You know about the great diversity of answers to the question “Who are the worst tippers?” on Waiter Rant. We posted about that here and here.

But many people, in their posts, also included their opinion on the type of people that are the best tippers.

So here ya go:

Florida Jews

The absolute best were the retired Jewish folks that lived in the area (South Beach). They were demanding as far as service requirements, but they were the absolute best tippers I have ever served. They were also the best in letting management know they had received good service.

African Americans

Maybe three out of my five best tips have come from blacks.

and

My best tips ever have come from blacks. One time this awesome group of black guys gave me a $60 tip on a $60 tab. We all hugged each other goodbye when they left.

but, and

The myth of the black man as a bad tipper in my experience is true… but black women are often my best tippers.

Muslims

My husband attests that Muslims are some of the best tippers. “Giving to those who have less than oneself” is a Pillar of Islam, so….I like that it doesn’t say “poor”, just “less”.

White men

The best tippers are middle aged white guys.

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Our previous post about Waiter Rant‘s thread on “Who are the worst tippers?” highlighted these groups of people:

Surprisingly, that doesn’t exhaust the list of perceived penurious people. Let the kvetching resume…

College kids

I have worked every type of venue from college bars to fine dining to clubs and held every position at these venues over the years. College kids seem to be fairly bad tippers if not out of sheer lack of money and genuine embarrassment because of the fact or simply due to not knowing at a young age how to tip.

The conceited

I worked as a waitress in a small town and the people who thought they were hot shit (and very demanding) always tipped the worst.

Salesmen

Salesmen. Motherf****ers never tipped when I was a parking valet, because they couldn’t expense valet tips and too cheap to pay out of pocket.

Academics

Academics. Overeducated people who generally don’t have that much money because they work at a college and thus get paid 75% market rate. So they make up for it by acting like they’re your intellectual superior. However, these Ph.Dickheads never seem to have common sense, so they come in on Friday night 45 minutes before their play is supposed to start, and then order a steak medium-well. And nothing builds confidence in your community of educators like waiting on a table of math teachers who can’t figure out how to split a check.

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The Senate yesterday rejected a health care amendment on abortion that mirrored the restrictive Stupak amendment passed by the House. The amendment bans federal subsidies that would be provided for individuals’ health insurance from being paid to any insurer that offers coverage for abortion. Abortion rights supporters were stunned and dismayed that the House, with its large Democratic majority, passed the amendment. Whether House Democrats can pass the bill without the restrictive abortion language is an open question.

Some reader reaction to the Senate’s rejection of those restrictions from the New York Times and Washington Post web sites:

The more relevant open question for me: the House didn’t have the votes for (the bill) without the Stupak amendment. Will the same hold true for the final bill? Was Stupak’s bloc just playing politics the first time around, or will they hold true on this principle?
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The Senate has just passed a bill with a proverbial “poison pill” inside. By rejecting the Stupak amendment, the Senate has ensured a failed conference with the House. The House will not accept a bill without this language, so in essence this one decision by the Senate has defeated the heatlh care bill….

Yesterday in the Senate vote, the abortion lobby won, but in doing so, they have caused all Americans to lose because their narrow self-interest has now doomed the health care bill for sure defeat.
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The restriction that would prohibit “the use of federal money for any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case of rape or incest or if the life of a pregnant woman is in danger” is a reasonable one given the history of the abortion issue in the US. It is regrettable that so many Americans on both sides of the issue are willing to put at risk major legislative initiatives of grave importance to the country which only remotely relate to abortion in order to advance their side.

The proposed restriction is not a bad one, it seems to me. It is fair to both sides. Let someone create a charitable organization that will provide funding for abortions that don’t qualify for fedreral funding – those who support abortion for all can contribute to it and get a tax deduction. Those who oppose abortion can know their tax dollars are not going to support it. Get this issue behind you and move on. It is issues like this that seem to render the US a nearly ungovernable nation.
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The argument against federal funding of abortions because of one’s personal objections to paying taxers to fund what is morally objectionable is specious and disingenuous at best, hypocritical at worst. I am morally opposed to capital punishment, yet my tax dollars fund executions. I objected to the Iraq invasion, yet my tax dollars continue to subsidize that effort. I’m sure that if I though about it, I could find other morally objectionable situations that my tax dollars are funding but I cannot make a claim to the IRS for a refund.

