Tipping culture has gotten out of control

In previous years, I have worked in the service industry as a barista, waitress and hostess. All of these positions brought their own forms of enlightenment, especially when it came to the subject of tipping. Yet my stance remains that tipping should be reserved for traditional acts of customer service and, when performed lavishly, sends the wrong message to corporations about how employees can and should be paid.

Tipping began as a European custom and was brought to the United States by wealthy business merchants during the Reconstruction Era. In its early years, tipping was a method of exploiting newly-freed enslaved people for labor. Restaurants and other hospitality industries would provide a base pay of $0 an hour plus customer tips, escaping the technicalities of slave labor by a few patron-gifted cents.

The history of tipping has impacted modern day transactions in more ways than one. Firstly, many corporations rely on service charges to compensate for inhumanely low wages, a custom permitted by federal law under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Approximately 5.5 million service workers nationwide are paid a subminimum wage of $2.13 an hour, assuming tips fulfill the remainder of the standard minimum wage requirement. The most recent increase to the subminimum wage law, also called the “tipped wage law,” occurred in 1991, raising the average hourly pay from $2.09 to $2.13. With a cumulative inflation of 124.02% in the last 32 years, a raise of 4 cents is certainly not enough.

Second, tipping continues to perpetuate racial and socioeconomic inequality amongst service workers. Service workers of Color are continuously tipped at lower rates than their white counterparts for equal work — this has been seen amongst cab drivers and servers alike. The discrimination in tipping primarily affects Black female service workers, who are subject to frequent customer bias.

Unfortunately, boycotting your tipping duties would not dismantle any of the inequality that this custom has carried through generations, nor would it harm the corporations that perpetuate it. Rather, until restaurants and service providers decide to adopt a no-tipping model, customers must continue to tip in many circumstances.

However, there are an abundance of instances where the percentages at the bottom of your receipt are inappropriate. In recent years, the number of ambiguous tipping situations has risen dramatically. Customers are regularly met with an iPad screen swiveled in their face post-purchase, or a request to add service charge at self-checkout counters.

In a report by BusinessWire, more than half of study participants reported seeing tip screens at self-checkout counters and businesses that previously did not request service. More than two-thirds of people reported seeing tip screens at quick service restaurants. Service charges at drive-throughs, gas stations and self-checkout counters make customers question what their tip even signifies, if not for service.

The upsurge in tipping requests makes for a confusing, if not stressful, user experience. In that same survey, 50% of surveyed consumers reported feeling “manipulated into tipping on a tablet during checkout.” Terms such as “guilt tipping” have risen to popularity, which signify the consumer’s pressure to tip higher amounts due to a variety of guilt-inducing factors, even in instances when tipping doesn’t seem justified. Such factors may include the publicity of transactions, daunting glances from cashiers or waitstaff, or humorously threatening catch phrases on tip jars. It has also been found that paying service on an iPad is its own form of guilt tipping, as electronic tipping methods cause consumers to subconsciously leave a larger tip, which can be largely attributed to this manipulation strategy.

To make matters worse, tips have also been subject to rapid inflation, also known as “tipflation” or “tip creep.” Not only have the prices of products increased, but the frequency and percentage that consumers are expected to tip has skyrocketed. In the 1950s, people tipped 10%, with that number increasing to 15% through the 1970 and 80s. Now, common tipping options are anywhere up to 30%.

Tipping culture only makes this “tax” worse, merely adding a new brick to the ever-growing paywall of simply existing in the United States. Even walking around town requires spending money (plus tip) on a water bottle that I don’t want just so I can use a bathroom or sit down for a few minutes indoors.

I’m tired of the dirty looks and the silent, unyielding pressure I feel when I refuse to pay a 30% tip for grabbing myself a muffin and using self-checkout. Tipping culture has gotten out of control. It’s time we rectify it and start refusing the pressure of guilt tipping. Perhaps we could begin by paying service workers more money, or including gratuity in the overall amount. Or, even better: We could go back to the traditional way of writing on a receipt instead of navigating our way through the frighteningly mysterious “custom amount” button on an iPad.

Talia Belowich is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at [email protected].

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