Growing number of Americans say tipping culture is ‘out of control'
(NewsNation) — Tip screens are everywhere now, and many consumers are fed up.
According to a new Bankrate survey, 41% of Americans say tipping culture has gotten out of control — up six percentage points from last year. Among Gen Xers and baby boomers, that share rises to 45%.
'The high cost of living is a headwind, and many people resent all of the tip creep that has occurred in recent years,' Bankrate senior industry analyst Ted Rossman said in a statement.
Senate unanimously approves bill to eliminate tax on tips
Pre-entered tip screens have become a particular pain point, with nearly two in five respondents saying they find them annoying. That negativity coincides with a rise in digital tipping tech, now appearing everywhere from takeout counters to coffee shops — even self-checkout machines at the airport are asking for tips.
New payment terminals have made it easier than ever for businesses to ask for tips — a potential boost for workers — but they also allow employers to funnel more money to their staff without footing the bill, Rossman said.
'It's essentially a way to raise prices without actually raising prices,' he said.
Many of those surveyed, 41%, said businesses should pay their employees better rather than relying so much on tips.
Still, only 16% of respondents said they'd be willing to pay higher prices if tipping were eliminated.
Older generations are more likely to hold negative attitudes about tipping, but they're also more likely to tip, Bankrate found.
More than 80% of Gen Xers and baby boomers said they always tip at sit-down restaurants compared to 61% of millennials and 43% of Gen Zers.
The generational tipping gap showed up across other services too, with older generations far more likely than younger ones to always tip barbers and rideshare drivers.
No taxes on tips closer to reality with multiple pathways
As for the size of the tip, about one-third (35%) of respondents said they typically tip at least 20% at sit-down restaurants, though only 16% of Gen Zers said so compared to 49% of baby boomers.
Bankrate's survey shows fewer Americans always tip compared to the height of the pandemic in 2021, but the post-COVID tipping backlash has mostly leveled off.
'While more Americans are complaining about tipping, the frequency of tipping is stabilizing after declining steadily in recent years,' Rossman said.
Here is a breakdown of how many people always tip for various services in 2025, according to Bankrate:
Servers at sit-down restaurants: 70%
Hair stylists/barbers: 54%
Food delivery people: 52%
Taxi/ride-share drivers: 43%
Hotel housekeepers: 25%
Coffee shop baristas: 18%
Furniture/appliance delivery workers: 15%
When picking up takeout food: 12%
Home services/repair workers: 9%
Bankrate's latest tipping survey was based on a sample of 2,445 U.S. adults and conducted between April 29 and May 1.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump's trade talk delegation is set to face off with China's negotiators in London. Here is what's at stake.
Top Trump officials are meeting Chinese negotiators in London on Monday. This would be the first official US-China talk since a temporary tariff truce on May 12. International trade experts have said that Trump could be under pressure to strike a deal. Three top Trump administration economic officials will face off against Chinese negotiators in a renewed effort to break the US-China trade deadlock. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will be meeting China's delegation in London on Monday. "The meeting should go very well," President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the talks. This coming meeting will be the first official talk between the two countries since they mutually lowered tariffs in a temporary truce on May 12, after talks in Geneva. The renewed talks follow a 90-minute phone call between Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, a rare direct conversation that Trump later described as "very good." According to Trump, the two leaders also agreed to visit each other in person, without providing more details in terms of a timeline. The Chinese Embassy of Washington did not respond to a request for who would be attending this negotiation from its side. The team they sent to Geneva consisted of Vice Premier He Lifeng, Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang, and Vice Finance Minister Liao Min. Notably, Li has a Master of Laws from the University of Hamburg in Germany and has been part of China's delegation to the World Trade Organization since 2021. International trade experts previously told Business Insider that much is at stake for both China and the US to strike a deal, or at the very least, continue the truce beyond August 12 when the 90-day tariff pause will expire. "The Trump administration made their job harder because the tariff policies they've implemented are costly to Americans and American companies, and therefore, the market doesn't like it," said Philip Luck, director of the CSIS Economics Program. "They are under a lot of pressure to do things fast." Meanwhile, a lawsuit that threatens to undo all of Trump's tariffs enacted under the IEEPA also looms over negotiations with China. Drew DeLong, lead in geopolitical dynamics practice at Kearney, a global strategy and management consulting firm, told BI that if the court strikes down tariffs before trade deals could come to pass, other routes of imposing tariffs could be more complicated and time-consuming. The White House did not provide Business Insider with any additional comment beyond Trump's Truth Social post. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Musk floats ‘The American Party' after Trump tiff
