Slate’s Brian Palmer asks why we “tip” God 10% and waitstaff ~15% in the first place. Both norms have gained a foothold in our society, but restaurant tipping is on an upward trajectory whereas church “tipping” is on the decline.
Why do Americans increasingly prefer to donate money to waiters than to God? One potential explanation is simple awareness. Most studies on tipping show that a fair proportion of bad tippers or nontippers don’t know—or at least claim not to know—that they’re expected to leave 15 to 20 percent. Between 1987 and 2000, the likelihood that an average American would eat at a restaurant in any given week increased 40 percent. The more people dine out, and the more they hear servers moaning about their pitiful baseline wages, the more the tipping norm sinks in. God is experiencing no such awareness surge. Different methodologies yield different church attendance numbers, but most studies find that the proportion of Americans who attend church regularly has stayed nearly constant for decades.
Not only this but as more people go out to eat and more restaurants open up, more (typically young) people serve tables. Not only will they tip well later on when they aren’t servers, but they bring awareness of tipping norms to their families. My parents surely tip better now compared to before I began waiting tables. But as Palmer argues, the trajectory of these two social behaviors are moving in different directions because we come into contact with waiters and waitresses and they have a singular purpose of directly doing something in order to get you to give them money. God’s “service” is way off in the distance and he doesn’t smile at you and bring you extra dressing. Palmer continues:
There’s one other problem for the Christian God: He has a flock full of cheapskates. Long before Alois Bell stiffed her server on religious grounds, American waiters complained about the Sunday afternoon crowd leaving Bible quotes in lieu of cash tips. A 2012 study by Cornell University tipping expert Michael Lynn showed that Jews and people with no religion tip better than self-identified Christians. (To be fair, the overwhelming majority of Christians tip between 15 and 20 percent, just lower in the range than nonbelievers and Jews.) This phenomenon is difficult to explain, but it’s possible that Christians think their devotion to the next life exempts them from such social niceties as tipping in this one. That confidence in their ultimate salvation may also diminish their sense of financial obligation to God. Perhaps churches need to modify their appeal to something like “faith alone, plus 10 percent.”
At least someone finally delved into tipping studies and statistics. Too bad Palmer stops short of the real underlying issue. Christian piety is more closely correlated with frugality. The Sunday post-church restaurant lunch is a replacement for the Sunday family dinner or potluck. Basically, the people who go to lunch right after church probably are less aware about tipping norms and besides that, since they only spend “frivolously” one day a week, tend not to tip that well. And despite running jokes that Jews are cheap, modern Christians seem to embrace an ethic of frugality. One could look at the foods and beverages ordered by Christians, Jews, and atheists. I’d expect you’d find that the former orders many more split entrees and waters with lemon on top of taking advantage of coupons and other discounts.
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Those who rarely go out to eat and who have never worked in restaurants often don’t realize that waiters only earn a few bucks per hour. But leaving Bible verses in lieu of a tip is just weak.
Definitely. But I’m wondering how often that actually happens. Those pamphlets are annoying because they are somewhat passive aggressive, but they’re usually given along with a few bucks.
My current Marketing Management class, and presumably any undergrad marketing class as well, emphasizes that almost all products are a mixture of goods and services.
Do you buy books at Barnes & Noble? You’ll usually pay more than online, and part of the premium you pay is for the convenience of having the book available right now, part is for the staff that may help you select or find the book. Don’t want to pay the premium because you know what you want and don’t need it today? Go online and pay less.
While typically a price for a product is complete, in American restaurants the service is not fully priced in. Don’t want the convenience of being served and having someone else cook for you? Don’t want to pay the premium, both the menu price and the tip? The grocer down the street can provide you with the same meal without paying a premium for convenience of having someone else cook and serve it.
Perhaps it’s a class/denominational issue. The study doesn’t differentiate between Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants or Catholics.
Also, the data came from a web-based survey. This suggests to me that it left out the not-so-Internet-savvy who would tend to be less cosmopolitan in outlook. I would love it if the General Social Survey asked a question about how often people eat in nicer restaurants and compare it with the belief in the literal truth of the bible question.
“Northern Virginia is Redskins country, and southern Virginia is Cowboys country. This could be an effect of the Cowboys being America’s default, but it could also be a manifestation of the tension between NoVa and SoVa.”
Or perhaps a legacy of the Redskins’ history of segregation. Skins owner George P. Marshall was a notorious racist (the Skins of the 1960s were the last team to integrate), whereas the only other Southern team (the Cowboys) integrated from Day 1. This explains why, to this very day, Dallas has a sizable number of black fans even in Cowboy-hostile environments like Wash DC.
