I know you Brits and Aussies out there have something against tipping, so let me say this.  Tips are more than just something to reward extra good service in the United States - in the US, tips are expected.  This is mainly due to employers cutting their labor costs and letting their customers cover that.  It might seem like an atrocious thing for an employer to do, but it's really not that bad when you think about it.

Consider this.  Somebody has to cover the cost of labor one way or another, and the customer is always the one who has to pay for that.  Whether there's an auto gratuity or an optional, but culturally expected gratuity, the cost is being covered in some way - the only difference between the US and Australia & the UK is that in the US, you actually have the option to choose what how much of a gratuity you think is worth the service your server gave you and whether or not you want to pay for that service at all provided that it was horrible and / or the server offended you.  Theoretically, this will make your server want to serve you to the best of their abilities given that incentive.  In the UK and Australia, that option is non-existent with an auto-gratuity, nor is that incentive for the server to do their best there either.

In the face of rising national minimum wages in the US, you can be sure that any server whose state is being effected by the rise is not being given that raise - rather, most employers simply keep their employees at the same wage they've always been giving them, now at a sub-minimum wage.  Not tipping for perfectly good service (ie. a "stiff") is, to most professions that rely on tips, a cheap way to save your money by hurting the income of your server.  You might say "get a new job" or "complain to your employer about it," but in the US, the employer is not the one who is responsible for distributing the cost of labor - the consumer is, and stiffing in the US is therefore an abuse of that system.

Another thing to note.

This is going to be a very long post, full of graphs and analysis, and a very worthy read, I think.  If you don't want to read it all and only respond to the prompt "why do black people tend to not tip?" then go ahead and skip all that.  The rest of everything I'm going to be writing about is only to prove to the assertion I made in the prompt, and a few other things that I'm sure people will list as reasons why.

However, do keep one thing in mind.  The individual does not apply to the collective and the collective does not apply to the individual.  In other words, you cannot use a stereotype to define a single person, neither can you define a stereotype using a single person.  The two influence each other no doubt, thus why we say there's a "tendency," but it always helps to bear this in mind when talking about broad generalities like this.  Do not mistake a tendency as something that applies to all people, for the very definition of a tendency requires that not all people follow the tendency exactly as it is.

The Race Tipping Survey

As some of you may or may not know, I deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut as a part time job while taking classes at my university.  Pizza delivery drivers in the United States are always paid at minimum wage, if not sub-minimum wage in the states which allow sub-minimum wages (fortunately for me, Washington state is not one of them).  As a result, a very significant portion of my earnings depends on tips.  Though I am reimbursed on gas, such reimbursement only barely covers that - rarely does it ever cover wear and tear on my car, which would put my overall wage below minimum if not for tips.  Moreover, even if I were to break even with minimum wage as folks over in sub-minimum wage states often do, risking an auto accident being on the road the majority of my shifts and delivering pizzas to occasionally dangerous areas and dealing with people outside the security of the store does not make this job worth only minimum wage.  Moreover, despite what the name would lead you to believe, delivery charges do not go to the driver, but rather, are used to subsidize the cost of ingredients and production in the store.  This, my friends, is why you tip pizza delivery drivers in the United States.

Onto my actual race survey.  After starting delivering pizzas June of last year, I began noticing a peculiar trend - to put it bluntly, that black people have a tendency to not tip you for perfectly good service (ie., again, a stiff), or when they do, the tip is usually pretty pathetic.  As a result, I created a list of addresses who didn't tip me, or tipped me very poorly (as in less than 5% of the total bill) so if they ever ordered from us again, I would be able to catch that and prioritize them last for other deliveries that do tip.  You pay the minimum, you get the minimum.  That's how I've always seen it.

Scanning through these entries on the list, I thought to myself, "Good God, how many of these customers are black and how many are not?"  I vaguely remember the appearance of some of my customers, but I usually forget about most.  However, when I think about my great nights where I made a killing in tips, I think about the customers I served and I see white faces, some Asian, and perhaps even a Latino here and there.  On my worst nights?  Blacks.  Indeed, I'm not the only person to see this - throughout the service industry, the stereotype that blacks don't tip and is not worth your time to serve properly is widespread.  While stereotypes are stereotypes, stereotypes just don't pop up from out of nothing.  So I decided to investigate this matter for myself - through a race tipping survey I made, so that I can actually see how the different races tip, as well as note a few other variables, and see how much they support such stereotypes.

