Has Tipflation Reached a Tipping Point?

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the pandemic, many customers began tipping more to support workers. The standard 15% tip edged up to 20% or even 30% for dining out, haircuts or food delivery. But now that prices forjust about everything are spiking, many consumers are finding that they need to pull back and some are questioning why tip jars seem to be everywhere now, even in places that are self-serve. We examine tipflation and tipping fatigue. And we want to hear from you: how do you determine who and how much to tip these days? If you work in a service job, what are your expectations for tips and how has that changed? Guests: Holona LeAnne Ochs, professor, Lehigh University; co-author, "Gratuity: A Contextual Understanding of Tipping Norms from the Perspective of Tipped Employees." Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst, Bankrate. Sara Morrison, senior reporter, Recode by Vox; author of the recent article, "Everyone wants a tip now. Do you have to give them one?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Landmark College, commemorating 40 years of educating people who learn differently, with programs on campus and online for both students and professionals.
0:12.0	Learn more at landmark.edu.
0:14.8	Greetings boomtown.
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0:31.1	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:47.4	Listen, I believe in tipping well.
0:49.3	If you have the money, putting up a little extra for the people serving your food or helping you with your bags is just common decency.
0:55.6	And the world of tipping got a little strange during the pandemic.
0:58.8	If you order food from a kiosk and then pick it up from a window yourself, do you tip?
1:02.5	If knowing that the service industry was struggling led you to bump your normal tip from 15 to 20 or 20 to 25, is that now your new normal?
1:10.0	And it also seems like tips sometimes via app
1:12.6	have expanded out beyond their traditional confines.
1:15.1	There's even a name for it floating around, tipflation.
1:18.1	So that's the show today.
1:19.1	How do you figure out who to tip these days
1:21.1	and how much you should leave?
	...

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