At least five states are considering requiring full minimum wages for tip earners this year

Unless "we" change it via legislation, that's never going to happen. Let's explore how it would play out as an individual restaurant initiative:

Restaurant raises staff wages, raises prices to cover the increase. Even if you disclose it on the menu, customers don't care: they see prices 20% higher, they choose to eat somewhere with cheaper menu prices. This is frequently what happens when restaurants try to do that.

If the restaurant increases server wages less than what they would make in tips, the servers will leave for another restaurant. The benefit of tips is that the harder you work, and more tables you take, the more money you make. Good servers can make $50+ an hour if they hustle.

Source: 8 years experience in the industry.

The benefit of tips is that the harder you work, and more tables you take, the more money you make. Good servers can make $50+ an hour if they hustle.

I shouldn’t be paying my server’s wage; the restaurant should.

Name one other job (that isn’t in the food service industry) where the buyers subsidize the worker’s salary voluntarily.
- Literally every other contractor. But that's irrelevant to the point.
  
  This is the way it is. Whether or not it's a good system, it's the system which exists. Changing the system will require a transition. If that transition comes from individual restaurants changing their policy, they will have 1) staffing issues as no server will stay when they could make more elsewhere, 2) customer issues as customers will prefer restaurants with lower menu prices, even if the total is the same.
  
  This isn't a value judgement, or a defense, this is a statement of fact. The only change that will stock would have to come from legislation. Societal systems have considerable inertia.
  
  Again, name one other industry.
  
  Why are you so stuck on that? Other industries not doing it doesn't matter. It's the system in place now and would take a big effort from everyone (aka legislation) to change. That's the point. They're not even defending the tipping system.
  
  Name. One. Industry.
  
  I’ll wait.
  
  Many services... Maid service in hotels and hotel services in the industry as well. Taxi/goods delivery(not just food, but things like target 2hr delivery)....
  
  I'm not saying it's good... And I think the fundamental problem exists in these jobs as well... Typing should just not exist. Japan, for example has no tipping... It's ducking fantastic.
  
  Maid services are not dependent on my tips for their weekly wage. There’s no possible way.
  
  Taxi/goods delivery all depend; if they’re working for a place specifically then they’re usually employees whereas if it’s Uber/lyft then they’re contractors however recently legislation in NYC makes it so that they have to earn a minimum wage and be less reliant on tipping for their pay.
  
  Tipping shouldn’t exist, but there’s no other industry where it’s so out of hand as the food service/restaurant industry. Why am I paying extra money to the plate runner when it should be going to the chef who cooked my food (if I tip anyone at all)? The plate runner didn’t offer food suggestions. Didn’t answer any questions. All I did was order.
  
  What’s next? I tip the kiosk on my table for taking my order? I tip the robot waiter for running my plates out? Bartender? Ok. Maybe I can see that, especially if I order a complicated drink. But just pouring a beer from the tap? Ehhhh.
  
  It's entirely irrelevant.
  
  Name one industry with security theater like air travel. Name one industry with lobbying like politics. Name one industry with subsidization like agriculture.
  
  The tipping situation is a product of a problematic history, but it is what it is. The entire system is based on it. Saying something is unique has nothing to do with the process to change it.
  
  Security Theatre is an overreaction to a single event. Most of it can also be trashed. Also, the air travel industry didn't have security theatre for nearly a century.
  
  Lobbying? Very similar to shareholders and boards of directors. Other governments also have varying amounts of lobbying, so it's definitely not intrisic to the system.
  
  Lots of industries get massive subsidies: Oil & Gas, Aerospace, Healthcare, Nuclear, Research, Energy, Automotive, Semiconductors, Real Estate, IT, many big corporation have squeezed a subsidy out just by threatening to leave a state! To some extent, every public service is a subsidy, just where the government owns the 'company'. Some governments (probably) don't do subsidies, but lots do, and one could argue that some system like subsidies is necessary for a well functioning government & country.
  
  However, I agree that the uniqueness of a practice says very little about how good it ultimately is for anything.
  
  My point has nothing to do with whether a practice is good or not. It's about how deeply entrenched the practice is, and the practical complexities of uprooting the practice. Bad practices still require significant consideration in undoing.
  
  My point is that "we should do away with ___" is an impotent sentiment by itself. Who is we? How are "we" going to actually do it? What does the transition period look like? What are the consequences? These are questions that, pragmatically, must be taken into consideration when implementing any large change, totally independent of any value judgement of that change.
  
  I'm starting to think people on this website are detached from reality
  
  Most websites, I've found. Lots of strong opinions about nebulous ideals, without a much experience, context, or practical rationality to support them
  
  They are.
  
  Name one industry with security theater like air travel.
  
  The events industry. Do you really think those bag checks do anything with how quickly they “look” in your bag before going into a venue?
  
  I did one; now you do yours.
  
  Again, this "argument" is totally irrelevant, but:
  
  If that counts the same as TSA, then hair/nail stylists, massage therapists, valets, Uber (and taxi and limo) drivers, hotel housekeepers and concierges are all traditionally tipped.
  
  But again, that doesn't matter. The system is what it is. Changing it is an option, but that does have practical considerations associated with it.
  
  They are tipped, yes, but no NOT rely on tips for their wages. No other industry pays under minimum wage and expects me, the consumer, to subsidize employee’s wages.
  
  Try again.
  