Methods of the Race Tipping Survey

In my survey, I recorded a sample size of 1000 deliveries, and recorded 5 different variables, only three of which - tip size, race, and socioeconomic class - are relevant since I was too lazy to analyze the other two I recorded (which are sex and age group) - it took me a long enough time to just analyze tip sizes by race and socioeconomic class.

First of all, what are the controls?  The first control is that all deliveries recorded must be delivered early or on time in 45 minutes or less.  This ensures that all customers should be satisfied with the service I provide them.  Things like how I park, how I smile, etc. are irrelevent in my mind, mainly because I honestly do not vary a whole lot regarding that.  If there's any reason why my service would be subpar (such as being late, forgetting an item for some reason, etc., the delivery is not recorded.

The second control is that the total amount, after sales tax (9%ish here) and the delivery charge, must be in between $20 and $35.  Tips in between these amounts do not vary a whole lot; you are about as likely to get a $3 tip from a $20 order as you are from a $30 order.  Despite my defining good and bad tips by percentages (which I only really use to denote the shitty tips and for large ($50+) orders), most people who order pizza delivery tip on a flat rate.

How Do the Variables Work?

There are five variables; four independent variables and one dependent variable.  The dependent variable is the tip size, and the independent variables are race, class, age, and sex.

Tip Size

Tip size is exactly what the name suggests - the size of the tip.  A stiff is considered to be anything less than $1.  So $0.99 or less, or "keep the change," is considered a stiff.  Shitty / pathetic tips are considered to be around $1 to $2 for the order amounts we're considering, although there are drivers and other servers out there who would regard anything less than $2 no matter what the order amount was as a shitty tip.

Race

This is the central focus of this study and I've divided the races up by the five I notice most in my area: Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Asians (as in East or Southeast Asians), and Indians (as in East Indians from South Asia - not Native Americans).  One should keep in mind that as a social construct, races are very loosely defined.  While the most extreme examples of a race are very easily defined (as in the whitest of people, the blackest of people, etc.), those on the fringe of those labels are a little more difficult to define.  Latinos in particular are a sticky issue, for Latino really isn't even a "race," but rather, more of a group.  Even the whitest of people could be considered to be Latino.  And those of two or more races will probably be mistaken as a single race depending on which they resemble more (I have no way of seeing who's a mixed person or not).  Although mixed people are in the minority, and for the purposes of this survey, my definitions and how I go about labeling who's what should be sufficient.

Socioeconomic Class

This is another central variable I'll be looking at in this survey.  I have divided socioeconomic class by 5 different labels, and only 3 of which really exist in my area.  They are as follows:

- The Section 8 / Public Housing Development class.  In other words, the impoverished.  As the name of this class should suggest, these are the type of people you would find in public housing developments and projects.  Fortunately for me, none of that exists in my delivery area, so disregard this class.

- The working class.  These are the people who live in apartments or trailer homes.  Anybody who I deliver to that lives in an apartment or a trailer home is assigned to this class.  The rents for a single bedroom apartment in my area go from around $750 to $1250 a month.

- The lower-middle class.  These are the people who live in condos, townhouses, and low income housing (which, around here, would be about $300,000 or less).

- The middle class.  These are the people who live in moderate houses in typical suburbia.  Middle class homes are usually around $400,000 to $600,000 in my delivery area.

- The upper middle class.  These are the people who live in fairly spacious and lavish homes in your typical suburbia.  The price on these houses are usually over $800,000 in my area.  Very few of these houses exist where I deliver to and I haven't recorded any pizza that I delivered to a place like this, so disregard this class.

There could also be a 6th class, the upper class, but certainly none of those types of houses exist in my area.  Do remember that like races, lumping homes into a single label may not necessarily tell the whole story, as many are on the fringe of the prices I gave.  However, like with races, the way I've labeled them should be sufficient for the survey.

Age

Not very important since I didn't analyze it, but pretty obvious - does the person look like they're in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.?  Obviously, this is probably the one variable where I could easily misjudge a person on, and part of the reason why I haven't really felt motivated to analyze it.

Sex

Are you a boy or are you girl?  Pretty obvious, and while it would be interesting to analyze, I'm just too tired after analyzing race and socioeconomic class.  And if you're worried about me misjudging a person on this, don't worry - I won't record the people who I have no idea what sex they are!

