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.
You all are nuts for how much you tip these days.
It used to be you tipped waiters at restaurants (not register jockeys), your hairdresser, the valet guy, the hotel maid, and maaaaybe the delivery guys if they went above and beyond hooked stuff up and you made them carry something heavy up 10 flights of stairs. That’s it.
The waiter got 10-15% for good service. I dunno about hairdressers but I think around 10% was normal. Everyone else got a few bucks to a fiver (unless you drove a Lamborghini)
Tipping landlords - are you kidding me? Tipping when you weren’t served? - gtfo Do you do it because you’re afraid of conflict? You’re doing it to yourselves - it was bad enough before and you all are just feeding the beast.
The final straw for me was 5 Guys. They added a gratuity on (wtf for idk coz I got my own EVERYTHING) the ticket, then had the audacity to have a tip jar. Never going back.
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?
Good, the only way people will get a living wage is if the people stand with them and refuse to tip
Well, we past our tipping point in the US a while ago, so…
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.
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.
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.
And now that Trump wants to make tips tax free, I’m about to tip even less. At least by the amount of the tax deduction.
I’m not in the best health so I do a lot of order at home.
GrubHub/DoorDash/etc. all calculate the tip based on the order + their fees, not the order itself.
If I order a $60 dinner, I’m tipping 20% of $60. Not 20% of $60 + your delivery fee and your service fee.
Tipping has always been a stupidly arbitrary thing to base tips on anyway, especially for delivery drivers.
As a driver, I accept runs based on dollar per mile because that’s what actually factors into my income. I don’t care what you ordered unless it’s 100 items at the grocery store with cases of water bottles. The price is always irrelevant
Good, keep it up
No tips required when I make aldis toquitos and drink in the basement. Why would you give business to a place that expected tipping?
The problem is that there is a rise of expectations for tips in places that previously didn’t involve tips. That, and the expected percentage for places where it is normal to tip has gone up. And people are reasonably tired of it.
It’s perfectly ok to do both, to be tired of it and avoid such places.
Stop tipping culture. Pay your workers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would never go back to that venue. $12 for a water…
Yea, we’re getting exhausted from being constantly barraged by demands for tips.
This is only going to get worse as late-stage capitalism continues to wring every last penny it can out of the working class.
