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...
Wow, the federal government is doing a budget "consultation" (which is "not a poll", they say). Interesting . Thanks to Nancy Z for the link. It's a 1-7 scale. I assume 1 means top priority. Interestingly the government insists on knowing your income level when you complete the survey. No, "I prefer not to say" option. I guess they think we can trust them - or else we'll lie and make up a fake answer?