If we are going to dip into the illegal then what makes you believe a higher min wage would change the equation.
The context of this conversation is around restaurants being able to legally pay less because of tipping, however if they willing to violated the laws that we have now, why would they not also violate the min wage laws.
Even shadier shit happens where the restaurant makes employees repot tips that didn’t happen to keep above the minimum. Then they have to pay taxes off income not earned. Is it illegal? Yeah but it’s difficult to enforce and the people getting screwed are already very vulnerable (not your hipster big city wait staff)