Are You a Bad Tipper?

Study Shows Higher Tips The New Standard

You may be a bad tipper and didn’t even know it. While 15% – 20% has been the standard that many restaurant patrons follow when settling up their bill for dinner or drinks, the New York Post is reporting that some Manhattan waiters are now expecting more than 20% in tips for their services. Anything less makes you a bad tipper.

Why a New Tipping Standard?

This new tipping standard debate comes on the heels of a study done by a Cornell University professor who studied 9,000 credit card receipts from a Poughkeepsie, New York restaurant. His findings? Over 30% of restaurant patrons left more than 20% for their waiter or waitress.

Does this seem outrageous to you? For a $60.00 restaurant bill a 30% tip would cost you $6.00 more than if you left the traditional 20% tip for average, expected service. That is the equivalent of a small appetizer.

Servers, for the most part, do not receive the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. They rely on your generosity and recognition of a job well done to pay their rent, utility bills, etc. However, there are some that argue that servers have the opportunity to make well over the minimum wage per hour, especially on busy nights  and that raising the tipping standards surpasses the average 3% cost of living wage that many American workers receive each year from their companies.

Still many more restaurant patrons expressed that setting a “standard” discourages wait staff from performing their jobs at a superior effort. Instead, shifting the expectation the patron has for excellent customer service to the expectation that the patron will automatically pay a high tip regardless of service.

It Is Still Your Choice

No matter what new tipping standards emerge from the general public’s tipping habits, the choice is still yours to make when tipping your waiter or waitress for the night. Recognizing a person for a job well-done, acknowledging that your waiter has gone above and beyond to fulfill your request, whether a modest request or an extravagant request, is simply being polite and you should tip appropriately in a manner that makes sense. That’s just common sense and good manners. So here are some questions that we pose to you.

How do you determine how much you should tip your waiter or waitress? When would you tip more than 20%? Should the tips we leave reflect inflation and cost-of-living?