30% drop in American consumer confidence? Or are people just cheap?
I got one of my friends Water Rant for his birthday - it's a book based on the blog written by The Waiter; he recently wrote about his short field trip to buy coffee and ask questions at a Dunkin' Donuts shop, where he learns that monthly tipping has fallen from $500 to $350 for the two young men running the shop.
That's a 30% drop - though he adds that the employees report that people aren't spending less on food, just on the tip side of things.
Of course, you can't extrapolate a donut shop - a single data collection point - to cover an entire 300 million person nation, but it's an interesting insight nonetheless.
Conducting research at a fancier place: would it make the economic situation look better, or even worse?
I wonder if economists have given much thought to the "food service tipping index" as another measure of consumer confidence?
But, given the fixed prices and - let's assume this is true - similar spending rate on donut shop products themselves, is the fall in tipping indicative of real hardship, or are people just being cheap?
I suppose that's where you risk bleeding a little psychology into your strict statistical economic analysis.
The tipping purists will charge that if you can't afford to eat out, you shouldn't eat out in the first place.
Defenders of the "pay what you feel like" camp, on the other hand, will likely say, "hey, at least I'm spending something to support your business."
As much as the latter point makes sense - no business is worse than poor business - does it makes sense to allow a system that first punishes the employees before affecting the owners to persist?
Are you tipping more to make up for those tipping less? Click here to comment on the absurdity or wisdom of that idea.