By David Schepp
Gannett News Service

Gratuities are hardly a new phenomenon. Doormen have relied on them for years, as have legions of shoeshine men and women who populate hotels and airports across the country.

For most Americans, the custom is most frequently observed in restaurants, where tips are left after a meal in recognition of good service.

But over the last decade or so, tipping has moved beyond eateries and diners to include other service businesses.

Today, jars and cups littered with requests for spare change spill onto countertops in coffee houses, donut shops, delis, bakeries and ice cream parlors, not to mention the occasional dry cleaner.

"All of a sudden, everyone who spends 12 seconds with me at a cash register now thinks they deserve to be tipped for it," says Josh Barsch, president and chief executive of StraightForward Media LLC, an Internet marketing agency.

Barsch, 30, first noticed the trend in 1992, when he was a financially challenged college student at Boston University. "A guy at an ice cream shop in Faneuil Hall had a Styrofoam cup out that said, 'Starving student, please help!' " he says.

While Barsch appreciated the humor in the shameless plea, a dozen years later he doesn't feel compelled to tip someone who "grabbed my burritos from the cook and put them in a paper bag."

But as the cost of living continues to climb, struggling workers (students or not) welcome the additional contribution to their modest wages.

It is that profound disparity between what is paid in wages and what things cost that has prompted more and more workers in service professions to boldly, if silently, ask their customers to pony up.

Data gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that half of those workers in personal care and service and two-thirds of all food-service employees make under $8.50 an hour - less than $18,000 a year.

The bureau noted in a May 2003 report on employment and wages that five of the six lowest-paying occupations involved food preparation and service.

For the millions employed in those sectors, many of whom are immigrants and unskilled workers, service jobs that provide tip income can be the difference between making ends meet or not.

"Employees who earn minimum wage are able to nicely supplement their incomes with these tips," says Larina Kase, a self-employed career coach and counselor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

For employers, that additional cash can act as a magnet in attracting higher-caliber employees.

Tips allow managers to pay lower wages while giving employees an additional incentive to provide quick, courteous service.

On the flip side, Kase says, tip jars can turn off shoppers. "Customers can feel pressured to give tips in places where they do not feel it is appropriate," she says.