Has tipping in the U.S.A. gone too far?
No Tips, Please
An archaic, guilt-driven habit hangs on in the US
by Lynn Snyder, Free Press contributor
(The following article should not be interpreted to mean that service workers should earn less money. Loss of tips could simply be balanced by a raise in wages. --Ed.)
When asked if they are willing to pay twice for the same service, most people would say no, but every day, millions of people do just that. They tip.
At restaurants menu prices are two, three, or four times the cost of cooking at home. Those prices reflect service--cooking, serving, and cleaning up after the meal. Tipping the waiter is paying twice for the waiter's service. Why not tip the cook and the dishwasher, too?
Taking a taxi costs many times the price of public transportation or driving ourselves, because it includes a private driver, whose wage is reflected in the fare on the meter. A tip pays twice for the driver's service.
The same is true for hotels, bars, beauty shops, and any other service for which tips are customary.
In addition, consumers pay for tipping as taxpayers. The government is losing an estimated $7 to $10 billion of earnings in tips that go unreported. The IRS has gone to court to force employers to monitor and estimate their workers' tipped income, but so far, it has been unsuccessful.
In his 1916 book, "The Itching Palm," William Scott predicted that tipping in America was on its way out. "The spurious and specious arguments of employees in behalf of the custom and timorous acquiescence of the public will yield before a robust and elemental Americanism," Scott said.
But tipping has proved more robust than Americanism. Eighty-one years later, Michael Lewis, in the New York Times Magazine (9-21-97) called on consumers to stop the "aristocratic conceit" of tipping. He used many of the same arguments as Scott.
Tipping is most prevalent in societies with high levels of anxiety about economic mobility and status, says psychologist Michael Lynn, associate professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. People in serving positions envy wealthy customers who buy their services, and customers feel guilty about exploiting servitude, Lynn says. Tipping lets them off the hook. It is my observation that it also gives customers a chance to flaunt economic and class superiority with a gesture of noblesse oblige. "There you are, my good man."
Lynn's studies show that although most restaurant diners say they prefer the reward-punishment power they wield as dispensers of discretionary tips, in fact they vary their tips only slightly whether service is dismal or superlative. This indicates that tipping has become more a tax than a voluntary offering for good service.
Social and economic factors against tipping have changed very little since William Scott's time, but Scott had some reason to believe that people would abandon the custom. By 1915, state legislatures in Wisconsin, Illinoes, Iowa, Arkansas, Missiswsippi, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Carolina were trying to enact anti-tipping laws, Some were passed, some were vetoed by governors, but in the end, they were struck down by the courts, which said, in effect, that Americans can spend their money as they see fit.
We can. Anti-tipping laws would be an encroachment on personal feedom. In a free society, people have a right to emulate aristocrats. We also have the right to ventilate our social customs from time to time, keeping those that make sense, trashing those that don't.
For a related article making a case against tipping, see "The Joy of Waitering" article in our July/August 1993 issue. It explains how waiters are enlisted to sell customers more expensive items in hopes of getting bigger tips, and makes a case for a standard service fee to replace the voluntary tip. The fee could be split among all staff in the restaurant. See back issues at our website (www.speakeasy.org/wfp), or at the University of Washington periodicals library, or obtain a copy by sending $2 to the Washington Free Press.
An archaic, guilt-driven habit hangs on in the US
by Lynn Snyder, Free Press contributor
(The following article should not be interpreted to mean that service workers should earn less money. Loss of tips could simply be balanced by a raise in wages. --Ed.)
When asked if they are willing to pay twice for the same service, most people would say no, but every day, millions of people do just that. They tip.
At restaurants menu prices are two, three, or four times the cost of cooking at home. Those prices reflect service--cooking, serving, and cleaning up after the meal. Tipping the waiter is paying twice for the waiter's service. Why not tip the cook and the dishwasher, too?
Taking a taxi costs many times the price of public transportation or driving ourselves, because it includes a private driver, whose wage is reflected in the fare on the meter. A tip pays twice for the driver's service.
The same is true for hotels, bars, beauty shops, and any other service for which tips are customary.
In addition, consumers pay for tipping as taxpayers. The government is losing an estimated $7 to $10 billion of earnings in tips that go unreported. The IRS has gone to court to force employers to monitor and estimate their workers' tipped income, but so far, it has been unsuccessful.
In his 1916 book, "The Itching Palm," William Scott predicted that tipping in America was on its way out. "The spurious and specious arguments of employees in behalf of the custom and timorous acquiescence of the public will yield before a robust and elemental Americanism," Scott said.
But tipping has proved more robust than Americanism. Eighty-one years later, Michael Lewis, in the New York Times Magazine (9-21-97) called on consumers to stop the "aristocratic conceit" of tipping. He used many of the same arguments as Scott.
Tipping is most prevalent in societies with high levels of anxiety about economic mobility and status, says psychologist Michael Lynn, associate professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. People in serving positions envy wealthy customers who buy their services, and customers feel guilty about exploiting servitude, Lynn says. Tipping lets them off the hook. It is my observation that it also gives customers a chance to flaunt economic and class superiority with a gesture of noblesse oblige. "There you are, my good man."
Lynn's studies show that although most restaurant diners say they prefer the reward-punishment power they wield as dispensers of discretionary tips, in fact they vary their tips only slightly whether service is dismal or superlative. This indicates that tipping has become more a tax than a voluntary offering for good service.
Social and economic factors against tipping have changed very little since William Scott's time, but Scott had some reason to believe that people would abandon the custom. By 1915, state legislatures in Wisconsin, Illinoes, Iowa, Arkansas, Missiswsippi, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Carolina were trying to enact anti-tipping laws, Some were passed, some were vetoed by governors, but in the end, they were struck down by the courts, which said, in effect, that Americans can spend their money as they see fit.
We can. Anti-tipping laws would be an encroachment on personal feedom. In a free society, people have a right to emulate aristocrats. We also have the right to ventilate our social customs from time to time, keeping those that make sense, trashing those that don't.
For a related article making a case against tipping, see "The Joy of Waitering" article in our July/August 1993 issue. It explains how waiters are enlisted to sell customers more expensive items in hopes of getting bigger tips, and makes a case for a standard service fee to replace the voluntary tip. The fee could be split among all staff in the restaurant. See back issues at our website (www.speakeasy.org/wfp), or at the University of Washington periodicals library, or obtain a copy by sending $2 to the Washington Free Press.