America’s tipping culture has been around since the 1950s, and it has been rising since then. As someone who works in the service industry, I’ve noticed that the average tip amount is 18-25%, while in the 1950s, the recommended tip amount was just 10%. 

Malay Johnston, one of the owners of The Electric Slider Company at the Willamette Garage, has two perspectives on tipping.

“As a business owner, I understand that tips really do make or break a lot of people’s paychecks,” Johnston said. “As a consumer, I definitely feel forced to tip. I do think if someone provides a good service, you do have the ability to tip. But I do think if it’s like a kiosk asking you to tip when you did all the work yourself, I think that’s different.”

Recently, it’s been shown by the Pew Research Center that 21% of U.S. adults say tipping is a choice, 29% say it’s an obligation, and 49% say it depends. Tipping now seems to be forced on people, making them feel like they have to tip even if there is no human service happening. 

“Tipping culture has become very toxic in the last handful of years. I think it’s an ethical dilemma. I think it’s really hard from a food truck perspective as well because we aren’t fast food, but we’re seen as fast food in a lot of people’s eyes,” Johnston said.

Officer Johnson, the student resource officer for West Linn Wilsonville district schools, has strong opinions on our tipping culture and believes it has gotten out of hand from when it first began. 

“I think when tipping was first brought up, people weren’t getting paid minimum wage, and it was a way to compensate for them not getting paid,” Johnson said.

In today’s culture and from decades before, tipping is meant to show appreciation towards workers, to give workers a sense of pride and appreciation. The typical service industries that we as a society tip for are a variety of food and drink industries as well as the hair industry, but it has also come to tipping a screen instead of a person.

“It’s ridiculous, I just went to a place to get food and it asked me to answer a couple of questions, basically just asking me to tip them,” Johnson said. “I will tip because I appreciate them, but I do think it’s getting out of control.”

According to the National Center UCLA, even if you had poor service, you should tip at least 10%, and if you had exceptional service, then you should tip 20%.

“I want them to take away the questions at the end that asks me to tip, I want to tip naturally what I want to give them, not 25% or something,” Johnson said.

As a worker in the food industry myself, I see people tipping all the time. I always find it enjoyable when I see someone has tipped my work, but when I see that they didn’t, I’ve never been offended by that. I understand that tipping is not always in someone’s budget when they are buying food. I also think that if they want to tip, they can, but they shouldn’t feel forced to because of tipping screens or societal pressure.