How have retail businesses been doing since the end of Covid measures last spring? Answer: in many cases, not great, because of debts run up over months of closure or low business since the start of the pandemic.
And more on tip inflation as debit terminals start asking for bigger and bigger cuts. Someone quoted in this piece says “tipping more, if you can afford it, should be encouraged” – well, maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but twice recently when paying for minor things, I was handed a terminal with a tipping window, and hit zero. I don’t like admitting that I even felt a little guilty about it, but the person at the cash in these cases had not done me any service, except to ring up a sale.
I know tipping wages are low, but do people staffing small stores get paid tipping wages? If not, they shouldn’t be shilling for tips.
DeWolf 16:30 on 2022-08-28 Permalink
I also don’t understand the very concept of tip inflation. Tips are based on a percentage. With inflation, the total bill has gone up, so why should we be expected to tip an ever larger percentage of that bill?
It’s not like restaurants and bars are charging the same or less than before the pandemic. In many cases, prices have gone up by 30%.over the past two years. Which means the amount of money the servers are getting from tips will have gone up by about 30% even if people don’t tip a larger percentage.
Asking for more and more tips is ultimately short sighted. If the norm becomes 20 or 25% on top of already skyrocketing prices, I won’t be able to afford to go out. I’m sure I’m not alone. That means an effective 0% tip from the customers who’ve stopped visiting a business because they feel like they’re being gouged.
steph 16:43 on 2022-08-28 Permalink
I understand the higher tips are a way to showing appreciation to the service industry, after a difficult pandeminc, many of the workers were willing to quit the industry.
Personally I got used to not going out to restaurants with the pandemic. With the inflated prices, I’m judging that I just don’t want to afford it anymore either. It won’t be a loss to me.
PatrickC 17:53 on 2022-08-28 Permalink
People I know disagree on whether the tip should be based on the pre-tax or post-tax total. Those who advocate the former tend to be in high tax jurisdictions like Quebec, famous for levying one tax on another, but direct tipping on terminals doesn’t give you a choice, except to adjust your percentage.
I got used to higher tipping during the worst of the pandemic, especially for home deliveries from struggling restaurants, but I’m not sure what I’ll do now.
Blork 18:46 on 2022-08-28 Permalink
I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on with tip inflation. During the early days of the pandemic, when restaurants were only doing takeout (if anything), there was a sort of collective effort to tip larger than usual in order to keep the restaurants afloat and to reward the employees for continuing to work in a higher-risk environment.
I think it was appreciated. But now that business is more or less “back to normal,” there isn’t really that need for extra tipping. But restaurants got used to those big tips, and they saw that many people felt good about “going the extra mile” or whatever by tipping large. So they got greedy and effectively made it permanent, bolstered by rhetoric about how they’re so in debt from the pandemic, and how employees need to earn more to stay on the job, etc. (neither of which is entirely untrue).
So it’s basically greed that’s riding a wave of a new but only slightly entrenched habit. Of course it’s not sustainable, as DeWolf and others point out. But since when has a lack of sustainability ever stopped businesses from doing anything?
And for sure this is the restaurant owners doing this, not the employees. (Many businesses keep a portion of tips, plus bigger tips relieves pressure on the owners to pay higher salaries.)
Ephraim 12:16 on 2022-08-29 Permalink
I guess I’m going to be the counterpoint to this. Tipping is a way to keep wages low, to not pay people their worth. And it also creates a certain imbalance in the industry. The best waiters want to only work on weekends, where there is more money. If we stop tipping, the employers will need to finally adjust wages to living wages. They can get their pensions on them, their vacation pay on them, their unemployment and their parental leave on them. Frankly, we need to outlaw tipping altogether.
Tipping isn’t about the customer, it’s about the employer not wanting to pay someone what they are worth and giving people a living wage. It should DIE.
DeWolf 19:14 on 2022-08-29 Permalink
I think we’re all in agreement, Ephraim!
Australia is basically just Canada down under, it’s an incredibly similar society to ours. And yet they’ve figured out how pay a living wage and do away with tipping. It’s incredibly refreshing to go to a café, bar or restaurant and pay exactly what the price is on the menu and nothing more.
(It’s the same in most parts of the world, actually, but somehow places like Europe and Asia are too exotic for people here to contemplate, so Australia is a good counterpoint to North America’s bizarre tipping culture.)