Lisa Cabanes has made plenty of concessions to America's recession. The co-founder of Social Couture, a party-planning company based in Los Angeles, stayed away from the shops and made Christmas gifts - “a hot chocolate kit with chocolate shavings, little peppermint stirrers, marshmallows, all wrapped up with a ribbon” - for friends.

Instead of handing out cash to everyone who provided her with services this year, the well-groomed Californian substituted some of the money with store gift cards.

This last move was one of the most delicate. The economic downturn has turned America's finely honed system of tipping upside down. With a bonfire on Wall Street, record numbers of homeowners unable to pay their mortgages and the jobless queues lengthening, all the long-established rules about whom to tip and how much are out. The social confusion this is causing is more painfully apparent in the traditionally gratuity-rich festive season.

On top of tips for taxi drivers and waiters, the Christmas and new year break brings a list of regular service providers who expect, and in some cases need, an annual cash gift to supplement their wages - condominium door staff, building superintendents, laundry owners, postal workers, refuse collectors, dog-walkers, cleaners, child-minders, hairstylists, personal trainers and manicurists. Americans with a lawn can add the gardener to the list.

A box of chocolates or an M&S scarf may cut it as an end-of-year gift for your child's teacher in Britain, but in the US cash tips for teachers and school bus drivers are not uncommon. Housekeepers, nannies and daily dog-walkers can expect a week's extra pay at Christmas, while condo residents are expected to distribute as much as a month's rent between their building's staff. The gratuity gift list can end up costing thousands of dollars.

Cabanes says: “People are definitely saying that they won't do as much this year as they normally do. People are struggling, it's hard out there. When it comes to cleaners, the doorman, hairdressers, normally you'd give them $100 (£69) but now people are giving gift cards instead.” How much to tip in one-off encounters and how to show long-time contacts that you still care, even if your husband no longer has his Lehman Brothers' job, has become a prime-time concern. Every major TV channel has run a holiday tipping special and there are lengthy online discussions dissecting the issue. Martha Stewart, the shamed domestic goddess, offers a cut-out-and-keep “tipometer” on her website to assist with tricky tipping decisions.

Jodi Smith, president of Mannersmith, an etiquette consultancy based in Massachusetts, appeared on Fox News to advise on the niceties of tipping in a recession.

Anyone still in a job, she declared, should continue to tip the expected amount. “But for people who have lost their jobs, whose mortgages have disappeared, who are suddenly caring for ailing parents, whose budget has decreased significantly, then you need other ways to show appreciation,” she says.

“If you can't tip the usual amounts, scale back. And then write a note: ‘Usually I would give you a much better tip, it's really been tough this year'. You can also write a letter. Either to them personally to tell them how much they mean to you, or a letter to their supervisor or boss so that that puts them in line for a promotion. And lastly, if your'e good in the kitchen, you can always bake them something to show your appreciation.”

The Emily Post Institute, set up by the legendary etiquette adviser in 1946 to provide a “civility barometer” for American society, published a 2008 holiday tipping guide to help people through the minefield of giving gratuities in straitened times. Anna Post, Emily's great-great-granddaughter, adds a word of caution on homemade gifts such as soap, candles or baked goods. “Unless you know the person well, try something unlikely to offend or cause allergic reactions.” She points out that gift cards can also be risky, given that even large US chainstores are filing for bankruptcy with frightening regularity.

Some sectors are faring reasonably well in the recession. Women may be going for a half-head rather than full-head of highlights and tolerating their regrowth for a few weeks longer than before, but at least customers are still tipping.

Serene, a cut-and-colourist at John Masters Organics, says that she still receives tips of $20 or more from regular clients at the Manhattan salon. “The difference is that during the holiday season they'd give extra, maybe the cost of the haircut again, but that's not happening as much. But I understand and am supportive of that.”

That such generous tips were ever on the table is likely to surprise the British. One well-heeled Londoner confesses to not tipping at all if the bill for her hair comes to more than £100 and giving just a few pounds to her stylist for a blow dry.

But in the US, where tips are so much part of the culture, workers without loyal customers are suffering. Bill Lindauer, a 30-year veteran taxidriver, now mans the phones at the New York Taxi Workers' Alliance. Tips used to make up about 12 per cent of his day's takings, a far cry from the “round it up to the nearest pound” gratuity handed to London's black-cab drivers. Lindauer reckons that with no bankers rushing between Wall Street and midtown Manhattan, business for the city's drivers is down 30 per cent, while tips have fallen off a cliff. “Tipping's gone down, especially now more people are paying fares with credit cards. You're lucky if you get anything,” he says.

J.J. Jdmel, a bellman at the Renaissance Hotel, Manhattan, used to receive $2 for every bag he carried and $5 for pushing a cart of luggage to the kerb. “Now it's $1 to nothing,” he says. “It really hurts.”

But Americans are confident that big tips will make a comeback, despite the downturn. New Yorker Philip Goldstein calls it “a cultural thing. People who live here know they're going to have to give up a lot of money for a lot of things and that includes tips”.

Some see it as a way of fighting back against the recession. As one reader commented on a New York Times blog about holiday tipping: “Spreading the wealth is the way out of this downward spiral.”

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