  Then no, venue security is not the same as TSA. Stop moving your goalposts. It's one or the other: either degree matters and venue security isn't the same as TSA so uniqueness of a scenario isn't important, or degree doesn't matter and every traditionally tipped worker is the same so it's not unique in the first place. Either way your position crumbles.
  
  And for at least the third time: your entire argument is pointless and irrelevant in the first place. Things are as they are. Saying "It shouldn't be this way!" doesn't change how it is.
  
  Restaurants that eliminate tipping will go out of business in competition with those that don't. This is not a problem that can be solved by individual restaurant initiative. Stomping your feet and shouting that you shouldn't have to and it's not fair, without offering any actual effective course of action, is just embarrassing.
  
  Answer the question then.
  
  Name one other job (that isn’t in the food service industry) where the buyers subsidize the worker’s salary voluntarily. To the point where, without tips, the worker would NOT make minimum wage.

Thing is, no one would accept to pay what's written on the menu if they charged enough to cover what people pay in tip, it's all psychological manipulation.

Prices would need to increase by about 20% and you wouldn't have a choice to pay it anymore, contrary to tips. Or you accept that servers now only make minimum wage.

That’s interesting. In It works all across the world exactly how you say it wouldn’t work.
- To be fair, in the rest of the world there aren't tipped establishments competing with next door no-tipping establishments. People are bad at math, a menu of $13 + tip options seems cheaper at a glance than a menu of $15 no tip options. We are talking about the country where the 1/3rd pounder burger failed after all
  
  This is actually true and raises the most important practical point about it, in my view. Convincing people to give up tipping isn’t too difficult; I think we’re getting there. But transitioning to a tip-free culture is very difficult.
  
  So tipping is a byproduct of Americans being idiots?
- Do servers make over 70k/year everywhere in the world?
  
  That's something people don't realize in North America, restaurant servers make fucking bank! If they complain about not having money it's because of the restaurant culture of going out after every shift.
  
  Some restaurant servers make bank. Some don't even make enough with tips to bring them up to minimum wage. Yes, the employer is supposed to top them up to minimum wage when that happens, but if I had a nickel for every labor violation in the US, well I'd be making a lot more than minimum wage.
  
  This lack of fairness even within the industry, is yet another reason to end tipping culture. Some servers make excellent money but all too many make little. This is yet another institution benefitting a few well off at the expense of everyone else
  
  What's your experience in the restaurant industry?
  
  Good servers make about half of what you think they make. Your number is reserved for senior sommeliers and chefs; the only way FOH hits that is by selling drugs to BOH or working 80hr weeks.
  
  If it paid that well there'd be no staffing issues at all, think about it.
  
  At my last job servers are making 300+ in tip every 8h shift and get their salary that's way above minimum plus they have full benefits including a pension fund and the business still has a hard time finding staff because the restaurant industry in general is a mess including the people working in it that think grass is always greener elsewhere.
  
  Edit: Forgot, they're unionized too
  
  most of your country is nothing like your extremely privileged little bubble.
  
  I'm just pointing out that saying "If they were paid that much we wouldn't have trouble finding staff!" is bullshit. With even better conditions my previous employer has trouble finding staff.
  
  There is a lot more to economy than some number in some currency. There are servers in many first world countries making wages where they are able to pay for their homes and have social services like healthcare, all while customers at their places of employment pay the listed price.
  
  70k USD means nothing in isolation, without respect for local economy and cost of living.
- Service expectations across the world are drastically lower than in the US.
  
  Bullshit.
  
  I drew my conclusion from training servers who served in other countries and listening to their comparisons. I've eaten in other countries. How exactly did you come to your conclusion?
That's the thing though, they already charge enough to cover what people pay in tip but guess what? That doesn't make them enough money. Next time they raise prices. They won't take responsibility for it, they'll blame it on the economy, but never the owners and shareholders that are making more profit than ever.
- As a person who's been in the restaurant business, no, the vast majority of restaurants in North America don't make a large enough cut to pay their servers 35$/h. Most are always a couple of bad months away from closing. There's a reason why it's the type of business with the highest "turnover" rate for the business itself.
  
  Now if you want restaurants to give servers the same wage they're making now it means all prices need to be marked up about 20% (since people tip based on price after taxes) and in the end the customers pay the same thing, they just don't have a choice about it.
  
  Yes, just like everywhere else I have to spend money, why can’t I know how much I pay by looking at the prices? Why can’t we all be honest here?
  
  If your business can’t pay a living wage, you shouldn’t be in business.
  
  Lot of people in this thread know nothing about the restaurant industry, but feel entitled to strong opinions about it.

The only people who have the power to eliminate tipping are the customers. Even if employers randomly started paying servers $50 an hour, people could still tip...and many probably would to get that feeling of moral superiority. And that is sort of irrelevant anyway because how the fuck are the customers supposed to know the servers wage anyway? I literally have no idea what my server (or hostess or line cook or after hours cleaning crew staff) makes at the last place I ate at. Do you?

It's really not complicated. If customers stopped tipping, and servers can't support themselves and therefore they are forced to quit and move towards literally any other industry with a higher/stable wage. Then employers either go out of business altogether or, more realistically, raise wages to replace those workers who quit since the employer would like to keep making money instead of not making money. And thus, menu prices go up to account for the lack of tipping.

No one has ever been able to provide me a scenario where tipping ends without servers quitting due to inadequate/unstable income. But I'm certainly open to suggestions!