It's the waiters who are pushing back on this. I know restaurant owners enjoy this situation, but even when they try to change it, waiters would require quite oversized paychecks to make up for this lack of tips. At a very nice restaurant near me, before covid, waiters typically were making $100k. This is not the norm for most restaurants, but even now I talk to waiters making $60-$70k. A lot of those tips are unreported so untaxed. This is unskilled labor (I'm not knocking it... I've been a waiter before and it's tough work!), and if restaurants had to pay these wages I don't know how high the food costs would have to be.

If you set the minimum wage to, say, $20 per hour but no tips allowed, you would likely have a lot of waiters leave the profession.

Though I guess others would take their place and, since that's still a decent wage, things would level out eventually.

Makes sense. The issue is that many service workers are making well above minimum wage via tipping, and they're supporting their families off it. I guess raise universal minimum wage alongside tipping ban?

Why would it?

Well the most obvious reason is that tipping culture is robbing workers who it's supposed to help.

In my state, "tipped" positions' minimum wage is 2.12/hr. Despite the fact that tipping isn't guaranteed or mandatory. There are other "tipped" positions than waiters. How often do you tip the car hop at sonic that brings you your drink? They often make less than minimum wage. The dude making your sandwich at subway? Yeah, they deduct that guy's tips from his hourly.

Tell me why we shouldn't end a system that exploits the culture to get away with paying out poverty wages?