Tipping: Red States vs Blue States

Some of this may be driven by large discrepancies in the minimum wage across states. The states with the highest minimum wage, California and Oregon, tipped the least. The states with the lowest minimum wage had the most generous tippers. However, I would hypothesize that most customers are not aware of the minimum wage in the state where they are tipping so I'm not sure how they would adjust their tip amount accordingly.

Quoting an article at upgradedpoints.com

As explainedAccording to the U.S. Department of Labor, California and Oregon must pay tipped employees full state minimum wage before tips, which is $14 per hour and $12.75 per hour respectively, and these are the top 2 states that happen to tip the least. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the top 5 states that tip the most, New Hampshire, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, and Iowa, all pay tipped employees at or slightly above what the minimum Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires, which is $2.13 per hour. Therefore, it could be the case that patrons tip less in states like California and Oregon where tips may be seen as added income rather than supplemental income to meet minimum wage requirements.

Per the Toast website: Delaware was the best tipping state at 21.5%. In the top 10 states, 8 were red. California was the worst tipping state at 17.4%. In the bottom 10 states, 5 were red.

Overall the list tilts to red states tipping better, but not as lopsided as the OP implies. The spread low to high is only 4.1%. We are not talking about huge differences here.

If it's by percent and not total dollars, high COL states will always have lower tips.

This doesn't look like a political map, it looks like a big cities map. California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New York have nothing in common politically, but they house the largest cities in the country. The data come from a restaurant software subscription service, which seems oriented to fast food, pizza, and food trucks. I'm guessing the high end restaurants you find in Miami and Dallas don't use it, so you're filtering out places with big spenders. In Indiana, Applebee's is a good restaurant. (Not entirely fair; I know a couple of good restaurants in Indiana.)

Based on the original post and a single Google search, it looks like you arrived at your point from here:

fox2detroit.com

Who would have expected a Fox News affiliate to post negative-leaning statistics about left-leaning states? Except you left out that all of New England is in the 19% to 22% range and solidly-blue Delaware has the highest tip rate of all 50 states.

But, if you were to look at more than one set of statistics, then you'd discover something like this:

quickbooks.intuit.com

... which tells a different story with different numbers... because statistics.

Confirmation bias... it's a thing.

Red states are filled with hourly wage workers, service workers and other poorly paid people. They have empathy for servers and treat them like fellow human beings. Blue areas are filled with self-righteous, hypocritical, white-collar liberals who are far better people (as they tell us daily) than everyone else and are thus not required to share their wealth with the working poor who are inferior to them. Note: Statistics don't lie; people do.

Ay dios, the hurt feelings of resident politically left TUSCLers is comical. How dare anyone have a modestly vague suggestion that politically left bastions wouldn’t be the best tippers. Relax, everyone knows politically left enclaves of upper affluence don’t look down on the server class.

This has more to do with credit card tipping people. I’m not one of them. I’m smarter and more considerate than that. Smart tippers give the server cash so the server doesn’t have to report it. Smart servers don’t report the actual cash gift.

^ so you're implying that people who live in blue states wish to have people hide income from the government, thereby reducing available tax dollars to fund entitlement programs that the left wingers support? Interesting, and the inverse of what one would expect (unless, of course, you buy into the theory that dems follow the 'rules for thee, but not for me' mantra.

On the other hand, more highly populated areas tend to be blue areas, and cost of living is often higher in large metro areas, leading to to lower discretionary income, and perhaps lower tips as a result.

Y’all are missing the point the rural states with lots of farms have the highest cow tipping rates, who cares whether the tipped cows are red or blue, the milk is all the same.

Nah Brahma2k, just adding some more facts and information to the discussion.

Electronman had a good analysis. I had read those FLSA numbers before but forgot about them. FLSA has a federal Minimum Cash Wage of 2.13, and a Combined Cash & Tip Minimum Wage of 7.25. There are 15 states that use the 2.13 minimum, and they are all red (including Indiana, Wyoming and Kentucky mentioned by the OP as high tipping). Employers in these 15 states can pay as low as 2.13 as long as the minimum of 7.25 is met with tips combined (or slightly higher in 2 of the 15). These levels are well below most blue states. The higher tip% in these red states is potentially influenced by lower meal costs and recognition of the greater importance of the tip to the worker.

How do you account for tourists from out of state, especially in Nevada?

I am personally sick of the tip culture, and favor a European model where wages are fully minimum wage and tipping is neither asked nor expected.

Red states v. blue states is simultaneously the most divisive concept that weaves its way into too many conversations while also being completely stupid. It’s not like everyone in Texas is red or everyone in NY is blue. More people voted for President 91 Felonies from California than from any other state. Are they the only ones tipping in CA?

is SF even progressive? Sure they were in like the 60s but they're kinda mid now. Just completely full of boomers.