Is it time to ban tipping altogether? It is, according to a new survey, in which a huge number of people said they are so fed up with tipping culture that they want it banned and replaced with something better.
Personal finance advice and news site WalletHub conducts a yearly survey of how Americans are feeling about how tipping is impacting their money, and suffice to say, people have absolutely had it, and many are feeling downright resentful of a practice they say has spun out of control.
Many people are so fed up with tipping that they want it banned entirely.
For this year’s tipping survey, WalletHub questioned a representative cross-section of more than 200 people about everything from how well they tip to who they think should be getting tipped in business like restaurants.
Those answers were pretty standard: Yes, almost everyone (87%) thinks they’re a good tipper, and they think the people doing actual customer service are the ones who should be getting tipped. No surprise there.
But when it comes to how people FEEL about it? More than 2 in 5 people are so over it, they said it’s time to ban tipping altogether. But they don’t expect service workers to work for free. The majority felt tipping should be replaced by fair salaries. But that’s also where people’s main problem with tipping lies.
People feel businesses are using tipping as an excuse to take advantage of workers.
Granted, 2 in 5, or 42%, is substantial, but it’s not the majority. Most respondents were clear that they’re not anti-tipping: 83% said they believe tipping is good for workers, in fact.
But respondents also had firm ideas about how tipping should be used and implemented, and it shows that people are quite disgruntled with how things are going. Most said they think tipping should be limited only to those in customer service, and more than two-thirds said tips should not be split among the whole staff, a practice that has become increasingly more common.
Konstantin Postumitenko | Prostock-studio | Canva Pro
So if they’re this tip-positive, what are people actually disgruntled about? Well, they’re mad at business owners, not workers, who they believe by a wide margin of 64% are sneakily replacing actually paying workers with ever-increasing demands for tips.
Given that we’re now being asked to tip at absurd places like the dry cleaner and the self-checkout, it’s hard to argue they’re not onto something, even if business owners deny it. And it is contributing to a tipping environment that seems to have people furious.
Respondents said this has all made tipping culture feel downright coercive.
No surprise here: 81% of respondents said tipping is “out of control,” and a sizable chunk of 20% said they’re so over it they actually tip LESS when they’re presented with one of those annoying screens at checkout that “suggests” a tip. Most of us can probably relate to that sentiment.
But it’s important to distinguish that tipping “less” is not the same as not tipping at all. People are still giving in to those screens, even if they resent them. And that’s where potentially the most telling statistic in WalletHub’s report comes in. People feel downright coerced into tipping these days.
More than half, 55%, said they only agree to all these increasing tipping demands because they feel “social pressure” to do so, not because they actually feel the service warranted it. This illustrates just how complicated a problem this is. Business owners are manifestly leveraging this to guilt us into covering salaries for them, but if we refuse to do so, it hurts the workers they employ.
As WalletHub editor John Kiernan put it, “No one wants to leave service industry workers without a living wage, but most people don’t want to continue subsidizing wages employers should be paying either,” adding that people feel downright “bullied” into doing so these days. How exactly to go about it is still in question, but it’s clear that the time for change has definitely come.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
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