6 reasons why tipping is bad and stupid
Let’s stop
Tipping is bad, because it has negative effects, and is also stupid, because it doesn’t even achieve the positive effects it was meant to. Service should either be included in the base price, or in a fixed service charge.
The only reason why waiters are getting low wages in many restaurants is that their employers assume they’ll get tipped. The only reason why we’re still tipping is that people still think it’s the ethical thing to do, when in fact it has no benefit whatsoever.
Here are 6 reasons why tipping is bad and stupid:
1) The size of the tip has little to do with the quality of service [1]. It has the most to do with the size of the bill [2]. You can tip 20% for the awesome waiter who brings you your $2 coke promptly and keeps giving you refills, but that’s nothing compared to the 5% tip you might give to the rude waiter who has the good fortune of serving at your birthday party with 15 guests. It has to do with how attractive the waiter/waitress is, especially the waitress, the one with big breasts. It has to do with who you’re buying dinner for, whether it’s a hot date, or important business clients, or whether it’s your stingy dad. But very little with the actual quality of service.
Also, restaurants often pool their tips and redistribute them among the workers according to their own formula anyway, to discourage competition for generous tippers among the wait staff, and to give cooks/chefs a share [2]. So the tip amount that customers choose often lose their intended effect.
2) It’s very arbitrary who we tip and who we don’t. Yes, waiters work very hard. But so do people working at McDonald’s. So do the chefs. So does the guy bringing you shoes for 2 hours at Foot Locker (yes, he probably gets commission, but you don’t get to control the amount, so it’s not tipping). So does the nurse who empties out patients’ bedpans every morning. Why don’t we tip them?
3) Tipping creates inequality. Poorer people who can afford the meal otherwise may tip less, and risk getting bad service either as individuals, if they’re repeat patrons, or as a group, if they have visibly distinctive features. A study on tips in cab fares showed that tipping is subject to racial discrimination [3]. Minorities tip less, probably because their average income is lower. This makes waiters less motivated to try very hard with them, even the ones who do tip well.
Moreover, it’s likely that the increase in tipping percentages reflects income inequality in the larger society [1]. In the 70s, tips in the US used to be 10–15%; now it’s 15–20%. Rich people who want to differentiate themselves from the relatively poor show off by leaving bigger tips, making other people feel like they also need to tip more. Depending on the whims of political climates (and hence socioeconomics), there’s nothing stopping expected tip percentages from climbing.
4) Satisfactory service should be rendered regardless of tip, and with tipping, the small-tippers or people who look like they might be small-tippers, from 3) above, invite sub-par service. Sure, we get what we pay for. So why don’t patients have to tip nurses to get their bedpans emptied? Why don’t we have to tip surgeons to get anesthetized? Why don’t we have to tip the mail deliverer to bring us all our mail? That’s because we live in a supposedly developed country . . . except when we go to a restaurant.
5) Good service doesn’t require tipping. Many countries don’t require tips, ever, and still have superb service. In fact, it’s mainly just North America; Europe usually has service charges now. Japan has much better service than North America, in everything, and they have no tipping.
6) Tipping facilitates tax evasion [1]. The IRS in the US estimates that on average 40% of tip income doesn’t get reported. Granted, most workers who get tipped don’t make a killing. But for every low-income worker who gets to skip on taxes on tips, there’s another equally-low-income worker who has to pay taxes on everything because they don’t get tips, and that’s not fair.
So how can we stop tipping, with everyone judging you if you don’t, and with waiters getting paid so little without tips? You can tip a flat rate; for example, I always tip 15%, regardless of the service. This effectively turns your tip into a standard service charge, thus eliminating the arbitrariness of tipping, as well as the hassle of deciding what to tip. You can also use the arguments I laid out above whenever somebody claims tipping makes sense.
Hopefully, one day, North America will just tell us what we owe, and end it.
References
[1] Lynn, Michael. 2001. Restaurant Tipping and Service Quality: A Tenuous Relationship, 42
CORNELL HOTEL & RESTAURANT ADMIN. Q. 14. http://cqx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/42/1/14?ijkey=BBh9vt39pymm6&keytype=ref&siteid=spcqx
[2] Margalioth, Yoram. “The Case Against Tipping”. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business and Employment Law 117 (9). http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/files/the_case_against_tipping.pdf
[3] Ayres, Ian. The Racial Tipping Point. March 20, 2008, Freakonomics blog, nytimes.com. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/the-racial-tipping-point/
Also, check out this talk by Bruce McAdams, a professor at the School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at the University of Guelph.
