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"Evan Gatehouse" wrote:

I can't recall the posting I saw that mentioned Canadians are lousy tippers.
It's true, sort of, but there is a reason. I only found this out since I
lived in Maryland for 4 years. I'm a Canadian by the way.

One area where the countries differ are minimum wage rates.

In Maryland, if you're in a job where tipping is likely to provide a
substantial part of your income, the state minimum wage can be as low as 50%
as the regular minimum wage. In MD, the state minimum wage was $5.15/hour.
Restaurant servers can be legally paid as little as $2.38/hour and have to
rely on tipping to make up the rest!

http://www.dllr.state.md.us/labor/wagepay/wptipped.htm

So people that know this (and probably those that don't because it's the
customary tip) all tip at least 15% which makes up the shortfall in their
wages. I *think* they are also taxed as though a certain portion of their
wages are assumed as tips. So that poor guy who you stiff on a tip is
really hurting because he's expecting a decent tip even if the service
sucks.

You are correct about this. When my daughter worked as a waitress,
they withheld income tax and FICA as though she got the minimum wage,
even though she didn't get paid but half of that by her employer.

In order for her to recover the excess with-held amounts, she had to
file for a refund and prove that she didn't get enough tips. And she
didn't because since she was under 21, she couldn't work where they
served alcoholic beverages (lunch and dinner) so she was a breakfast
waitress. 15% of what you spend for breakfast is not a large amount.
$1 was a huge tip for her.

I did have a friend who worked in this same establishment for dinner
and she made quite good money.

In British Columbia, Canada, where I live now, the minimum wage is $ 8/hour.
Living prices are pretty comparable in MD and BC if one ignores the fact
that the currency is different. i.e. a pound of apples in MD is about $1
US/lb and is about $1 Cdn/lb in BC. So the BC waiter is making a higher
income before tipping, and nobody thinks twice about tipping 10% and
thinking it's reasonable.

That's very interesting.


grandma Rosalie