We have published an article today
under the title of “A New Guide to Tipping in the Gig Economy”

The story relates “the history of
rewarding good service with additional money is murky, but it most
likely originated in Europe, possibly in medieval times, when a serf
would receive a tip from his lord for performing well. This practice
gained popularity in 17th century England among the upper classes and
then spread to the U.S. after the Civil War, when wealthy Americans
began traveling to Europe more regularly.”

“According to a Consumer Reports
survey of more than 1,000 adult Americans in December, 27% of
respondents said there are more situations today where they are
expected to tip than there were even two years ago.”

When I grew up in England it was not
the common practice to tip. Then at restaurants it started to become
common place. What started at ten percent changed to fifteen per
cent. In the USA it is now twenty per cent.

What does irritate me is when you read
the menu and the prices it states a 15 or 20 percent “service
charge” WILL be added to your bill. At least you know.

Because it has become the norm some of
our local bar/restaurants here in the Cayman islands present you with
a bill that states GRATUTORITIES ARE NOT INCLUDED”.

What is the difference between “a
tip” and a a “service charge”.

Nothing much, except tips are more on
the voluntary side. It is for you to decide the amount.

Then we have “cover charges” that
is a FIXED charge and not a percentage of the bill.

Tipping is often something employees
rely on because they are paid a sub-standard wage.

Mandatory tipping should, in my
opinion, be illegal. This would seem to suggest a gray area whether
this amount should be taxed. Tipping should be at the discretion of
the customer. Especially so, when some restaurant customers have been
arrested for refusing to pay the mandatory tip.

There is a problem with discretionary
tipping, however. Ian Ayres, Fredrick E. Vars & Nasser Zakariya
published a paper suggesting that tipping contributed to racial
prejudice, since ethnic minorities would often be less able to pay a
large tip. Another paper by Yoram Margalioth of Tel Aviv University
argued that there was a negative externality associated with tipping,
and that the practice facilitated tax evasion. Two other American
studies have contributed to the thesis that tipping is racially
discriminatory, finding that ethnic minority servers and taxicab
drivers received lower tips on average than their white counterparts.
In the study of the servers, an attempt by the author to isolate
other possible contributing factors, such as poor service, found that
"After controlling for these other variables … the server race
effect is comparable across customer race."

Tipping in China is frowned on and in
Japan it is offensive to give a tip.

I don't have any tips for our readers.
Sorry.