It is in California, Oregon, and Washington. And probably a few other places in the US.
But you're going to want to advocate to get paid the full minimum wage and to get gratuity on top of that. Usually to the tune of 20% or higher even if the service was bad.
And it's why the tipping system persist despite any issues it has. Because servers who make more money than the service they provide is worth because they get to hustle the customers don't want to give that up.
You can believe what you want, but you're just wrong. I don't know a better way to put it. The fact that you get to hustle customers for money above and beyond the value of your service is what you get for giving up the normal minimum wage. Prorating per hour makes no sense. At that point, abolish tipping and pay a fair hourly wage.
> You can believe what you want, but you're just wrong.
> The fact that you get to hustle customers
Wow. This is so incredibly intellectually dishonest that I'm actually flagging it. I don't advocate/believe/want anything of the things you just ascribed to me. I'd like to see restaurant workers earning static livable wages without tipping. Please don't try to start flame wars using strawman arguments and then telling people what they believe.
However, there's no shame in the actual hustle. But that is what's happening in the tipping system.
I'm not trying to start a flamewar. Accusing others of that is just as intellectually dishonest as you think I was. And inflammatory in and of itself.
As to "you can believe what you want, but you're just wrong", is the belief that the incentives are misaligned. The cost to keep the kitchen open is prohibitive enough to not do it for the random straggler. You need better than half a customer an hour.
Servers do not want tipping to end. They want to be tipped and to be prorated when they're not actively tipped. They want it both ways.
The restaurant owner is encouraged to keep the restaurant open much later than "profitable" hours because the cost of the additional late-night hours is only $2.13/hour per employee. So if even one table comes in during the 11PM to 1AM hours, that breaks even for the business. The business owner benefits from externalizing the true cost of staying open for those hours onto the employees. The workers end up working a lot of no-profit hours.
If they were making $7.25/hr then the incentives would be (more) aligned for them to keep working those hours.
But currently this is NOT a legal requirement. So your statement "they have no legal right to slave wages to survive" drips with hyperbole.