Tips are a percentage. Therefore, they track inflation perfectly. Even without any changes a 15% tip today should still be more in terms of raw dollars than a 1

Tips are a percentage. Therefore, they track inflation perfectly. Even without any changes a 15% tip today should still be more in terms of raw dollars than a 15% tip ten-years ago. We're getting hit with double inflation: Literal inflation (causing tips to be higher at the same percentage) but on top of that percentage inflation. This is something I miss about Europe. They just paid workers a fair wage, prices weren't misleading (by 20% or more), and there's no odd pitting customer Vs. [lower] workers going on. Feels like an intentional technique to deflect blame, get high margins via low wages, and to make it "those darn customers just aren't double-dipping enough by paying you AND me!!!" Service workers are very pro-tipping. The problem they have is that all this is causing huge tipping burnout and making questions about how arbitrary tipping itself is gain popularity (e.g. why aren't I tipping the cook? Or for my oil change? etc). It is going to backfire.