By Rachel Silver, MS Student, Agricultural Education, University of Florida
Reviewed by Lisa Leslie, Family & Consumer Sciences Extension Agent at UF/IFAS Extension-Hillsborough County
When you and your family go out to eat, how much do you usually tip? Do you base your tip off the service, the percentage of the bill, previous experiences, or a combination of factors?
Tipping is often a subject that people first learn about from their parents at a very young age. Different cultures have different social norms, so the person who teaches you about tipping may shape your views for your entire life. However, when people reach adulthood, they often struggle with calculating a tip. Why is that? Do a lot of people just hate math, or is there something else at work here?
Tipping doesn’t have to be difficult. After reviewing a few quick “tips,” you should be able to understand why tipping is important, tipping norms, and how to calculate a tip very quickly without a fancy app.
Legalities of Server Wages
When you think about tipping, remember that servers are paid a low wage due to their additional income from tips. Each state in the United States has guidelines for how much servers must legally earn. The U.S Department of Labor displays a useful chart that will help you understand how much your local servers make. Florida, for example, requires that servers be compensated more than the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13/hr.; here, they earn at least $4.91 an hour. This still isn’t much, and tips are unreliable.
Are Tips Really Based on Performance?
Often, people believe that tipping is an accurate assessment of server’s performance. This may not always be true, because some fantastic servers may not get tipped and terrible servers may get plenty of tips.
In fact, tipping may say more about the customer than the server. The service may be fantastic, but the diner may be low on money and begin to rationalize why they do not need to tip. One researcher found that the size of a tip can depend on a customer’s income, education, ethnicity, and how often they visit an establishment. As income and education increase, tipping may as well, because people learn more about typical tipping norms.
In many cases, however, tipping may go astray because the diner has difficulty calculating a percentage of the bill. I once worked as a server, and often witnessed people of all ages fumbling with pens, calculators, or apps to solve mathematical equations. I was unable to advise them on how much to tip me, but I can give “tips” now.
The Basics: 15-20%
Simply put, the U.S norm for restaurant tipping is 15-20%. Of course, this doesn’t mean that tipping more is unacceptable, but not tipping is typically taboo. People are typically either “flat dollar tippers” or “percentage tippers,” and it’s common to round up. If you have a calculator on your cell phone, you can easily calculate a tip by multiplying the bill by either .15, for 15%, or .20, for 20%. The resulting number is the amount you need to tip.
Let’s Do the Math
If you need to do the math in your head, here’s how to tip 20%: round the bill to the nearest dollar. Then take 10% of it by moving the decimal to the left one space (so, a $25.00 bill becomes $2.50). Double this number ($5.00), and that’s your 20% tip. Here’s how to tip 15%: round the bill to the nearest dollar, and take 10% of it by moving the decimal to the left one space. So, in our example, we’ve got $2.50 again. Now, we need to add the additional 5%, so take half of $2.50. That’s $1.25. Add those two numbers together, and there’s our 15% tip: $3.75.
If this is too hard, here’s a “quick and dirty” method: take the first digit of your bill (so here, with $25.00, that’s 2), round up or down as needed based on the second digit (here, we’d round 2 to 3), and double it (now we get $6).
In “typical” American culture, we have established tipping norms. If you find tipping bothersome or complex, you can always choose to eat at places that have the tip included (although it’s not a bad idea to leave a little more for great service at these establishments). Also, if you’re picking up a take-out order, experts advising tipping 10%, as servers have to take time away from their other duties to package up your food.
Overall, tip what you would want to be tipped—and remember, if you have children, you’re teaching them how to treat servers and others who wait on them for years to come. Hopefully, when going to restaurants, you’ll keep these tips in mind about tipping.
Photo Credits: Fuse/Thinkstock
References:
Conlin, M., Lynn, M. and O’Donaghue, T. 2003, The Norm of Restaurant Tipping, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 52,297 – 321.
Lynn, M. (2006). Tipping in restaurants and around the globe: An interdisciplinary review. In M.Altman (Ed.), Handbook of contemporary behavioral economics: Foundations and developments (pp. 626-643). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Starr, N., 1988. The International Guide to Tipping. Berkeley, New York.
U.S. Department of Labor – Wage & Hour Divisions (WHD) – Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees. (2014, September 1). Retrieved September 26, 2014, from http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
Wachter, P. (2008). Why tip? Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12tipping-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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