Every time there is an initiative to require paying living wages, food and bar service representatives fight to get it killed because they make _more_ money from tips than they would from regular wages. Tip-earning workers in America are well represented.

I would say that America has a culture oriented towards rewarding performance. A good waiter's tips net them more pay that their foreign counterparts.

It's the same as looking at an American engineer's bonus that's 3x a foreign engineer's whole pay and calling them a beggar.