The cashier turns the screen towards you as soon as you remove your debit card, displaying the tipping options: 10%, 25%, 40%, and so on and so forth. You glance at the frozen yogurt bowl that you made yourself, and then up at the minimum-wage employee, wondering how much of a tip is truly appropriate.
Tipping now has been common in service businesses, with consumers commonly leaving a percentage of the bill to show their appreciation for the service received. Tipping culture, on the other hand, has gotten out of hand in recent years and has become a subject of contention. The tipping system has grown unreasonably complex and burdensome. For all sorts of extra service providers, including baristas, hairdressers, and hotel personnel, tips are increasingly becoming a source of income as workers. Because of this fact, leaving a tip feels all but mandatory, which makes customers feel guilty no matter the quality of the service received.
Tipping, a concept once referred to as “The Legacy of Slavery” by the TIME magazine, has a troubling and racist beginning in the United States. Tipping started in feudal Europe as a system between master and serf and was brought to the United States by educated European immigrants, according to TIME magazine. However, following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction Era, the practice spread across the country as companies, mostly in the hotel business, sought methods to avoid paying previously enslaved labor, and tips were used as sympathies by white customers for the people of color working.
Firstly, companies are now encouraging tips to shift the cost of paying employees’ wages to customers. In California, tips are typically distributed among non-management employees and are added on top of a city-specific minimum wage. However, tips are included in the minimum wage in the majority of states, resulting in a countrywide minimum wage of only $2.13 when tips are not taken into account, according to the US Department of Labor. This system is problematic for both clients, who are under increasing pressure to tip, and service staff, who rely on tips for a more acceptable income. Since customers are essentially paying for these workers’ salaries, it becomes the customers’ responsibility to make sure they are fairly rewarded. Customers now essentially pay a lot more for the same service as a result: once for the cost of the service itself and once more to meet the expectation of a tip.
In addition, a gratuity fee, a pre-selected tip, usually about 18%-20%, is often already added to the bill of parties with six or more members, at restaurants. Although this fee guarantees the compensation of workers when serving larger groups, it completely nullifies the incentive and encouragement for servers to provide extraordinary service as they know they will receive a large tip regardless, often leaving customers with mediocre service and no special attention, even though they are required to pay such a large tip.
Not only does tipping have a racist beginning, but in many places it can encourage unfair services and discriminatory practices from clients and customers. A 2008 study from Cornell University found that 40% of sampled customers admitted to providing less of a tip when it came to tipping based on gender, race, and age, usually providing white, middle-aged female service providers with higher tips. In addition, waiters have also admitted to discriminating against certain demographics, such as younger people, because they assume that they do not tip well. These assumptions and prejudices can often lead to unpleasant experiences for both customers and service providers.
The out-of-control and ever-changing tipping culture is a result of an ambiguous, ever-changing policy that transfers financial responsibility from the employer to the customer and results in employers ignoring their obligations. In today’s day and age, tipping has developed into a fundamentally flawed system that needs to be looked at and changed in order to ensure that workers are fairly compensated and that customers are not overburdened.