标题：The US tipping system is teetering

Customers are growing more resentful as gratuities soar

正文：Defenders say gratuities inspire good service from waiters, parking valets and manicurists. Others call it a form of extortion. Either way, they cloak an employment system that is nearly unique. In the US, customers, rather than bosses, determine whether service workers make a decent living. Nowhere is this more true than in full-service restaurants, which pay their wait staff as little as $2.13 per hour and rely on tips to make up the difference to the legal minimum for other jobs.

知识点：defender n.

If someone is a defender of a particular thing or person that has been criticized, they argue or act in support of that thing or

person. 捍卫者

...the most ardent defenders of conventional family values. …传统家庭价值最强烈的捍卫者。

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