5/8/10

StarTribune: Jews (and Democrats) are the best tippers

Jeff Strickler reported recently in the Star Tribune religion column about the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and drifted off to other topics like this one:
Onward Christian cheapskates
There's somebody studying just about everything these days, including, it turns out, the relationship between our religious affiliation and our tipping habits at restaurants. The study was done by HCD Research, based in New Jersey. Their findings: The best tippers are Jews, followed by people with no religious affiliation. Penny-pinching Christians bring up the rear.

For good service, Jews tip an average of 20.8 percent, people with no religion tip 20.1 percent, and Christians tip 18.3 percent. For bad service, Jews tip 11.4 percent; no affiliation, 9.9, and Christians, 9.0.
We looked for more on the study and found it here, with a breakdown by political affiliations:
When restaurant service is good, Democrats reported that they leave an average tip of 19.8% of the total bill while Republicans reported leaving 18.0% and Independents reported leaving 17.9% of the check. When restaurant service is bad, Democrats reported leaving an average tip of 10.8% of the total bill while Republicans left 8.7% and Independents left 8.4% of the check.
Note well. This study appears to account for what the groups report - which may or many not be what they do.

2 comments:

thanbo said...

interesting. the kosher places around here have started adding the "service charge" to the bill even for small parties, in recent years, on the grounds that "[frum] Jews don't tip."

And those tip averages seem kinda high. Used to be the norm for tips was 15%, then it became twice the tax (16-3/4% here in NYC). This 18-21%, where does it come from?

Unknown said...

Hi,
Thanks for sharing information from our tipping study with your readers. If anyone wants more information on this study, it can be found at http://www.mediacurves.com/Culture/J7822-TippingStudy/http://www.mediacurves.com/Culture/J7822-TippingStudy/
Thanks,
Ben