Millennials tip less and stress about it more

Survey shows they feel guilty, but not enough to change.

Millennials, the generation that loves to dine out, is also the generation that doesn’t like to tip servers as much as older diners do. According to a new YouGov poll, 63% of millennials always tip servers at full-service restaurants, compared with 89% of baby boomers and 81% of Gen Xers.

In restaurants across the land, you can almost hear the cry: not OK, millennials.

Then again, millennials appear to feel worse than other generations about their tipping habits. When YouGov asked, “How frequently, if at all, do you worry about improperly tipping someone for a service provided?” 55% of millennials said they often or occasionally fret about it. By contrast, 38% of Gen Xers and 29% of boomers felt the same way.

In the United States, waiters and waitresses in 43 states and the District of Columbia rely on diner tips to cover a substantial part of their income. In these jurisdictions, employers can pay servers as little as $2.13 an hour as long as tips cover the remainder of the minimum wage. If tips fall short of the mark, the business owner is required to cover the difference, though studies have indicated employer wage theft is common among the low-income workers who serve your food.

The YouGov poll gibes with a 2018 survey that painted millennials as “the worst tippers in the U.S.” Among the tidbits in that CreditCards.com poll: 10% of millennials routinely stiff their servers. But the earlier survey also offered something of an explanation for the younger generation’s behavior: More than a quarter of millennials would like to do away with the tipping system altogether and just have the actual cost of dining reflected in the meal prices.

Organizations such as the Restaurant Opportunities Center United have tried to eliminate the tipped minimum wage in various cities around the country, including Washington. Last year, District voters approved Initiative 77, which would have raised the minimum wage for servers, bartenders and other workers who rely on tips. But four months after the referendum passed, the D.C. Council overturned it, following a lobbying push from the restaurant industry, which said the higher labor costs would crush the city’s thriving dining scene.

The survey “is another validation why millions of tipped workers and their families in the food service industry live in poverty and on food stamps,” said Anthony Advincula, spokesman for ROC United. “Because the income of tipped workers is mainly dependent on the whims of their customers, their struggles to make ends meet can be a daily occurrence. “