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Word is part of the Senate compromise on health care includes expanding Medicare to the uninsured who are 55 and over.

This video from Humana is a pretty good primer on the Medicare process. For instance, I didn’t know the differences between Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D, and now I do.

The recession has fewer people eating out, which means less in tips for waiters and waitresses. This can only accentuate the hard feeling felt by restaurant staff at poor tippers.

A recent posting on the blog Waiter Rant asked waiters and waitresses which people they considered to be the worst at doling out an adequate gratuity. The post has thus far elicited 260 responses and the answers are bound to offend anyone and everyone. Except for maybe gay men, whom multiple people designated as the best tippers.

Some random answers to “Who are the worst tippers?”

Canadians

Canadians! In New Orleans, many restaurants add gratuity to foreigners. Usually, this is only to foreigners that don’t speak English well. We can’t grat Brits, Aussies, Kiwis or Canadians. Western European countries have come a long way in the past 20 years, but not the Canadians. Occasionally, I’ll get a good tip, but usually it’s 10%.

Middle-aged blue-collar guys

Well I’d have to say the worst tippers on the whole in my experience were middle aged guys who looked like they were in their 40s or 50s and probably blue collar workers. For whatever reason I always seemed to be lucky to get 15% from them, while ladies around the same age tended to leave me 18%-20% on average.

Scandinavians

Scandinavians. Used to wait on a group of SAS pilots every Sunday in Minneapolis, and I think they gave me 5% or so on average. Maybe three out of my five best tips have come from black people, and I’ve had ladies who lunch leave me 100% before. But the Scandinavians have always screwed me.

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A few months ago we did a series called Health Care Horror Stories. Back then, the House had yet to pass its health care bill and the Senate bill wasn’t even out of committee. The process is much further along now, but considering that the Senate still has to pass its bill (which it’s currently debating), and that the two chambers will then have to reconcile the differences between the two pieces of legislation and send that meshed bill back to their respective bodies for one more vote each, there is still a long way to go.

So it might be a good time to take another look at some of the more egregious experiences of those who have been ensnared in our less-than-perfect system of health insurance. In researching these, it’s not necessarily the anger, frustration, and total incredulity of the people effected that make the biggest impression, but the sheer number stories in which dire circumstances have prompted a need to vent in public.

These extracts have been edited for spelling, grammar, and length. Since obviously none of these stories can be verified, the names of the insurance companies have been omitted. But a list of sites from which they were taken can be found at the end of the text.

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In researching a “health care horror stories” post, I came across one that struck me as especially sad, posted on one of the sites devoted to such material. This had been edited for spelling and grammar.

My mother became dizzy and fell on her kitchen floor. Since her hip was intensely painful, my sister called the paramedics, who took her to the managed care emergency room, where she lay on a gurney in great pain for several hours.

After she was finally examined and had X-Rays taken, she was informed that she had no fractures, just a badly bruised hip. She was told to get out of the bed and go home.
When she told the nurse that she was in too much pain to get out of the bed, she was told that they needed the bed for another patient and she was lifted into a wheelchair during which time she screamed due to the agonizing pain. The nurse told her that she could go home in the wheel chair and to take Tylenol, which would lessen the pain so she could get out of the wheel chair in an hour or so.

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…but not in the way you think.

What with the Fed printing money like it’s Parker Brothers, the dollar ain’t what it used to be. Yet, it’s also so much more, thanks to master of origami Won Park. The site Design Inspiration has posted a couple of dozen photos of Park’s creations — either one or two one-dollar-bills twisted and folded into beautifully recognizable shapes.

More dollar origami here.

With jokes like “that’s like saying that tautologies are tautological,” not sure you’ll be seeing Yoram Bauman, Ph.D, aka The Stand-Up Economist, on Conan O’Brien (though Jay Leno may be willing to give him a whirl, at this point). In this video, he riffs on Greg Mankiw‘s classic textbook, Principles of Economics.

Click on an image to see it full size.

More photos here.