It's more than that. It has to be 25%-30% to also cover all the extra payroll tax that the restaurant now has to pay. In the end you lose customers to restaurants that aren't doing this. And if all restaurants do this, you just end up with people eating out less to the point where overall you're losing money.

The result of this is that people eat out less.

And worse, the places where people have smaller dine-out budgets are also where all of the low-wage chain restaurants are clustered. All of those youth and unskilled labor jobs in the suburbs are pretty much in restaurants.

It's inexcusable that people in restaurants are being exploited for their labor, but I think we absolutely have to figure out an alternative before putting them out of work.

The customer ends up paying the same amount just the tips are added into the prices.

More. The restaurant can't just raise prices 15-20%, they have to raise them more. Tipped workers make their money working hours when it's busy, but restaurants have to be open and have staff during hours that are not.

If you give wait staff a normal wage, restaurants have to have more workers on hand when it's less busy and there are more other labor laws regarding wage and hour minimums that they'll lose exemptions from.

How about commission-based pay, where wait staff get a base wage plus a per-table commission. So basically just like tipping, but without the customer discretion part of it.