The Delivery Area / Customer Base Demographics

Using statistics from the 2000 Census, I looked up the racial makeup of the three zip codes the Pizza Hut I work at serves, added the total numbers all up, and figured out the approximate racial makeup of my delivery area.  They are as followed in the picture below:

http://people.cornell.edu/pages/wml3/pdf/Black_White_Tip_Norm.pdf

Lynn, an associate professor of marketing, analyzes how the lack of tips from blacks not only the servers they stiff / tip poorly, but how the stereotype is created which leads servers to treat blacks with less courtesy, and also, how this inhibits sitdown restaurants from expanding into predominantly black areas for bad tips not only creates a very high turnover rate of servers, but also how blacks as a result of their treatment, will be less inclined to return to the restaurant.

What Lynn suggests is the underlying problem is that blacks are simply uninformed about tipping and what a proper tip is.  Indeed, he highlights how blacks, when they do tip, tip on a flat rate as opposed to on a percentage like most whites.  Thus Lynn suggests that it would be in these restaurants' best interests to advertise tipping to blacks, though very subtly as to avoid racial lawsuits.

Lynn's problem, however, is that he assumes that the majority of blacks don't really know about tipping or what a proper tip is.  While there may be some truth in this, I personally don't believe that blacks are unclear with tipping.  Let's take a look back to the scatterplot of how blacks tip:

[ibimg=240812_t.jpg]

You see all the "tips" that lie on the $0.00 line?  These were stiffs through credit cards, where you pay for the order by credit or debit, and the driver comes to your door with a receipt to sign.  The parts of the receipt you fill out are as follows:

Tip:
Total:
Signature:

There is no way a person could miss that, and whenever I'm handed a receipt that only has the person's signature on it (leaving the tip and total part blank), I always ask them to total it (partly as to push somebody who doesn't want to tip but is "afraid" to put a big zero there to tip, and also for security reasons).  To say, when faced with this, that blacks are ignorant about tipping is absurd.  I'd contend that blacks know full well about tipping, but if anything, may be unclear in how much to tip and what they'd define as a proper tip.  This, then, would more than likely be a cultural factor mixed with being unclear of what a proper tip would be, as I'm sure if I were to tell any of these black customers what a proper tip is, I'd get a stubborn sort of "this is what you get; if you don't like it, don't take it" response.  Indeed, Lynn's suggestion of these people noticing how others tip may influence the blacks that do tip to tip more, but at the same time, I'm skeptical of how much it would work.

Socioeconomic Factors

Besides ignorance of tipping and "cultural factors," the other major school of thought among many in regards to why blacks don't tip / don't tip very well is a matter of socioeconomics.  Poorer people tend to tip worse, and blacks tend to be poorer, thus blacks, as a result, don't tip very well because of that.  Thus, through the same ways you'd help curb black poverty through affirmative action, welfare, and the like, you'd notice an increase of blacks tipping and tipping well.

In my personal opinion, this is nothing but politically correct rubbish.  Even Professor Lynn himself stated that even matters such as socioeconomic factors have little to do with why blacks don't tip as well as the other races.

In the interest of proving this idea wrong, I have took it upon myself to also record the socioeconomic status of every individual I recorded and combined it with tip sizes and races.  Through this, I will show you how while socioeconomic status does have some impact on tip sizes, even among blacks, blacks still lag behind all the other races in every socioeconomic class, thus suggesting that socioeconomic factors are not a reason why blacks tip poorly.

First of all, let's look at how whites and blacks are proportioned via socioeconomic classes.

[ibimg=240831_t.jpg]

[ibimg=240814_t.jpg]

Observe and compare the two.  They honestly don't look a great deal different, despite the black plurality being in the working class and the white plurality being in the lower-middle class.  This shocked even me, and I'd attribute this to the fact that there is no public housing developments and projects in my area, as well as the fact that my area is very middle class in its feel.  There are far cheaper apartments - around $500 to $600 for a single bedroom apartment - in neighboring areas, but again, if such were true, we'd see blacks more concentrated in the working class than they are anyway.  As a result, what this leads me to believe is that the socioeconomic differences in my delivery area between whites and blacks does not vary as much as I've been led to believe.

At the same time, though, the blacks in the lower-middle class and middle classes may be in the lower rung of those labels than whites and other races, although that argument is flimsy at best considering that in order to be there at all, you'd need to be reasonably well off, which unless they rented the houses, they couldn't be, but I honestly doubt that all of the 117 non-working class blacks I recorded were renting out these houses, and at significantly higher proportions than other races.

Even so, those two pie graphs show that the similarity between whites and blacks in terms of socioeconomic status should be enough to lead one who has no concept of races at all that whites and blacks would tip similarly.  Of course, this is not so.  I will continue to prove how socioeconomic factors is not a factor in why blacks tip poorly for those who are just as skeptical as I am about those two pie graphs through analyzing each of the three classes individually.

