I’ve known middle class servers, who cleared over $60k per year in the mid nineties. They were knowledgable professionals who’d worked their way into the most lucrative night shifts at a fairly high end restaurant.

Point being I don’t think the economic class of the waiters is the most important point here. Rather it’s Mitt’s classless act of using them as captive examples to the point he was trying to make. Just because somebody’s being paid to take your order, recommend wine and bring you food doesn’t mean they’re there to sit idly by while you condescendingly tell everyone what a bad year you think they’re having, who you think they voted for and how surprised and disappointed you’re sure they are.

Nobody likes having opinions ascribed to them, having a room full of strangers told how pitiable their shit is, especially in a situation where they have to just stand there and can’t respond. That’s an unbelievably fucking rude thing to do to people and anybody with even an ounce of common sense would know that.