Philadelphia barista Dylan Schenker provides insights into the changing and contentious nature of tipping in the service industry.

The backdrop: Barista Dylan Schenker has worked in the coffee industry since 2010 and feels the frustrations of the evolving tipping culture.
* He highlights the awkwardness of standing behind the tip screen as customers decide whether and how much to tip.
* His earnings from tips have increased significantly since he started, especially during the pandemic, and now he relies on tips to earn a livable wage.
* Tipping makes up 10-20% of Schenker’s income, but this varies greatly from week to week based on customers’ tipping habits.

Attitudes toward tipping: There are common misperceptions about tipping, including its role as a bonus for good service and how it factors into workers’ wages.
* Sylvia Allegretto, a senior economist and author of a recent study on tipping, argues that tips serve as a wage subsidy to the employer, not as a bonus for good service.
* Allegretto points out that tipped workers in the U.S. often earn a subminimum wage of $2.13 an hour with the expectation that tips will bring up their earnings to the minimum wage, but this does not always happen.

Economic implications: Aside from the contentious discourse around tipping, the practice also has critical economic implications in industries relying on low-wage workers.
* Tipping allows businesses to subsidize lower prices for consumers by paying employees less, implicitly treating tips as a part of workers’ intended wages.
* Metrics show that customers’ attitudes towards tipping are increasingly negative, with tipping down from last year in several sectors.

Impact on workers: As customers grapple with the tipping culture, service industry workers like Schenker are caught in the crossfire.
* Schenker admits that it can be demoralizing when a customer opts out of leaving a tip, especially when they seem to disregard the quality of service provided.
* Despite facing backlash online, Schenker maintains that tip refusal by customers is tantamount to taking advantage of workers in industries where tipping is expected and factored into wages.

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