Should you tip? Should you not tip? Here’s an ethical guide
To tip or not to tip?
That’s the question we all ask ourselves as that tablet swivels around after purchasing a food, drink or service and we choose from 15%, 20%, 25% or no tip. While some feel its their moral duty to add a tip, others feel guilt-tripped into it. Still others feel like a tip isn’t warranted.
“Consumers are undoubtedly feeling some tipping fatigue as technology has led to tip suggestions for transactions that weren’t traditionally associated with tipping,” said Texas Restaurant Association spokesperson Kelsey Erickson Streufert. “However, the tipping model continues to work well in restaurants for employees, customers and operators. The fact that we’re seeing these increases despite inflation and tipping fatigue illustrates that customers continue to differentiate and reward the service that they enjoy at a restaurant.”
For the fourth quarter of 2022, tips climbed 16.5% year-over-year for full-service restaurants and 15.9% for quick-service restaurants, Square reports.
To help Tarrant County residents figure out when a tip is called for and how much to tip, the Star-Telegram spoke with ethics experts from Texas Christian University and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Why tipping is controversial
Tipping is a practice that is linked to a social rule, but the problem is that the rule is amorphous and not explicit, said Richard Galvin, applied ethics professor and chair at TCU.
The practice is what creates the expectation that one is expected to tip in certain contexts. However, neither the size of the tip nor the contexts in which to tip are clear. Nor are the conditions under which that expectation is canceled.
Galvin explains that it’s most strongly expected that we tip those who are providing services for us, especially workers who are working low wage jobs (e.g. workers who are exempt from the minimum wage requirement).
It does seem that the tipping expectation is more expansive than it used to be, Galvin says. The tip amount has gravitated toward 20%, whereas a few decades ago it was 15%.
When should you tip?
Navigating when to withhold a tip can be challenging. There are certain guideposts you can use, Galvin says.
If there is a tipping expectation and you are dissatisfied with the service you’ve received, but it’s not the fault of the employee who gets the tip, they should not suffer as a result of the shortcomings of others in the supply chain. Rudeness, lack of conscientiousness and the like seem to be defensible grounds for leaving a smaller tip or none at all.
Given that the minimum wage for a tipped employee in Texas is only $2.13 an hour, the tip is the employee’s salary. To not give a tip in these contexts is to accept someone’s work without compensation, says Charles Hermes, philosophy lecturer at UTA. Even with extremely rude waitstaff, making the decision that they ought not be paid for their labor seems unjust.
The same goes for when you use kiosks when ordering. If the tip is an expected part of the employee’s salary, then the fact that there is a kiosk shouldn’t affect their right to be paid for their labor.
“Tipping a staff member is not giving them extra for good service, but paying the wages of someone who worked for you,” Hermes says.
If someone goes above and beyond even in a non-tipping context, there’s an inclination to provide some sort of additional compensation, monetary or otherwise.
How much to tip
Figuring out how much to tip can be tricky, because it probably requires knowing a lot more about the situation than a customer is likely to know, Hermes explains.
Customers may not know whether a fast food employee relies on tips to make a minimum wage living. For example, some Sonic locations pay carhops minimum wage, others the tipping minimum wage and some more than minimum wage. But customers may not expect when they pull up to a Sonic window that employees are dependent on tips for their salary.
Eating at small independent diners can be much cheaper than eating at chain restaurants, but tipping is a concern for two reasons. First, 20% of a small bill can be much less than 20% of a large one, yet it takes the same amount of work to bring the food to the table. Second, people seeking a bargain on the cost of their food may be less likely to tip at the same rates as people who are not.
Because so much of the wages of tipped employees comes from tips, what you ought to do when providing a tip is make sure that people who provided a service for you are treated fairly for their work, Hermes says.
The broader issue surrounding tipping
In many contexts, the expectation of getting tips is used as an excuse to underpay workers, which Galvin calls “blatantly exploitative.”
“I would prefer a society that did away with tipping and did a lot more to directly compensate employees significantly better than they are today,” Hermes added.
When it’s customers who are responsible for wages and not the employer, there’s a lack of accountability for fair pay.
“If I’m supposed to make sure that the person working for me is paid fairly when determining a tip, I need to know a whole lot more than I almost ever do when at an establishment,” Hermes said. “Expecting a customer to ensure that employees are fairly compensated for their labor is to give them a task they lack the resources to do well.”
Making employees rely on tips also makes them more dependent on customers who often do not treat waitstaff well. Placing the staff in a position where their wages are directly dependent on the customer places them in a more subservient and less humanizing position.
This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 12:00 AM.
