How much should you tip your barista?

new york
CNN
–

A new checkout trend is sweeping across America, creating an increasingly stressful experience: digital tip jars.

Order coffee, ice cream, salad or a slice of pizza and pay with your credit card or phone. An employee standing behind the counter then rotates around the touch screen and swipes it in front. The screen has a few suggested tip amounts – usually 10%, 15% or 20%. There is also often an option to leave a custom tip or no tip at all.

The employee is directly with you. Other customers are standing in the back waiting patiently and looking over your shoulder to see how much to give. And you have to make a decision in seconds. Lord, anxiety.

Customers and employees today face a very different tipping culture compared to just a few years ago – with no clear rules. Although consumers are accustomed to tipping waiters, bartenders, and other service providers, tipping a barista or cashier may be a new phenomenon for many consumers. Driven largely by technological changes that allow business owners to more easily shift workers compensation costs directly to clients.

“I don’t know how much you should give, and I study that,” said Michael Lin, a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell University and a leading researcher on tipping practices in America.

In addition to the dynamic changes, customers are encouraged to volunteer to help restaurants and stores stay afloat during the pandemic, raising expectations. Total tips at full-service restaurants rose 25% in the latest quarter compared to a year ago, while quick-service restaurants rose 17%, according to data from Square.

The transition to digital payments accelerated during the pandemic, prompting stores to replace old cash registers with tablet touch screens. But these screens and digital tipping processes are far more intrusive than a low-pressure cash tip jar with a few dollars in it.

Clients are overwhelmed by the number of places they now have the option of giving advice and feel pressured about how much and how much to charge. Some people turn away from screens to avoid making a deliberate decision, say ethologists who study suggestive culture and consumer behavior.

Counseling can be an emotional decision. Suggestion varies greatly in these new settings.

Some customers tip regardless. Others feel guilty if they don’t consult or feel embarrassed if they have a rash. And others shy away from recommending a $5 iced coffee because the price is already high enough.

“Counseling for the American public seems to be out of control because it’s happening in places they’re not used to,” said Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and her great-granddaughter. “Times where tipping is not required make people less generous and uncomfortable.”

Starbucks rolled out tipping as an option this year for customers paying with credit and debit cards. Some Starbucks baristas told CNN that while tips add extra money to their paychecks, customers shouldn’t always feel obligated to tip.

A barista in Washington state says he can help if a customer doesn’t order a dark coffee. But after making a custom drink and discussing with a customer exactly how it should be made, he says, “I’d be a little disappointed if I didn’t get a tip.”

“If a person can buy Starbucks every day, he can give tips on at least a few of those trips,” added the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Counseling options seem to be everywhere today, but the practice has a troubled history in the United States.

After the Civil War, newly freed slaves were distributed as an exploitative measure to reduce wages for service work. Pullman was famous for his tipping policies. The railway company employed thousands of black porters, but paid them low wages and forced them to rely on tips to make ends meet.

Critics of tipping argued that it created an imbalance between customers and workers, and several states passed laws to prohibit the practice in the early 1900s.

In the year In The Itching Palm, published in America in 1916, William Scott argued that tipping was “un-American” and argued that “the relationship between a person giving and receiving a tip is not as democratic as the relationship itself.” of master and slave”

But tipping service workers were legislated under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which created a federal minimum wage that did not include food and hospitality workers. This allowed the tipping system to spread in these industries.

In the year In 1966, Congress created a “minimum” wage for tipped workers. Since 1991, the federal minimum wage for tipped workers has stood at $2.13 an hour — well below the $7.25 minimum federal minimum wage since 1991, although many states require higher base wages for tipped workers. If employee tips don’t add up to the federal minimum, the law says the employer must make up the difference. But this does not always happen. Wage theft and other wage violations are common in the service industry.

The Department of Labor considers any employee who works in a job that “customarily and regularly” receives more than $30 in tips per month eligible for the tip. Experts estimate that there are more than five million important workers in the United States.

How much tipping is completely subjective and varies across industries, and the relationship between service quality and tip size is surprisingly weak, said Cornell’s Lynn.

Due to the competitive cycle among customers, 15% to 20% tip in restaurants has become standard. Many people give tips to gain social acceptance or better service. As tipping levels increase, other customers begin to tip more to avoid potential losses or risk poor service.

The gig economy has also changed the rules of tipping. In the year An MIT study released in 2019 found that customers are less likely to be self-directed when their employees are engaged and engaged. Nearly 60% of Uber customers never tip, while only 1% always tip, a 2019 University of Chicago study found.

“There is no central authority that sets the rules of evidence,” says Lin, who makes it confusing. They come from the bottom up. Ultimately, it’s what people do that helps other people know what to do.”

You should always tip low-wage workers like restaurant servers and bartenders, advocates and tipping experts say.

When employees, like Starbucks baristas, are given the option to tip at hourly wages, customers should use their discretion to remove any guilt from their decisions, ethics experts say. Tips help these workers supplement their income and are always encouraged, but it’s okay to say no.

Ethicists recommend that customers approach the touchscreen option like a tip jar. If you leave change or a small tip in the jar, do so when prompted on the screen.

“A 10% tip for takeout is a very common amount. We also see change or a dollar per order,” says Lizzy Post. If you’re not sure what to do, ask the employee if the store has a suggested tipping amount.

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Pay, which advocates for an end to minimum wage policies, encourages customers to tip. But tips should never count against service workers’ wages, she said, and customers should demand businesses pay workers full wages.

“We need to provide evidence, but it needs to be combined with telling employers that tips should be higher than the full minimum wage,” she says.