Tips Add up for Many Workers
’Tis the season for tipping. Maybe you tip because you genuinely appreciate good service when you get it. Or maybe you tip because you’re afraid if you don’t, your newspaper will end up on the neighbor’s lawn every morning or you’ll be the last one served at your favorite bar.
But however you feel about holiday-season gratuities, tipping is a serious business for most people on the receiving end: Gratuities make up a significant part of their annual income. And new data from salary experts PayScale sheds light on just how big of a deal a tip is for people in service occupations.
Casino dealers — talented in helping us lose our money — earn more than 50% of their income from tips, as do waitresses and bartenders. The people we ask to make us look better — makeup artists, hairdressers, and nail-salon employees — get nearly one-quarter of their income from tips. And if you’re throwing a party during the holidays, note that caterers, food servers and parking attendants get more than 20% of their income from tips.
Who among recipients is least dependent on tipping income? According to PayScale, night club managers, hotel executive chefs and hotel front desk managers get less than 10% of their income from tips.
The past few years have been tough on workers who earn gratuities. Last year, PayScale reported a 5% drop in the average hourly tips across service jobs; this year, tipping hasn’t recovered from that dip. (In a separate survey, Rent.com found that 61% of apartment-dwelling tenants aren’t planning to tip their building staff this year — bad news for doormen, who PayScale.com says get 14% of their income from tips.)
So, in these still shaky economic times, if you’re thinking of cutting back on your tipping generosity, just keep in mind that it can have a bigger impact than you might think.