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If you haven’t heard it or felt it yourself, people are angry about the state of tipping. Consumers have noticed that they’re being asked to tip more often and for higher amounts than before. They buy their morning coffee and the barista flips around a screen that nudges them to add on a little more, or they go to pick up lunch, and they’re prompted to leave an extra $1. In particularly confounding situations, some people have found themselves being asked to tip their dermatologist or an e-commerce website. In the media, story after story has been written, recorded, and televised about the current state of affairs in tip culture in America.

To describe this culture, we’ve coined terms like “tipflation” and “guilt-tipping.” Many of the conversations I find myself in about high prices these days end with someone saying, “And then you’re supposed to tip on top of it.”

Contrary to the high emotions around it, tip requests aren’t that big a deal. What every frustrated consumer seems to forget is that you can just say no — plenty of people do. (Whether you should is a separate question, especially for workers whose livelihoods depend on tips.) Tipping in the vast majority of cases is optional. Maybe that tip jar was a little easier to ignore than the tablet, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: The worker behind the counter hoped you’d put money into the jar, you just didn’t feel as icky about not doing it.

“There are bigger things in this world going on to get frustrated about,” said Dianne Gottsman, a national etiquette expert.

So why does this rile people up so much? Tipping has become a sort of proxy for frustrations about the economy; it’s a small thing that often feels easier to focus on than the bigger things, like inflation. It can pit workers, consumers, and even businesses against one another in a way that’s uncomfortable for all involved.

It’s also an issue with no easy solutions. Some service workers don’t want tipping to go away, even if it means they’ll be paid a higher base wage. And while it’s easy to suggest businesses simply pay their workers more, that extra pay will come from somewhere — often in higher prices being passed on to consumers.

Why tipping gets people in such a tizzy

One thing is true: Tipping is different from what it used to be, even a few years ago. During the pandemic, there was a groundswell of support for service workers and small businesses, and practically everyone who could overtip did. That support hasn’t lasted — society has pretty quickly given up on worrying about essential workers — but some of the tipping changes have. “That emboldened a lot of companies to be more aggressive in asking for tips,” said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. “It was followed pretty quickly by this big bout of inflation, and now we’re starting to see the backlash.”

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