Tipping is 'not a sustainable system,' says 25-year-old pizza delivery driver: My income 'relies on the goodwill of others'

On a typical Monday delivering pizzas in Lincroft, New Jersey, Brendan Madden could make $13 in tips. Or he could make $200.

The nature of tipping is extremely unreliable, the Luigi's Famous Pizza and Catering delivery driver tells CNBC Make It. Driving around Lincroft and neighboring New Jersey towns, 25-year-old Madden never knows how much he will make in a given shift. 

His baseline salary is $5.26 an hour, and he makes an additional $1.50 for each delivery he completes, according to documents verified by CNBC Make It. The rest of his earnings are determined by tips. For context, minimum wage in New Jersey is $14.13 per hour, as of January 2023. 

Madden works 30 to 40 hours a week, divided into several 10-hour shifts Monday through Thursday. Yet no week of pay is the same, Madden says. It all depends on the generosity of those answering his knocks at the door. 

"Tipping doesn't work as a system for paying people," he says. "I don't think it's a sustainable system because not everyone tips fairly." 

"I just try not to think about money as much as possible, given how unreliable it is — you can't guarantee you're gonna have the same week you had the week before," he adds. 

As much as he tries not to think about the money, Madden often talks about the "tipping debate" with his coworkers at Luigi's, since it's one that crucially affects their daily lives — and their income. 

Living at home with his parents on leave from college, Madden realizes he is fortunate not to be living paycheck to paycheck just to cover rent. But he knows this is not the case for everyone. "How do other people survive like this?" 

The majority of Madden's income, like that of other service industry workers, is reliant on the generosity of others. Earning a below-minimum wage, he relies on tips to close the gap.

"There is a certain element of charity in the pay structure. It relies on the goodwill of others," he says. 

Few customers realize how important tips are to delivery drivers, Madden says. "It is almost as if you didn't tip the server at a restaurant." 

He is not sure how to underscore the critical importance of tips to the general public, though. "Change is hard," he says. It's difficult to "[make] people consider this not as an act of goodwill, but a way of paying people for the job they've done."

In Madden's experience, people are tipping the same as they did five years ago, even though the value of money has changed drastically. While he doesn't expect people to tip with inflation, he says the tips today just don't go as far. 

"If someone has $200 of pizza, a $20 tip is great, but it was better five years ago," he says.  

To put that into perspective, a $20 tip on $200 bill is 10% — less than what would be traditionally expected at a restaurant. But Madden says it "would be unrealistic" to expect his customers to tip on a percentage basis.

Accepting the fact that certain people will not tip — or will not tip proportionately to the quantity of food they order — is part of the job, Madden says. 

"There are regulars that tip well and there are regulars that tip poorly. They are still regulars, you have to give them good service," he says.

Above all, Madden encourages customers to practice kindness and recognize their privilege when it comes to tipping, especially if the "tipping debate" doesn't affect their day-to-day wages. 

"It's coming from a place of privilege if you don't understand why that job or those employees have a tip jar," he says. "They need that tip jar to pay for gas, to make ends meet, because, clearly, their wages are not."

Every day, Madden and his coworkers head across the street to place a Dunkin' coffee order. He always puts his change into the tip jar, and encourages everyone to do the same. "I just wish people were nicer," he says.

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