Restaurants & Bars

Rhode Island Top State In America For Reliance On Tipping Culture: Study

The ranking compared the structure of each state's hospitality economy and tipped-wage rules.

Rhode Island ranks No. 1 out of all 50 states when it comes to reliance on tipping culture, a new study revealed.

The study, conducted by the researchers at Gourmet Marketing, a New York-based digital marketing and advertising agency specializing in the hospitality industry, particularly hotels, resorts and restaurants, compared the structure of each state’s hospitality economy and tipped-wage rules.

"Rhode Island recorded 911.60 waitstaff jobs per 100,000 residents and 100.58 full-service restaurants per 100,000," the study determined. "Both rates were the highest among the five leading states."

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The researchers ranked each state by eight weighted measures of tipped jobs, hospitality businesses and tipped-wage rules.

"Measures were normalized to a score out of 100, with higher scores indicating greater structural reliance on tipping," according to the study.

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The second most tipping culture-reliant state was Delaware, followed by Nebraska, Wyoming and Wisconsin.

The state that was least tipping culture-reliant turned out to be Washington, with California, Alaska, Oregon and Minnesota rounding out the bottom of the list.

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