Etiquette expert says you should tip more amid pandemic. Do you agree? Take our poll

Do consumers tip more or less during difficult times?

The standard tip for a server in a restaurant is 15% (for average service) or 20% (for above average). Outstanding service? Leave even more.

But what about the folks who deliver restaurant food to your door? Or hand you your carryout bag? Before the pandemic, such workers often received 10%, or nothing. But now experts say those workers deserve more.

Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, addresses the question in her new book “Miss Manners’ Guide to Contagious Etiquette,” co-written with her children, Nicholas Martin and Jacobina Martin and published by Kansas City-based Andrews McMeel.

A reader asks: “Where I live, restaurant servers do get minimum wage, so the normal server tip here is 15 percent. Should I tip that much to the delivery driver, or is it normally a flat fee sort of tip?”

Miss Manners answers: “‘Normally’ does not apply right now. The driver is taking a risk in order to minimize your risk, so Miss Manners asks you to give whatever you can.

And she gives a similar answer for the people who bring groceries to your car: “He or she is taking a risk to help get the order to you. If you want to add another tip that you will ask that person to take to whoever did fill the order, Miss Manners would consider it gracious.”

Many restaurant receipts figure out the tip for you and put it at the end of your receipt, usually suggesting 18%, 20% and 22% tips.

Consumers seemed to beef up the average tip for phone and online orders at quick and full-service restaurants during the pandemic, said Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell University School of Hotel Administration who has looked at some payment data, comparing tips during the pandemic with those before.

But some full service tips were down, suggesting they may be tipping less for takeout orders, he said.

“People don’t like to tip as much for carryout,” he said. “They’ve done minimum service for me, no more than when I go to McDonald’s or Burger King.”

Which brings us to our questions: Have your tipping habits changed during the pandemic? Do you tip delivery workers more now than you did before COVID-19 arrived?

Take our poll below.