Tip-flation has some restaurants asking for up to 30% in tips
CBC
The amount Canadians are being asked to tip when paying with credit or debit cards is going up, according to industry watchers, and it could be encouraging Canadians to be more generous with gratuities.
A survey conducted by Restaurants Canada in April 2022 found that when dining out at a table service restaurant, 44 per cent of 1500 Canadians surveyed said their tips are higher compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suggested tips are increasing as well, according to CBC Calgary restaurant reviewer Elizabeth Carson, who noted prompts on credit card machines that previously asked for tips of 10 to 20 per cent have now crept up to 18, 20 or 25 per cent.
Carson has also been asked to tip as much as 30 per cent, and said she finds the higher prompts annoying. It's leading to an overall feeling that could be called tip-flation.
"Because food and wages cost more, the bill is now 10 per cent higher than it used to be. So it still equals a very large tip because the bill is so high," said Carson.
The restaurant reviewer, who typically eats out three to six times a week, started started noticing this trend during the first COVID-19 lockdown.
"Restaurants couldn't do anything but takeout. People felt very badly for restaurant workers, and so people were leaving much higher percentages than the suggested tip levels," said Carson.
Carson suggested restaurants noticed that customers were willing to tip more, so they began asking for more.
While a customer's choice may feel like their own, decisions like how much to tip can be influenced by a theory called "choice architecture," or how choices are presented to us.
Simon Pek of the University of Victoria's Gustavson School of Business looks at these influences in his research on tipping practices.
The pre-set choices for a tip at the end of your restaurant transaction are an example of choice architecture, according to Pek.
"When you see the point-of-sale device, the message being sent to you is that tipping is expected or is a norm in this particular context," he said.
"The first number you see, or the range you see in front of you influences people's decisions and perceptions about what the right tip to do in that particular context is."
"So if those numbers are higher, it makes us think that a higher tip is more appropriate in this context."
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.