The Working Class

[ibimg=240858_t.jpg]

[ibimg=240825_t.jpg]

Compare the two graphs.  We see the same general trend play out here, although more significantly with whites making up more than 3/4 of all tips by the working class.  Let's also take a look at the scatterplot.

[ibimg=240832_t.jpg]

Basically the same things already mentioned, but whites tend to dip lower than $2 fairly often, blacks rarely go above the $2 line (except with a few notable instances, such as the $10 from this one black guy who's pretty cool - he's mentioned to me in the past that he tips as high as he does because he used to be a waiter and wants to "make up" for his race's lack of tipping - more than just non-blacks notice the trend that blacks don't tip very well, too).  We notice Latinos often tipping poorly, and Asians and Indians are hard to make out, but they're more or less along the same line as whites.

All races have averages and medians lower than their overall average and median, as well as higher stiff rates, too, without socioeconomic class taken into consideration.  I won't go through all of them, but I'll note that the most extreme is that working class blacks have a stiff rate of 75.6%!  Far more often than not, you'll walk away with a stiff from a working class black.

The Lower-Middle Class

[ibimg=240817_t.jpg]

[ibimg=240822_t.jpg]

Again, same trends, but not as extreme as the working class.

[ibimg=240818_t.jpg]

A major difference from the working class scatterplot is that for whites, we see the $0 to $2 range being, for the most, cleared.  This indicates that at the lower-middle class, whites don't stiff very much at all, and indeed, the same is true of other races.  For Latinos, we notice the bulk of them hugging the $2 line, as we saw in the scatterplot for Latinos of all socioeconomic classes.  Asians more or less tip like whites only with absolutely no stiffs (Asians have a 0% stiff rate for both the lower-middle class and middle class).  Indians, however, are surprising, for they kind of tip like whites and Asians, but they also dip down into the $0 to $2 range.  I would say they're more like Latinos in terms of tipping, but I don't see them gravitating around any area.  I'd blame this for the lack of Indians I recorded - it would probably look different if I had more.

Lastly, as we've been mainly talking about blacks I'll give them a separate paragraph, blacks have only improved in terms of tipping marginally.  The stiff rate is much lower, and more blacks are in the $1 to $2 range.  This shows that socioeconomic class does have some influence in how people, blacks included, tip, but blacks still tip worse than every other race in the lower-middle class.

The Middle Class

[ibimg=240819_t.jpg]

[ibimg=240823_t.jpg]

We see more or less the same trends, although, except for blacks, far less dramatic than before.  In fact, this is the first pie graph where Latinos and Indians actually tip greater than their percentage of the socioeconomic class makeup, even if it is only by 1%.

[ibimg=240820_t.jpg">

For every race other than blacks, everything seems to be peachy in regards to tipping.  Whites have a 0% stiff rate and Latinos are varying more when they tip higher than $2.  Indians, to a lesser degree, are the same way.

Blacks, on the whole, have a much smaller stiff rate at 25%, which is only around the stiff rates of whites, Latinos, and Indians of the working class.  However, you'll notice that blacks tend to gravitate in between the $1 to $2 when they do tip, although they go higher than that more often in the middle class.  Still, though, compared to all other races, blacks are obviously lagging behind in terms of how they tip.  It should be evident by now that socioeconomic class is not a reason why blacks tip less than the other races.

So What's the Problem?

Ignorance of tipping can't be a major factor of why blacks tip poorly, though it may be a piece of it.  Socioeconomic factors is more than certainly not a part of it, but they do influence tips of all races as a whole.  I mentioned that cultural factors mixed with some ignorance of tipping is a very probable cause of it.  So what could it be?

I have gathered a few good discussions in other forums on the topic from the following URLs:

Blackfolk: Why don't black people know how to tip?

Why do most black people NOT TIP?

Blacks are bad Tippers? Generalise much?

From the first and third URLs, you'll find the majority of the respondents coming from a consumer perspective, and from the second URL, the majority of the respondents are pizza delivery drivers like me.

