There are laws in place for service workers related to minimum wage. The employers have to make up the difference if tips don’t meet the rate for hours worked. It seems to me that’s not sufficient for the times.
Hypothetically, if everyone were to stop tipping in the U.S. would things be better or worse for workers? Would employers start paying workers more?
It’s state by state. And for those that do pay their waitstaff up to minimum wage to make up for low tips, it’s averaged out over a pay period. So a waiter won’t get paid for a low tip hour or even a low tip night necessarily, so long as they hit minimum wage on average over a pay period. Which is not a liveable wage.
Anecdotally, myself and many close and extended family members have waited tables and I can’t recall ever hearing about a time in which someone was paid up to min wage to make up for low tips. There was always some excuse or trick for the restaurant to get out of it.
Hypothetically, I think if everyone stopped tipping, we’d see a drop in service level as restaurants reduced waitstaff. Stuff like more order-at-the-counter or online from your phone instead of a human waiter coming to your table. And I think there would be attempts to pivot to contract or “gig” waitstaff to put a layer between restaurants and employees.