🍟 Let's Talk About Tipping

A curse? Or the cure for economic inequality?

When was the last time you purchased something and WEREN’T asked for a tip? You hear the stories all the time:

• Some reservation websites require a tip of 10%.

• More than half the customers at Subway Sandwich stores leave a tip (and some resentment).

• Automatic car washes? TIP. Botox treatments? TIP. Smoothie-making robots? TIP!

There is no doubt that tipping has exploded in the U.S. and worldwide (by over 17% year on year since the start of the pandemic). But delve a little deeper and park your resentment for a bit and you’ll find that “tipflation” is really just the … tip of the iceberg of a larger problem.

T.I.P. (to ensure promptness)

There was no tipping in the United States as an economic phenomenon prior to 1840. It began after the Civil War, as a racist response to the emancipation of Black slaves. Restaurants and other service industries of the time began hiring newly emancipated former slaves, not out of some moral sense of righteousness, but to save money. They paid these Black wor…