Reading through such topics and articles, you'll notice some things.  Slaus, the author of the blog in the third URL, posted a recreation of three black guys in the "process" of tipping:

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Slaus: $ 40.00 for 3 sammiches, soup, and sodas. They do know it's a damn recession right?
Mike:  Fo realz!! Shiiit man, we gotta start bringing our lunches yo! I'll get the bill this time though. Yall hoes can get the next one.
Cesar: Nigga you make, $180,000 a year. You can cop a couple of sandwiches for the homies.
Slaus: Hell yeah. Pay that bill, biiiiitch.
Mike: : snickers as he reaches for his cash :: Least yall janky ass negroes can do is pay the tip then.
Slaus: Tip should be no less than $8.00 then.  A good 20%
Cesar: Nigga what? 20%??  I aint leaving her no damn 20% tip. That's crazy.
Mike: Fool, 20% is the avg tip. That's $4 each from yall.
Cesar: Nigga, average for white folks and boojie ass niggas like you! She can be cool with 10%, or a bytch need to get another job! Holla

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Indeed, this humorous example conveys a view perhaps the simplest of all point of views on why blacks don't tip: because many blacks simply do not care!  In the second URL I gave, you'll notice many posters reflecting that same exact sentiment - that black people are lazy, selfish, always wanting something for nothing, etc.

While this may have some validity, I find that the whole not caring factor often applies to all races, for I find my white stiffers, Latino stiffers, etc. all couldn't give less of a damn about me or the value of the service I provided them.  If one is to make this argument, one needs to establish a compelling reason why blacks would be more inclined to feel this way than other races.  Mixed with cultural factors causing this attitude, I certainly believe that this argument may very well have some validity.  I must admit, though, black stiffers seem to be a lot nicer than stiffers of other races, which leads me to believe that general attitudes toward tipping altogether may be more at play than that.

In the first and third URLs I provided, you'll notice many blacks supporting two things when it comes to not tipping: one is the same arguments that Brits and Aussies will put out that tipping is extortion, a hidden cost like tipping makes no sense, that since they are not obligated to pay more than what's on the bill they will not pay any more than that, etc.  But unlike Brits and Aussies, American blacks do not live in a society where tipping is not the norm.  This argument as to why blacks don't tip could very well be more of a justification for blacks in their own minds to not tip as opposed to the reason why they don't.  Key difference here.

Secondly, you'll also notice blacks talking about how they don't tip simply because servers always treat them like shit and are prejudiced against them, thus they don't tip because they don't deserve it.  If this is indeed the case, then it's a clearly justified reason to not tip, although my own statistics have proven this wrong for, when you take my controls into consideration, they show that blacks don't tip, even when provided with a good service worthy of tipping.

Perhaps the pattern could lead blacks into not tipping, which would make them just as guilty of stereotyping as the servers who served them.  Moreover, I'm inclined to disregard this argument for I get the general sense that many blacks will claim racism when it is, in fact, not really there - rather, something that may, on the surface, appear to be rooted by prejudice against their color, but in reality, having much more to it than that.  You'll notice I mentioned earlier about how Professor Lynn of Cornell University talked about the necessity of informing blacks on the practice of tipping in a very subtle way as to avoid racial lawsuits.  Indeed, the very fact that this topic is a sensitive one and the fact that the only way to really go about any sort of real solution toward it is subtly as opposed to openly due to the fear of the claim of racism (ie. walking on eggshells) reflects that sentiment.

I feel it necessary to remind once again that the collective cannot apply to the individual, just as the individual cannot be applied to the collective.  There are a quite a few great black tippers I've come to meet, although their own instances aren't enough to curb the general rule.  While you cannot approach individual black people with the label that they definitely won't tip, there is quite obviously something going on here.  Discuss.

Post edited at 5:49 am on Aug. 19, 2008 by Bud2400

I dont agree with all that

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as being a person who only read up to where you said " This is going to be a very long post, full of graphs and analysis..." im just going to go ahead ans say, more people should tip.

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It's a bit of a yes and no thing for me in regards to more people should be tipping. I personally think what Australia has for its drivers is ideal - where the drivers there are paid at minimum wage, but get $4 or $5 (reimbursement included with that) for every delivery they take. This encourages drivers to delivery deliveries quickly and also gets rid of the whole problem with stiffers.

On the other hand, as Professor Lynn pointed out, Americans despise auto-gratuities and wind up avoiding businesses that use them since if this was ever implemented here, delivery charges would likely increase by $5. Perhaps in the United States it's not the best of ideas, and certainly for other tipping professions like bartending, serving, etc., it can't be done at all.

All in all, I'd simply like to see black people tipping like the other races, as opposed to tipping like shit. This only reinforces negative images and stereotypes against them, especially in regards to blacks being cheap welfare leeching scum. I personally don't hold that view, but I do know quite a few who do as a result of the way blacks, as a whole, tip.

Post edited at 5:18 am on Aug. 19, 2008 by Bud2400