I worked fine dining. I sometimes got verses or pamphlets, but they always came with a tip. I suspect it’s more a class thing now that I think about it. I had some Southern Baptist types leave nice tips, but they obviously were well off. Given the correlation between religious observance and SES, it would make sense that religion is blamed when it’s not causal. Slightly related–country music stars are generally religious and, given that many of them had service industry jobs, also generally very good tippers. I once received $130 on a $300 tab.
What is a “split entree”?
Money spent on a tip gets to the server.
Money spent on God never gets there.
@Raybury – OT, but you can walk into a B&N, ask to order a book and have it shipped to your house, and you’ll pay their online price (if you’re a member there’s no shipping, either).
@Camlost
One entree for two people. Some places charge extra to split a meal into two but most don’t.
Religious people (i.e. Christians) donate to charity at a higher rate than secular society does. Secularists often point negatively to the fact that they are quite particular about which charity organistaion they donate to, in contrast to the secular view of “I gave – I’m good – who cares if it acheived nothing good or possibly less than nothing good”.
So we can establish that, in general, Christians are reasonably generous. Perhaps when they look at waiting staff, they just aren’t seeing whatever it is that motivates their generosity.
guys, I personally don’t prescribe to any religion or faith, but I think a rather BIG detail is being left out here about this whole 10% to the Church Vs. 15% to the server. Those of us who don’t particularly care for feminists and race-baiters, tend to notice that they have a habit of telling half truths or manipulating the numbers, well that is whats happening here. No, I’m not saying that there is a comparison in motive, or even that there is a negative intent. What i am saying is that clearly the people making base comparison of 10% and 15% respectively are wrong. The 10% Tithe given to the church/God, is 10% of your ENTIRE income, some even use the before tax amount. The 15% is based on the cost of the meal, hardly a fair comparison.
A tip is, or at least should be completely voluntary. The decision for a person to become a server is also voluntary. If a server feels they should be paid more then they need to make that demand or find another line of work that pays them something closer to what they wish to be paid.
someone commented that you are paying for someone to cook and serve you your meal, and a tip is to be expected, I disagree. When you go to a place of business you pay that business for the goods/services you were given. The business hires servers and cooks, they are not private subcontractors who you pay separately. Hell, even when you ARE dealing with contractors you normally only pay the general contractor who then pays the sub-contractors… When you make the point that you can pay less and avoid the need to tip by buying and cooking the food yourself instead of using a restaurants cooks and servers your logic is skewed. By your logic i should have to tip the bread truck driver for bringing bread to the store, and I should tip the stock boy for stocking the shelves. After all that food didn’t just materialize on the shelves, someone produced the goods brought it to the grocery store and placed it on nice shelves for my convenience.
A hamburger w/fries and coke costs about 4-5 bucks at a fast food joint. That same meal will generally cost you about 3-4 bucks more at a sit down place. why? because you are paying the business owner the cost of hiring the extra employees to bring you your food and drink. Services rendered services paid. A tip is a gift from the customer to the server, because they appreciate how you did your job. Only an ass or a feminist demand and expect to be given a gift just because they exist.
Is serving hard work, yeah most of the time it is. should I be expected to augment your income beyond what your employer pays you already because you aren’t willing/able to negotiate for a better wage, no…. sorry but if you don’t like the pay or the benefits, get another job, that’s what I did.
By the same line of reasoning your payment from any labor should be voluntary on the part of the employer and if you don’t like that you’ve done work that you won’t be paid for you need to just do something about it.
If you don’t want to tip, you don’t have to, but you should announce that up front because the service you are receiving is based on the presumption that you will tip.
The service the house provides you is largely voluntary as well.
This issue could probably be more easily resolved by having the clergy work in real jobs, like running restaurants.
the principle pleasure in eating at a restaurant, is not cleaning up !
and the prep work is simple (with skill), but takes time
the clergy’s job is lives
* whoops
justifying lives
so that people feel they are doing the right thing
I live in Japan. We don’t tip God. We don’t tip restaurants. And restaurant workers earn a fair wage.
A 2012 study by Cornell University tipping expert Michael Lynn
I think this was a mercy move by Cornell, to remove the “Biggest Bullshit Degree” crown from African-American Studies.
I dont buy the “frugal” argument about the churchgoers. If they were truly frugal, they’d just have a potluck. Saving 15% by stiffing the waiter/ess does not nearly offset the money lost to the menu price.
You should have to announce the size of your tip (as a percentage) BEFORE you order your food! (Maybe a sign could then be placed on the table showing said percentage.) Then the wait staff and busboys could serve you accordingly.