Elon Musk floated a new political party on Friday after falling out with President Trump over the big, beautiful bill. He launched a Thursday poll on the social platform X, which he owns, asking about whether or not the country needed a new faction for political nominees. 'The people have spoken. A new political party is needed in America to represent the 80% in the middle! And exactly 80% of people agree. This is fate,' Musk wrote, citing numbers from his survey. He followed up with a potential name for the group, 'The America Party.' In recent days, Musk has railed against Trump for suggesting the United States increase its national debt by $4 trillion as proposed in the bill. The tech giant said it 'undermines' all the work he did at the Department of Government Efficiency, geared towards reducing government spending. However, Trump said the Tesla CEO was mad over slashes to electric vehicle incentives instead of other clauses in the legislation. 'Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. … He had no problem with it,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that's billions and billions of dollars,' he added. Still, Musk, who served as a White House adviser for over 100 days in the Trump administration, backed a call for Trump to be impeached and replaced by his own vice president. The president has publicly questioned Musk's motives for slamming his leadership right after leaving his role in the administration. 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It's a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn't pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that. I didn't create this mess, I'm just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' Musk also credited himself for Republicans' successful trifecta in November capturing the White House, in addition to majorities in the House and Senate. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' Musk said in a post on his social platform X. 'Such ingratitude,' he added. Florida Republican Rep. Jimmy Patronis cast doubt on Musk's claim of creating 'The America Party' in Friday comments, suggesting the two will be 'hanging around again' shortly. 'Elon Musk is not gonna create a new political party,' Patronis told NewsNation's Blake Burman during an appearance on 'The Hill.' 'Trump knows that sometimes you're going to have falling out with those that you trust, you like, that you're friends with. It happens with us in DC all the time. So again. Mark my words. About a month from now, these guys will be hanging around again. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Eyes on Senate Republicans as Trump and Musk feud over tax and spend bill
As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president's so-called 'big, beautiful bill'. It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump's 'America first' agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs. In a barrage of tweets over its cost, which Musk warned would undo Doge's efforts to save the government money by cancelling programs and pushing federal workers out of their jobs, the billionaire called on conservatives to withdraw their support for the bill. Along with personal barbs aimed at Trump – including trumpeting support for his impeachment and signaling the president's ties to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – Musk spent Thursday afternoon re-posting years-old quotes from the House speaker Mike Johnson and the Senate leader John Thune, when the Republican lawmakers spoke critically of federal debt. Musk's intense withdrawal of support for the administration has magnified a rift in the Republican party that was already threatening the bill's passage in the Senate. While the Senate's Republican leaders have shown no indication that they share Musk's concerns, they are eyeing changes to some aspects of the measure that were the result of hard-fought negotiations in the House, and could throw its prospects into jeopardy. One issue that has reappeared is the deductibility of state and local tax (Salt) payments, which the tax bill passed under Trump in 2017 limited to $10,000 per household. House Republicans representing districts in Democratic-run states that have higher tax burdens managed to get a provision increasing the deduction to $40,000 into the One, Big Beautiful Bill act. But there are almost no Republican senators representing blue states. After meeting with Trump on Wednesday, Thune indicated his lawmakers were not inclined to keep that provision as they negotiate the bill. 'We also start from a position that there really isn't a single Republican senator who cares much about the Salt issue,' he said. 'It's just not an issue that plays.' Related: Trump's tax bill helps the rich, hurts the poor and adds trillions to the deficit | Katrina vanden Heuvel That could upset the balance of power in the House, where Republicans can lose no more than three votes on any bill that passes along party lines. Johnson spent weeks negotiating with his fractious Republican majority to get the bill passed narrowly through his chamber, and on Wednesday said he had been trying to speak with Musk about his concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday, he called the Tesla CEO 'a good friend' and said the two had exchanged text messages ahead of a call he expected to take place that morning. 'I just want to make sure that he understands what I think everybody on Capitol Hill understands. This is not a spending bill, my friends, this is a budget reconciliation bill. And what we're doing here is delivering the 'America first' agenda,' Johnson said. 'He seems pretty dug in right now, and I can't quite understand the motivation behind it,' the speaker added. Later in the day, Johnson told reporters at the Capitol that the call did not take place, but that the disagreement 'isn't personal'. On X, Musk publicly questioned Johnson's resolve to cut government spending, prompting the speaker to reply that he 'has always been a lifelong fiscal hawk'. While the Tesla CEO has focused his complaints on the price tag of the bill, Trump accused him of turning against it because of provisions revoking incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles. The president began by saying he was 'very disappointed' by the former adviser's opposition to his top legislative priority, but the online insults escalated after Musk fired back that Trump would not have won election without his financial support. 'I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot,' Trump said, adding that 'he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left.' 'Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more,' the president said. The falling-out came days after Musk had stepped down as head of Trump's 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) and then pivoted to attacking the One Big, Beautiful Bill. Musk responded almost immediately on X, saying that the president's comment was 'false', and 'this bill was never shown to me even once'. He then pivoted to personal attacks on Trump, after praising him just days earlier in an Oval Office appearance to mark the end of his time leading Doge. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' he said, responding to a video of Trump's remarks. 'Such ingratitude.' Gabrielle Canon contributed reporting
