National survey indicates Americans are tired of tipping

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — PlayUSA conducted a survey of a little over a thousand Americans nationwide and found that over half of the participants are experiencing an overwhelming amount of tipping pressure.

“59% of Americans are experiencing what we call ‘Tipping Fatigue’ – which is just exhaustion at being constantly prompted to tip,” Spokesperson for PlayUSA, Alison Hadley said.

It seems that there has been an increase in tipping pressure as more businesses switch to online methods of payment.

A simple screen has caused many people to experience a heightened pressure when using services.

“56% of people feel pressured to tip when they come across an iPad checkout. 47% actually tip when they normally wouldn’t in a lot of those situations. 2 in 3 feel pressured to tip all the time,and 75% felt that tipping was out of control,” Hadley said.

While a large fraction of the country feels overwhelmed by this expanded culture of tipping, some Americans are reliant on this service.

People who participated in this survey did consider if the individual that provided service was the one receiving the tip.

“One of the questions we asked our respondents was whether they were more likely to tip if they knew that the worker they were tipping depended on those wages, and 3 in 4 said that they were, right? So it’s not necessarily anger at the workers so much as just exhaustion at being constantly prompted to tip. 87% said they noticed more businesses asking for tips than ever before,” Hadley explained.

Some of the constant need for tipping goes back to wage discrepancy at certain establishments.

The U.S. Department of Labor shared that the minimum cash wage for tipped employees is $2.13.

“You see people who are still tipping a minimum of 20% even if the service is bad. There’s still, I would say, like a knowledge that tips are important to the workers that receive the tips. But ultimately, 3 in 4 Americans are at the point where they want to get rid of tipping altogether. So it might just be time for people to re-think how they’re going about designing businesses and business models that rely on tips to sort of keep things afloat,” Hadley said.

1 in 5 Americans also expressed they were tipping less within the last year due to the economy– which has a ripple effect for businesses.

However, as we are coming off the holidays, Hadley did explain that some Americans tip more during the Christmas season.

“Over 1 in 3, 36% did say they tend to tip more during the holidays. 48% of those said they try and tip everyone more during the holidays. That being said, the top workers that do tend to receive that sort of ‘holiday bonus’ tend to be servers at restaurants, food delivery workers… It’s interesting to see that Door Dash recently announced that they would be de-prioritizing food deliveries that didn’t have a tip. So, there’s something to be said there. And bartenders take the third spot for those that tend to get those higher tips during the holidays,” Hadley said.

A consensus from the survey was that there was a predominant amount of tipping pressure expressed by Americans.

Some said they were even willing to pay more if it means they don’t have to tip.

The question remains: will tipping continue or will other business models replace it?