility onto consumers instead of corporations is not a sustainable path forward in ensuring an adequate social safety net. All of us progressive-minded people want to play our part in remedying this societal inequality and those in the service and retail industries who are not being paid enough.

When I found out the money I was tipping wasn’t actually going to the cashier I thought I was tipping, I felt like it was, obviously, a huge injustice. One bad apple does not negate my attitude that I should always tip, but it did raise my guard and make me see the practice with a higher degree of scrutiny. I have even been on the other side of being reliant on tips as a rideshare driver and DoorDash driver, and despite my empathy and knowing how these gig economy workers feel, I too have tired of tipping culture.

Stacey Vanek Smith at NPR calls the new phenomenon in tipping, particularly with credit card readers, “screen pressure.” Businesses are starting to load payment systems to default tip options of 20%, and if you want to give less than 20%, you have to select a “custom tip.” But obviously, doing this can sometimes be uncomfortable and is easier said than done for some of us.

Shubhranshu Singh, a marketing professor at Johns Hopkins University, attributes the changes in tipping culture to the pandemic. Singh attributes society starting to tip people who didn’t usually be tipped as a way to support essential workers, and changes in technology from screen readers also impact this phenomenon. Software like Square, which is behind many electronic card reader payments, also helps explode tipping culture.

Smith interviews Sean Jung, a professor at the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration, who cites tipping culture as a way to pay workers more without actually raising wages. As every state has the ability to set its own minimum wage, some states have had $15 minimum wages while others have suboptimal wages very reliant on tipping.

This means that how much to tip can be dependent on your particular state, jurisdiction, and minimum wage laws. There is also a subminimum wage, where service workers can often be paid below their minimum wage. Tipping 20% in California, for example, might mean a lot less than tipping 20% in Tennessee.

I think there are other factors at play outside of those cited by Jung, Singh, and Smith. First, I think society was just going in the direction of tipping more as many of us, particularly in more progressive spaces, grew significantly more conscientious in the role of tipping in the income of service industry workers. Second, the gig economy plays a huge role in tipping’s explosion. If Uber and DoorDash drivers make very little per ride or per delivery, then tipping is going to account for a very large proportion of gig economy workers’ income.

The point about businesses being able to pay workers more without actually raising wages, though, is the most compelling reason tipping culture has gotten out of control. Many of us want a greater social safety net for our service industry workers, which is good, and many of us feel some responsibility for that social safety net. But businesses and corporations are clearly exploiting that shared sense of responsibility, to the detriment of both the consumer and workers. I’m not saying this is a grand capitalist conspiracy, but it is reasonable that businesses will act in their self-interest.

I was originally a heavy supporter of tipping culture, but now I do agree it has gone too far. The only solution seems to be paying workers more, rather than pushing the burden onto the customer through tipping.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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