A Journalistic Tip

This week the White House and DoorDash teamed up for a little publicity stunt meant to tout Donald Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” policy, which I’ve previously criticized as a bit of pandering that makes little sense on policy grounds. Trump fan and “DoorDash Grandma” Sharon Simmons made a food delivery to the White House, where she and Trump spoke about the astonishing $11,000 Trump’s policy had supposedly saved her, a great help given that her husband is undergoing treatment for cancer.

Now, if you are even passingly acquainted with the American tax system, that figure should sound outlandishly high. In fact, as Yahoo Finance noted, it’s mathematically impossible: The tax exemption for tips is capped at $25,000. Which means that even someone so enormously wealthy that they’re taxed at the top rate of 37 percent could not possibly save $11,000 in taxes on tips, if they inexplicably decided to take up a side-gig in food delivery. Even without the cap, of course, $11,000 in tax savings would imply a ludicrously implausible tip income for a DoorDash driver.

As the White House’s own press release about the event made clear, and contrary to what both Trump and Simmons said during the event, $11,000 was actually her total income from tips, not her tax savings. (The White House page sharing the video of the event is less honest, touting an imaginary “refund” of $11,000.) If DoorDash were her only source of income, the exemption probably wouldn’t save her anything at all, because folks at that income level already pay little or no federal income tax. Since reportedly her ailing husband continues to work, albeit with reduced hours, a more reasonable estimate would be that the deduction saved her somewhere in the ballpark of $1,300.

There’s certainly nothing surprising about Trump being confused and uninformed, and Simmons appears to have either misspoken or simply not wanted to disagree with the president at the time: She’s clarified in subsequent media appearances that $11,000 was her total tip income, not her savings, which she guessed amounted to $2–3,000 (probably still on the high side).

What I do find striking is how many mainstream news outlets mindlessly regurgitated a figure that ten seconds reflection should have told any half-conscious person—let alone a reporter writing about tax policy—could not possibly be accurate.

Here’s Fox Business in an article headlined “‘DoorDash Grandma’ praises Trump tax break after 11K savings amid husband’s cancer fight”:

A DoorDash delivery driver praised President Donald Trump at the White House, saying his "no tax on tips" policy helped her family "immensely" and delivered more than $11,000 in savings ahead of Tax Day.

The driver, Sharon Simmons, met Trump during a delivery to the White House, where she thanked him directly, telling him it had made a significant difference for her household.

“It has helped my family out immensely and I definitely appreciate it,” Simmons said, referring to the administration’s push to eliminate taxes on tips.

Simmons, who has worked as a full-time DoorDash driver since 2021, said tips make up a major portion of her income. She told the president she saved more than $11,000 under the policy, calling the amount “very surprising” when asked if the total exceeded her expectations.

And here’s CBS:

Simmons, who told reporters she’d never delivered to the White House before, said the “no tax on tips” policy has helped her financially at a time when her husband is fighting cancer. Simmons said the “no tax on tips” policy, which allows workers to keep more of their tips, netted her $11,000 more than she would have earned otherwise. Simmons agreed with the president that the tax benefit is “very special.”

As I write, both stories remain uncorrected, even though by now plenty of folks have pointed out the error. But of course, no thinking journalist should have needed outside parties to point out the error : The figure was self-evidently absurd. That either piece (and many more like them) saw print implies a profoundly shameless, lazy, and stenographic approach to reporting. It requires reporters who not only failed to do elementary fact-checking, but even to stop and ask: “Does this claim make sense? Is it remotely plausible on its face?”

That’s harmful in the instance because it gives readers a wildly inflated misimpression of how much Trump’s gimmicky tip exemption actually helps lower- and middle-income workers. And it’s dangerous more generally under an administration that demonstrably has no compunction about peddling wild falsehoods on a regular basis.