Tipping, once contained to certain corners of the economy, has exploded, creating confusion and angst. Now, it is even becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Ben Casselman, who covers the U.S. economy for The New York Times, cracks open the mystery of this new era of tipping.
Guest: Ben Casselman (https://www.nytimes.com/by/ben-casselman) , a reporter covering the U.S. economy for The New York Times.
Background reading:
• How to deal with the many requests for tips (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/your-money/tipping-self-checkout-inflation.html) .
• Former President Donald J. Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris a “copycat” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/us/politics/trump-harris-no-tax-tips.html) over her “no tax on tips” plan.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
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Servers en Utah make $2.13 an hour. Ridiculous!!!
I go to USA every three or so months and I always tip there a round big zero.
Are tips included in cost-of-living estimates? Tipping services that used to be paid for up front adds 20% or so to the cost. How is that accounted for?
And what about services not tipped? Are they going to be tipped at some point? I think particularly about the nurses and dental hygenists and nursing home workers who must deal with our not-particularly-appealing (but important to us) bodies. Their services are probably much less valuable to their employers than they are to us. Are their services really less valuable than the waiter who makes $100 per hour just on tips?
It might be good to think again about where we’re going with this tipping thing.
I think this is a stupid debate. If you don’t want to tip then don’t. What’s the worst that can happen? People say they feel guilty. About what? About not giving money to the worker? I know our society is not this empathetic. There must be something else at play here. When I don’t want to tip, I just don’t. I just hit the “no thanks” button on the iPad or whatever. I’ve never experienced anything bad happening to me at all as a result of this. I do follow these guidelines:
For table service where I sit down and someone comes to the table and serves me: terrible service 0% tip, okay service 15%, good 20%, excellent 25%
Carry-out: terrible 0%, okay 10%, good 15%, extremely excellent 20% (note: workers typically put more work into carry-out than the customer might realize. Still, it’s fair to tip less than table service because the customer has to come pick the order up)
Doordash: I often tip as much as possible because I’m the one being lazy lol
Anything else: I tip a little if I feel generous or service is above and beyond
When I’m given the option to tip, I simply see it as an option. When I’m not given the option to tip, I assume the workers cannot accept tips.
I just have a hard time understanding why it’s such an issue. If you don’t want to tip, why not just don’t tip?
Love the NYT, but this is typical overthinking the issue. The core reason why tipping shows up on payment screens is for the payment companies to increase their payment fee revenue.